Integration of the Western Suburbs the Russian Empire in the Views of the Conservative-Patriotic Public of the North-Western Region in the Second Half 1850s–Early 1860s

Abstract. The article analyzes the similarities and differences in the ideological and theoretical views of the representatives of the Slavophil public thought and the pro-Russian-oriented public of the North-Western Territory that gravitated towards them. A comparative analysis of their views on the policy of integrating the region into the Russian Empire is carried out. Particular attention is paid to specific examples of epistolary public communication of the middle of the 19th century, affecting the most pressing internal political problems of Russia in the period under review. Russian and regional public figures, whose views are analyzed in the article, following D.A. Badalyan can be characterized as Orthodox monarchists, whose ideological positions and social activities were based on the ideological slogan “Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nation”, but with a different arrangement of its key elements and filling them with different content. The empirical basis of the study are letters and notes of Orthodox monarchists addressed to representatives of the Russian authorities, as well as their journalistic works, which reflected their views on the Polish question and presented an assessment of the national policy of the imperial authorities in relation to the North-Western Territory.

Keywords: Russian empire, Northwestern Territory, M.O. Koyalovich, Joseph (Semashko), pro-Russian oriented public, national policy, public sphere.