The Western Edge of the Russian Empire and the Polish Uprising of 1830–1831: A Variant of Practice of “Russificationˮ of the Region

Abstract

Some initial positions in the study of ethnopolitics in a particular region of the Russian Empire – the western region – are determined, while the interrelation of such categories as empire, multiculturalism, Russification, unification, state unity in the context of the Polish Uprising of 1830–1831 is established. On the basis of legislation and archival materials, the conditions, ideas, directions, stages and means of including the territories returned from Poland into the unified political and legal space of the imperial state are consistently considered. The author asserts the idea and creates the belief that the state unity of the Russian Empire was determined by the historically established conditions of the civilizational order both in the center and in the regions.