THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AS A TOOL OF THE IMPERIAL COLONIZATION OF ASIAN RUSSIA IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE MISSIONERS’ DIARIES AND NOTES OF THE ALTAI ECCLESIASTICAL MISSION (LATE ХIХ - EARLY XX CENTURIES)

Abstract

The article deconstructs the discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church as a tool of imperial colonization of Asian Russia based on the materials from the diaries and records of the missionaries of the Altai Ecclesiastical Mission. The long-term experience of historiographical comprehension of missionary activity in Russia and the outskirts is taken into account, while it is noted that outside the research reflection of scientists there were questions of the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of the imperial colonization of the Russian periphery, in which the church performed an important organizing function, which was largely explained as belonging to a significant proportion of subjects the colonization process to the Orthodox branch of the Christian faith, and the ethno-confessional heterogeneity of the developed territories. It is stated that the diaries and notes of the employees of the Altai Ecclesiastical Mission of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries were an important intellectual “platform” for the discourse of the imperial colonization of the eastern outskirts, not only representing the iconic status and capabilities of the Russian Orthodox Church as a tool for incorporating peripheral regions into the national space, but also broadcasting options for cooperation between the authorities and society, united on religious grounds. In the course of the study, it was found that the diaries of mission workers were an effective “platform” for representing the ideas of church ministers about the meaning and tasks of colonizing the eastern outskirts of the empire in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which were based on the idea of the ability of the missionary community to build long-term models of cultural communication with the Siberian population on the basis of a common religious identity.