retained many of its administrative, legal, social, and religious rights. Russia’s main interests in Central Asia were strategic (the “Great Game” with Great Britain) and economic (such as the cultivation of cotton). While most of the Central Asian territory was integrated into the imperial administration, the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva were not annexed to Russia, but formally kept their independence as a Russian protectorate.
The tsarist policy in Central Asia followed a typical colonial pattern. The region was a supplier of raw materials and a market for finished products. The fertile soils of the northern Kazakh steppe in the last decades of tsarist Russia were colonized by millions of European (mostly Russian and Ukrainian) settlers, and the nomads were driven away from their summer pastures. This caused many conflicts, which culminated in an armed uprising in Central Asia in 1916. There was a great cultural gap between the indigenous population of Central Asia and the Russians. The native peoples- not only the nomads, but also the settled Muslims- were segregated from Europeans and regarded as inferiors by Russians. This policy reflected the influence of European colonialism and imperialism. Russia as a European power had to fulfill its “mission civilisatrice” among the “uncivilized” Asians, who in reality were the heirs of a high civilization much older than the Russian.
In the west of the empire, the traditional pattern of rule was altered after the 1860s. First, this change was caused by the Great Reforms aiming at systematization and homogenization of the administrative, juridical, social, and educational structures. The reforms clashed with traditional privileges and rights of autonomy of the regional elites, who often perceived them as measures of Russification. Second, as a result of the growing number of educated Russians, the government was no longer dependent on the special services of non-Russians in the army, bureaucracy, education, and trade. Third, it was nationalism that undermined the foundations of the Russian empire and changed the character of tsarist policy.
The crucial problem from 1830 to 1914 was the Polish question. It heavily influenced tsarist policies in general and especially nationalities policies. Poland was strategically and economically important, and the Poles were the most numerous non-Russian (i.e., non-East Slavic) and non-Orthodox nationality of the empire. The Polish rebellions destroyed the traditional bases of tsarist policies. After 1863 Russia renounced cooperation with the Polish nobility and began to rule over Poland without its assistance. The subsequent repressive policy not only against disloyal Polish rebels, but against all signs of Polishness, including the language, the Catholic Church, and even the name Poland, can be interpreted both as punishment and as measures to ensure law and order. Tsarism did not aim at a full assimilation of the Polish nation, but the repressive Russification policy severely hampered the development of Polish culture and society in the Russian Empire.
The change of nationalities policies after 1863 had severe impact on the Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Lithuanians. Their national movements, which had just begun to develop, were thought to be a “Polish intrigue” organized by Polish and Jesuit agitators. In reality they were directed primarily against the social and cultural dominance of the Polish nobility. The printing of publications in Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Lithuanian (in the last case in Latin letters) was prohibited, and the (moderate) activities of the national movements were stopped.
Thus, after 1863 the tsarist government openly pursued the goal of linguistic Russification for the first time. In the case of the Ukrainians and Be-lorussians, who were regarded as Russians, it aimed at strengthening their genuine Russianness against Polish influences. This policy on the whole was successful, and the Ukrainian and Belorussian national movements were severely hampered. In the case of Poles and Lithuanians, however, the extreme measures, especially against the Catholic Church, led to protest and contributed to the national mobilization of the Lithuanian and Polish peasants.
The Polish uprising of 1863 was also an important catalyst of Russian nationalism. Although the tsarist government regarded Russian nationalism with suspicion, because it called into question traditional legitimacy and the autocratic monopoly on power, nationalism not only mobilized great parts of educated society but made its way into the bureaucracy and had increasing influence on policy making. After 1863, in a spiral of mutual challenge and response, Russian nationalism and tsarist repression escalated.
In the following decades the repressive policy was extended to elites who for a long time had been models of great loyalty to the dynasty. Now their non-Russianness came to be regarded as potential
1022
disloyalty. During the reign of Alexander III (1881-1894) a policy of standardization and administrative and cultural Russification was initiated in the Baltic provinces and provoked the resistance of the Baltic Germans. During the 1890s Finland became the object of the policy of forceful integration, which unleashed national mobilization not only of the old Swedish-speaking elite, but of the broad Finnish masses. From 1881 on, the government enforced discriminatory measures against Jews, who were suspected of being revolutionaries and traitors and who were scapegoated. Anti-Semitism became an important part of Russian integral nationalism, although the tsarist government did not organize the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881 and of 1903 to 1906. In Transcaucasia from the 1870s Russification measures alienated the Georgian noble elite and, after the 1880s, the Armenian Church and middle class.
In the last third of the nineteenth century, the tsarist government renounced cooperation with most of the co-opted loyal nobilities (Poles, Baltic Germans, Finlanders, Georgians) and loyal middle classes (Jews, Armenians). With the rise of ethnic nationalism and growing tensions in foreign policy, loyalty was expected only from members of the Russian nation and not from non-Russian elites, who were regarded with growing suspicion. On the whole the repressive measures against non-Russians in the western and southern periphery had counterproductive results, strengthening national resistance and enlarging national movements.
However, the tsarist policy toward most of the ethnic groups of the East remained basically unchanged. It is true that state and church tried to strengthen Orthodox faith and “Russianness” among the Christianized peoples of the Volga-Ural-Region, but the so-called Ilminsky system, which introduced native languages into missionary work, was above all a defensive measure against the growing appeal of Islam. By creating literary languages and native- language schools for many small ethnic groups, it furthered in the long run their cultural nationalism. In the last fifty years of tsarism, there were only cautious missionary activities and virtually no Russificatory measures among the Muslims of the empire.
In 1905 peasants and workers in the western and southern peripheries were the most active promoters of the revolution. The revolution unleashed a short “spring of nations” that embraced nearly all ethnic groups of the empire. The removal of most political and some cultural restrictions and the possibility of political participation in the first two State Dumas (1906-1907) caused widespread national mobilization. Although the tsarist government soon afterward restricted individual and collective liberties and rights, it could not return to the former policy of repression and Russification. The violent insurrections of Latvian, Estonian, and Georgian peasants and of Polish, Jewish, Latvian, and Armenian workers made clear that turning away from cooperation with the regional elites had proved to be dangerous for social and political stability. The tsarist government tried to split non-Russians by a policy of divide and rule and partially returned to the coalition with loyal, conservative forces among non-Russians. On the other hand it was influenced by the rising ethnic Russian nationalism, which was used to integrate Russian society and to bridge its deep social and political cleavages. Despite the many unresolved political, social, economic, and ethno-national problems, the government managed to hold together the heterogeneous empire until 1917. The national questions were not among the main causes for the collapse of the tsarist regime in February 1917, but they became crucial for the dissolution of the empire after October 1917. See also: ILMINSKY, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH; NATIONALISM IN THE TSARIST EMPIRE; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATION AND NATIONALITY; OFFICIAL NATIONALITY; RUSSIFICATION; SLAVOPHILES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allworth, Edward, ed. (1998). Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Brower; Daniel (2003). Turkestan and the Fate of the Russian Empire. London, NY: Routledge Curzon. Brower, Daniel R., and Lazzerini, Edward J., eds. (1997). Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Forsyth, James. (1992). A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony, 1581-1990. Cambrige, UK: Cambridge University Press. Geraci, Robert P., and Khodarkovsky, Michael, eds. (2001). Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Geyer, Dietrich. (1987). Russian Imperialism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hosking, Geoffrey. (1997). Russia: People and Empire. London: HarperCollins. Kappeler, Andreas. (2001). The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History. Harlow, UK: Longman.
