TY - JOUR

T1 - The Challenge of Space and the Technologies of Management of Ethno-Confessional Diversity in the Russian Empire

AU - Миронов, Борис Николаевич

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Territorial expansion led to the fact that Russia gradually developed into a multiethnic empire in which the titular nation was the minority. Long-Term preservation of the unity of the multiethnic and multiconfessional Russian empire is explained by the relatively flexible ethno-confessional policy of imperial ethno-paternalism, which respected the status quo of an attached territory and the population living upon it; cooperated extensively with local elites; demonstrated religious and ethnic tolerance; instituted some advantages in the legal position of non-Russians compared with Russians; and offered indigenous peoples of annexed territories the right to be civilian actors equally with Russians. The principles of ethno-paternalism, which at first glance are not compatible with autocracy and serfdom, were in fact the reality and were dictated by a twofold need: The small proportion of those of strictly Russian ethnicity in the imperial population as whole and in some particular areas, and the lack of administrative and financial resources and the underdeveloped information and transportation infrastructures necessary for the rapid and thorough assimilation of the non-Orthodox borderlands. These principles represented a kind of "technology" of management of the ethno-confessional diversity in the empire, enabling the realization of both the "assembling" of imperial space, and the gradual, relatively flexible and non-linear integration and modernization of traditional society and "national borderlands" into the modern polity. When and where these imperial technologies were not applied with sufficient consistency, ethno-confessional conflict arose, as did issues with the loyalty of local ethnic communities and their leaders in relation to the imperial center, and problems with regard to general regional stability and security.

AB - Territorial expansion led to the fact that Russia gradually developed into a multiethnic empire in which the titular nation was the minority. Long-Term preservation of the unity of the multiethnic and multiconfessional Russian empire is explained by the relatively flexible ethno-confessional policy of imperial ethno-paternalism, which respected the status quo of an attached territory and the population living upon it; cooperated extensively with local elites; demonstrated religious and ethnic tolerance; instituted some advantages in the legal position of non-Russians compared with Russians; and offered indigenous peoples of annexed territories the right to be civilian actors equally with Russians. The principles of ethno-paternalism, which at first glance are not compatible with autocracy and serfdom, were in fact the reality and were dictated by a twofold need: The small proportion of those of strictly Russian ethnicity in the imperial population as whole and in some particular areas, and the lack of administrative and financial resources and the underdeveloped information and transportation infrastructures necessary for the rapid and thorough assimilation of the non-Orthodox borderlands. These principles represented a kind of "technology" of management of the ethno-confessional diversity in the empire, enabling the realization of both the "assembling" of imperial space, and the gradual, relatively flexible and non-linear integration and modernization of traditional society and "national borderlands" into the modern polity. When and where these imperial technologies were not applied with sufficient consistency, ethno-confessional conflict arose, as did issues with the loyalty of local ethnic communities and their leaders in relation to the imperial center, and problems with regard to general regional stability and security.

KW - 17th-20th centuries

KW - annexation

KW - colonization

KW - ethnic composition of civil servants

KW - ethnic composition of the population

KW - ethno-confessional policy

KW - rapidity of mail service

KW - Russia

KW - size of the bureaucracy

KW - size of the population

KW - transport infrastructure

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85018970312&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1163/18763316-04401001

DO - 10.1163/18763316-04401001

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85018970312

VL - 44

SP - 25

EP - 46

JO - Russian History

JF - Russian History

SN - 0094-288X

IS - 1

ER -