Formation and evolution of russian frontiers

Abstract

It is shown in the article that the formation of Russian Frontiers was carried out primarily due to the need to ensure the security of the borders. Periods in their evolution are identified and characterized here. It is established that the first stage (the formation of a military frontier) is associated with the construction of fortified lines and the relocation of Cossacks and peasants to the lands fenced by them. The second stage is the registration of the legal status of frontier territories and the establishment of special paramilitary forms of the government. The third stage is characterized, along with the transplantation of redistributive-type institutions that dominated the institutional matrix of Russia to new lands, by the emergence and spread of market institutions here, that caused the spatial heterogeneity of the Russian institutional matrix. The final stage is defrontization, various tools were used to achieve it: improvement of the material and technological environment of acquired territories, embedding them in the general imperial legal field, spreading Orthodoxy and Russian language, economic stimulation of Russian colonization by the state, socialization of local elites and their involvement in the process of managing new lands. At all stages, the evolution of frontier territories was governed by the Russian state, and the policy was based on the principles of dialogue with the autochthonous population. The presence of frontiers hindered the transition from extensive to intensive methods of space exploration, reoriented the empire to a self-sufficient development option, and determined a special, Russian path of modernization.