Economic policy in the Caucasus region, Siberia and Central Asia through the eyes of Russian conservatives: 1894¬1899

Kotov A.

The article examines the question of the attitude of the Russian conservative publicists of the mid-second half of the 1890s to the economic policy of the government on the southern and eastern margins of the empire (the Caucasus region, Siberia and Central Asia) during the first years of Nicholas II's reign. Particular attention is paid to the views of conservatives about the influence of ethno-confessional and class factors on the colonization of these regions. It is noted that, unlike the western outskirts, where issues of economic expediency were for the conservatives derived from political and national interests, on the outskirts of the eastern economy came to the fore. The ideological struggle comparable to the confrontation of the Polish gentry, the Ostsee knighthood or the nascent Ukrainian nationalism, here did not exceed. The alien factor did not play a significant political role here: the literary struggle against the «alien dominance» broke out only sporadically and did not spread to the broad "indigenous" masses.

Keywords:conservatism, nationalism, Slavophilism, Russification, colonization, the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia