Formation of the all-russian imperial identity in the grand duchy of finland during the reign of alexander iii: Historical contexts and political restrictions

Abstract

The presented study is devoted to the study of the specific and factors that hindered the effective implementation of the policy to promote the imperial form of national-state (all-Russian) identity in the Grand Duchy of Finland during the reign of Alexander III. The purpose of this study is a comprehensive assessment of the factors that acted as obstacles to the successful spread of imperial identity in Finland during the reign of Alexander III. The source base of the work includes materials from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (from the funds of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and the Russian State Historical Archives (from the funds of the Department of General Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the office of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the personal fund of the Minister of Education I.D. Delyanov). The methodology of the work is built through a combination of elements of descriptive, structural and comparative analysis. The author comes to the conclusion that already by the beginning of the reign of Alexander III, the policy of his predecessors led to the emergence of a situation in which the implementation of a comprehensive program for promoting imperial identity in Finland was fraught with undermining Russia's internal political stability. Favorable conditions were formed for the development of Finnish nationalism, first in a cultural and then in a political form. The Grand Duchy turned out to be economically isolated from Russia to a large extent. At the same time, the growth in living standards due to the benefits provided to Finland, along with the creation of a mass education system, contributed to the formation of outgroup discrimination against other subjects of the empire. Traditional institutions for the spread of identity (school, army, church) were isolated at the regional level. The situation was aggravated by the preservation of the image of the "Russian enemy" in the cultural memory of the Finns. As a result, the emperor was forced to choose a course of limited reforms, at the expense of refusing to fully integrate the border region, ensuring the stability of the state.