FACTORS OF FORMATION OF THE ETHNO-CONFESSIONAL POLICY OF RUSSIAN STATES IN RELATION TO THE FOREIGN POPULATION OF THE MIDDLE VOLGA AND URAL REGION IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XVIII CENTURY

Abstract

Тhe purpose of the article is to determine the ideological factors of activating the ethno-confessional policy of the Russian sovereigns in relation to the alien population of the Middle Volga region and the Urals in the first half of the 18th century. The article examines the evolution of government approaches in the field of ethno-confessional policy of the times of Peter I, Peter II, Anna Ivanovna and Elizaveta Petrovna. In order to eliminate the isolation of foreign communities, which was the main obstacle on the way to extrapolating the idea of a "regular state" to the Russian Empire, Peter the Great and his successors launched a missionary campaign against non-Russian peoples living in the Volga and Ural provinces. Christianization acquired a more radical character during the reign of Elizaveta Petrovna, as a result of which the isolation of ethnosocial communities increased. This, in turn, led to the need to revise the ethno-confessional policy.