Creating of Distinctions “Our-Foreign” in the Issue of “Orthodoxification” of the Western Outskirts of the Russian Empire in the XIX Century

The article is devoted to the issue of the attitude of Russian theological and philosophical thought to the problem of Russification of the western outskirts of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. After the annexation of Poland, the western region became an arena of confrontation between the Catholic and Orthodox faiths. Ethnic, national and religious differentiation in the western outskirts was formed in such a way that Poles were understood as Catholics, and Russians were understood as Orthodox, regardless of the real ethnic, national and confessional affiliation. Representing a strong competitor in relation to the official Orthodox Church, referred to as “primary and dominant” in the Russian Empire, the “tolerant” Catholic Church was considered by the state authorities, the Orthodox Church, as well as philosophical and theological thought, often as “foreign”, “alien” and hostile strength. Setting the task of preserving and spreading the influence of the Orthodox faith in the western outskirts of the Russian state, Russian religious thinkers saw the solution to the problem in the Russification of the Western Territory. By Russification, they primarily understood the “orthodoxification” of the Catholic population, in particular Belarusians and Lithuanians, while the “slavification” of the Polish population of the western outskirts of Russia.

Russification, “Orthodoxification”, “Slavification”, Western territory, Catholicism, Orthodoxy