S.Yu. Witte’s views on the cultural and historical significance of the railway communication in the East of the Russian Empire

The paper presents the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte’s views on cultural and historical significance of the railway communication in the Asian part of the Russian Empire. Although Witte primarily attached importance to the economic factor of the railroad, designed to connect the western and the eastern parts of Russia, he nevertheless often noted the military-strategic and cultural-historical significance of the Siberian railroad and the China Eastern Railway. Attaching particular importance to the railway communication in ensuring both economic and cultural contacts of Europeans, especially the population of Russia, with the Eastern peoples, Witte saw the «awakening» of the East and the expansion of its ties with the Western world as consequences. According to the Minister of Finance, such connections opened by the railway made it impossible to maintain alienation for the peoples of the Far East. Understanding the scale of the consequences of cultural, economic and political ties that had opened up, Witte noted a special task that was assigned to Russia in bringing Western and Eastern peoples closer together. Russia, providing the opportunity for interaction between the West and the East through the railway built by it, was to use, according to Witte, all the benefits of their convergence, which boiled down to the socio-economic and cultural development of Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is important that Witte also saw geopolitical changes associated with the possible rapprochement between Russia and Japan on the basis of common economic interests as a consequence of the development of the railway communication.