Newspaper Controversy about the Institution of the Governorates General in the Western Russian Periphery

Abstract

Several significant events simultaneously took place in 1888: the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Rus’, the disaster in Borki and subsequent transformations in the railway business, the beginning of discussions about the project of land captains (head of zemstvo), the accession to the throne of Wilhelm II. In the history of Russian social thought, or rather, in the history of the conservative “camp”, this first years after the death of M. N. Katkov and I. S. Aksakov became a year of decisive crisis. The so-called “Russian conservatism” had never been a single entity. Ever since the 1860s, two different types of conservatism opposed each other aristocratic and national. One of the most important subjects of constant discussions between these camps was the Polish question, which encompassed not only national, but also social problems. It remained relevant in the late 1880s, when the nationalist camp was represented by the epigones of M. N. Katkov and by A. S. Suvorin. V. P. Meshcherskii and K. N. Leontiev stood out among the class conservatives. Both ideological and literary trends were inspired by influential dignitaries: on the one hand, by K. P. Pobedonostsev, on the other, by T. I. Filippov. The most striking episode of this ideological struggle was the controversy around the Kiev celebrations dedicated to the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Rus’. The unexpected death at these celebrations of the Kiev Governor-General A. R. Drentel’n exacerbated the debate about the need to maintain the governor-general in the North-Western and South-Western regions. This institution at the time was regarded as emergency, and the controversy about it became at the same time a controversy about the extent to which the Polish question was resolved in these regions. In the ensuing discussion, the nationalist publications “Novoye Vremya” and “Kievlianin” supported the preservation of the governorates. The cohort of opponents of the governorates included the conservative “Grazhdanin”, the liberal “Novosti”, and the Polish newspaper “Kraj”, which was published in St. Petersburg. A peculiar position was taken by the liberal “Kievskoe slovo”.