144 Orientalism and Empiresqualid [ubogii] Christian church.”^115 They could no longer bear, the
Russians of Vedeno pleaded, the mockery and ridicule of their
Chechen neighbours.^116 Military officials supported the aspirations of
the Russian villagers of Vedeno as a stern reminder to the Chechens
that Russian rule was “unshakable” in Chechnia, and other officials
agreed that the matter was of great symbolic significance.^117 In-
creased funding was a necessity, argued a church official in
Vladikavkaz, since Vedeno was located in the “very centre of
Chechnia and was surrounded on all sides by those of other tribes
and faiths [inorodnye and inovercheskie].”^118 This was the historical lan-
guage of conquest in the borderlands. Officials visualized mountain
peoples as aliens, only capable of understanding a show of force and
strength from the Russians.
The policies and attitudes of Russification partially drew on the
continuing administrative drive to extend the virtues of the “well-
ordered police state” to the borderlands. By the turn of the century
this effort brought the state into conflict with the sundry practices of
the borderlands and an increasingly vocal nationalism from espe-
cially the Georgians which was also partially a product of the impact
of the Russian state. Russification drew on the heritage of conquest in
the region, in keeping with the new climate of fear and phobia that
inspired ethnic nationalism throughout Europe. This aspect of
Russification was a conservative return to the traditional symbols
and themes of tsar, church, army, and imperial competition discussed
in chapter 2, complemented by a preference for ethnic Russian settle-
ment. Conservative thought contributed to this climate of hostility
and fear, and justified the increasing tendency of officials to identify
the imperial state explicitly with Russia and the Russians. Russifica-
tion as ethnic Russian settlement and a belligerent glorification of
conquest was obviously a far cry from the efforts of imperial edu-
cated society to visualize a multi-ethnic imperial community commit-
ted to a common civilizing endeavour on the frontier.