“Peaceful Conquest of Minds and Hearts by the Power of Enlightenment …”

The article examines the activities of the Vilna department of the “Society of Zealots of Russian Historical Enlightenment in Memory of Emperor Alexander III”, whose appearance at the turn of the 19—20th centuries was part of a non-conflict management practice aimed at forming a positive symbolic capital of the empire on its northwestern outskirts. In addition to purely scientific activities, this Society was intended to become an element of a public environment controlled by the authorities, whose representatives could relay imperial ideological values, exerting an integrative impact on the local population. The Vilnius branch of the “Society of Zealots ...” was an attempt to combine the traditional imperial policy aimed at comprehensively strengthening the “Russian principles” in the region and the “soft power” strategy aimed at rejecting unilaterally coercive methods of influencing the local population in developing a general imperial spiritual intellectual identity. On the basis of archival materials, first introduced into scientific circulation, the main stages of the existence of the Vilnius Department of the Society, the main forms of its work, the numerous problems facing it, which ultimately did not allow to fully realize the significant cultural and integrative potential of this project, are considered

Ancient history · China · Emperor · Empire · Enlightenment · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Soft power · Theology · Central European and Russian historical studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Religious Tourism and Spaces

• Integration Policy in Northwestern Region of Russian Empire in Second Half of 19th — Early 20th Centuries

  Open Access•Maxim Krot, Oksana O Zavyalova•Nauchnyi Dialog•2023

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