The Finland question and the regional policy of the Russian empire in the beginning of the 20th century (according to the materials of the periodic press)

Abstract

Background. The crisis of Russia’s borderland politics at the beginning of the 20th century, associated with the further unification and centralization of state administration, was most clearly manifested in the approaches to solving the Finnish question, in general, and in the political, legal, linguistic and confessional component, in particular. The purpose of the study is to analyze the public’s attitude to the position of the Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire based on the analysis of the opinions of contemporaries on the Finnish issue, reflected in publications in scientific works, in articles on the pages of periodicals, in speeches delivered within the walls of the State Duma. Materials and methods. The research was carried out on literature, materials of periodicals, first of all, the magazine “Finland”, published in 1908–1910. Comparative historical and social methods of historical research are used. Results. In the course of writing the article, the main task was solved – based on materials from periodicals, to study the reaction of the Finnish and Russian public to the change in the political course towards the Finnish principality at the beginning of the 20th century. Conclusions. In late imperial Russia, the policy of the tsarist government to unify the management of national outskirts, the final rejection of the model of a union state was aimed, first of all, at limiting the autonomy of Poland and Finland. Discussions in legal circles and in the press soon turned into political polemics within the walls of the State Duma, in particular, the leaders of the Swedish People’s Party and the Octobrist Party radically disagreed in the interpretation of the Finnish question.

Keywords

• the grand duchy of finland
• periodicals
• border politics
• octobrists
• union state