Russian Imperial Governance in the Western Borderlands in the 19th Century: Discovering How Catholic Minorities Fit in the Multiconfessional State

Abstract

The multiconfessional state is a concept that highlights the construction of religious toleration in the Russian Empire. Along the northwestern borderlands in the 19th century, the Lithuanian and Belarusian populations had the highest concentration of Catholics in the region and will be used as case studies in the comparative analysis. Amid a rapidly changing institutional framework for foreign confessions, Catholics were placed within a tolerated religious category in a hierarchy that privileged Eastern Orthodoxy, yet they still faced restrictions, among which were policies on the language of Church instruction stemming from the fears of Polish nationalism. A critical juncture in the heightened tensions between the Russian Empire and the Catholic community was the 1863 Polish Uprising. Russification, therefore, was largely an imperial concept that depended on administrative discretion in the local implementation of imperial laws. These laws were constantly changing with shifts in local leadership, which could promote agendas ranging from repression to accommodation, shaped by political tensions and Catholic community responses. This ultimately led to the 1905 Edict on Religious Toleration, another critical juncture. This research focuses on the concept of the multiconfessional state and its implications for Catholic communities in the western borderlands, and examines the extent of religious toleration granted to Catholics in the 19th-century Russian Empire.