| Summary: | Background. The study of the imperial control system of national outskirts in the
Russian Empire in the 19th – early 20th centuries acquires special relevance in the current
realities of modern Russia. Summarizing the historical experience of the central administration
on the empire’s outskirts allows us to answer the question of how the capital’s bureaucracy
and local officials developed and implemented policies in relation to local communities,
how the language and ethno-confessional policy of the empire was built in different
periods. The purpose of the study is to analyze the main directions of imperial policy on the
national outskirts of the Russian Empire during the 19th – early 20th centuries on the basis of
a wide range of sources in the context of the activities of the higher bureaucracy representatives.
Materials and methods. The study was conducted on the basis of archives, memoir
literature, materials of the periodical press. Comparative-historical, social and statistical
methods of historical research were used. Based on the capabilities of the content analysis
of the periodical press, a study of the reaction of local communities to the policy carried out
on the national outskirts of the Russian Empire was conducted. Results. In the course of
writing the article, the main task is solved-to study how the experience gained in the management
of some outskirts, in particular, the Western region, influenced the national policy
of the imperial authorities of the Russian Empire as a whole. Conclusions. One of the main
problems of late imperial Russia was the need to develop a unified model of controlling the
national outskirts, based on the principle of ethnocentrism of national and state traditions.
Differences in the views of the enlightened bureaucracy representatives were associated
with the decision to move from the imperial to the national principle of imperial policy on
the outskirts, which, first of all, was associated with the events in the western provinces of
the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. The degree of loyalty of local
communities to the line of the official authorities of Saint Petersburg, in many respects,
according to the central office, determined the success of Russia’s national policy.
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