Non-native education in the Steppe Region in the discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Missionary Community (the second half of the XIX – beginning of the XX century)

in the article, on the materials of church records, periodicals, personal texts of representatives of the missionary community the content of the discourse of alien education in the Steppe region in the second half of the nineteenth - early twentieth centuries is revealed. In the course of the study it was established that in the conditions of internal colonisation of the eastern peripheries and Russia's active advancement deep into the Asian periphery of the empire, one of the key tasks of population policy was to overcome cultural differences between the settlers from European Russia and the indigenous peoples of the steppe regions. Attempts to realise this global cultural mission by administrative means and instruments of direct Russification were ineffective and had negative consequences in terms of cultural integration of the foreign population into a single social space. In the period under study, the Russian Orthodox Church becomes one of the effective subjects of Russia's colonisation policy in the eastern part of the empire, providing support and protection to various groups of the population. The inclusion of the authoritative institution of the church and its institutions in the education of foreigners, taking into account modern pedagogical methods (the system of N.I. Ilminsky), the representation of models of cultural interaction with the foreign population in the discourse of education, significantly adjusted the ideas of the imperial authorities about the methods of cultural influence in the region and was reflected in relatively plastic, ‘soft’ practices of incorporation of indigeneous communities into Russian society.

internal colonisation, Steppe region, indigenous population, alien education, discourse, Russian Orthodox Church, missionary work