Image of the Russian Empire and the empire borders in the minds of the right-wing monarchical conservative parties before 1917
The aim of this article is the effort to describe the image of the Russian Empire and the empire borders in the minds of the right-wing monarchical conservative parties before the revolutionary events of 1917. The authors pay attention to the theoretical prerequisites of the ideological views of the black-hundredists (the "official nation" theory and the conception of the later Slavophils) and the practical mission that they set for themselves on the political stage (striving for saving the united and indiscerptible Russian Empire). The main conclusion is that in the minds of the right-wing monarchical organisations, the Russian national tradition was very closely connected with the paradigm of the united Empire which was deemed to be the absolute political value and was fulfilling the defence function to face the western civilisation. Only the unitary model of the state structure for the sake of the strict centralisation and turning down the outskirts' request of autonomy provided cultural and economic prosperity.