East expansion of the Russian Empire in the assessment of Russian publicist second half XIX century

In the second half of the XIX century, while maintaining the strategic interests of Russia in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the most successful territorial expansion was carried out in an easterly direction. Incorporation into the empire of vast territories in Central Asia, progress in the Caucasus could not affect the interpretation of national issues by representatives of various currents of Russian social thought. In Slavophile direction, the conception of the territorial expansion of Russia not only as a state of expansion, but also as the resettlement of the Russian people in the "natural geographical boundaries." From the context of the work of the Slavophiles followed the conclusion that the success of Russian colonization and settlement all the more significant areas - the result of coincidence of the interests of the people and the state, and their joint activities. N.Y. Danilevsky sought to refute the opinion of Europeans about the only conquering nature of the formation of the Russian state. He argued that Russia has not won any of the people reached the stage of state organization; has not made any "political assassination". Russian colonization contrasted Western European character and methods. I.S. Aksakov was trying to dispel anxiety about the possibility of Russian public dissolution of Russia in Asia and the weakening of the influence of the Russian people in connection with the increasing number of Asian population of Russia. Turning to history, Slavophile recalled that the Russian nation itself was formed from a variety of tribes and later in the formation of the Russian state gradually includes a foreign elements, successfully assimilating them. Russian liberals saw the developments that have taken place on the eastern borders of the empire as a colonizing people, incapable of independent development. This process is a manifestation of the global trend of expansion of the West (European countries) against the East, which has become the realization of the superiority of the European model of the state, social organization and economic structure. Stating the civilizing mission of Russia in the east, liberal publicists did not hide the complexity and ambiguity of the interaction of elements of Western and Eastern culture. Thus, in Russian journalism has developed a universal and, in general, a positive assessment of the results and prospects of Russia's advance into Asia. Russia presented the bearer of progress, European statehood and culture. Realizing its historic mission, she carried the Asian nations, supposedly incapable of independent historical life, the opportunity to join it in a single developed country. It was the awareness of differences of Russian colonization of European, due to the lack of spatial separation of the colonies and the mother country. Therefore, colonization was seen as a traditional Russification and new territories were to become part of the Russian state.

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