Native language education in the Western border regions around 1905

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian imperial government revised its so-called Russification policy directed toward the empire’s western border regions and decided to allow the education of languages described as “native” (rodnye), “natural” (prirodnye), and “local” (mestnye). Was this a temporal retreat from the “Russification policy” in the face of national movements, or was it a fundamental change in the policy toward the non-Russian population, or something else altogether? In order to answer these questions, we need to explore the nuanced context of what actually happened. This chapter considers the process of transformation in the conditions surrounding native language education among non-Russian populations at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially around 1905 in the western border regions. In so doing, it shows how a small concession by the government resulted in fundamental changes to Russian imperial society. The western border regions always had special political significance for the Russian Empire because they marked the empire’s point of contact with the Western world, which was considered economically and technically more advanced and culturally more sophisticated. As the link with “neighboring contiguous empires,” (Alexei Miller) this region was inhabited by various national groups whose members spread over these imperial borders. 1 For the imperial elites, the western regions used to be “a showcase for the empire’s Europeanness.” However, serving as the gateway through which the age of nationalism penetrated the empire, gradually they became a threat to the stability of the empire. 2 In this sense, the western border regions were the frontline of the empire’s national issues