Российские географы-нотабли, или социальные траектории имперской геополитики
Russian geographers-notables, or the social trajectories of Imperial geopolitics

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts to analyze the phenomenon of the Russian Geographical Society as a social institution and network system. The author proceeds from the fact that the creation of the Russian Geographical Society was organically integrated into the context of Russian public life, and the Russian geographical space itself turned out to be the most important and organic condition for understanding the nature of the empire, its main object and, at the same time, its «hero». The space of Russian geography became a natural field and a kind of contextual source for modeling Nicholas’s imperial paradigm. From the moment of its creation, the Society went beyond the scope of a purely scientific institution and was considered by its founders as a focus of the government-proclaimed course on the search for national identity and a move away from the Westernized image of autocracy to its national version. Thus, his activities were dominated by the program of «domestic geography» — a unique attempt by representatives of the scientific community to ensure a «sacred alliance» with the authorities and society. At the same time, members of the Society made their unique contribution to the study of the phenomenon of Russia, the peculiarities of its national and cultural self-perception, highlighting the need for a «national renaissance», i. e. the search for another path of development devoid of European «ailments» and, consequently, leading to overcoming the crisis of Western culture and the development of the country at the expense of internal resources. In a hierarchical sense, the members of the Society belonged to various professional groups of managers: representatives of the ruling dynasty, officials, scientists, travelers, sailors, writers, teachers. Analyzing the Society’s personnel, the author identifies the institution of its honorary members as its most important structural part, who are presented as a «shadow cabinet» of the Russian government. The study reveals the role of the Russian Geographical Society as a communication network that allows the government to use the Society as an information platform for developing geopolitical vectors for studying Russian imperial space.

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