State-confessional relations in the Caucasus in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Abstract

The confessional history of the peoples of the Russian Federation in modern conditions has not only a purely historical and analytical aspect, but also a significant practical significance in the context of the need to use the positive experience of the past in the harmonization of interethnic and confessional relations. Russia, as a state-civilization, has been formed for a long time, but this process has not yet been properly studied both due to certain class imperial preferences in the pre-revolutionary time, and class stereotypes that dominated society in the Soviet era. The Russian state and the Orthodox Church were in many respects united until the Soviet decree of V. I. Lenin on the separation of church and state. With regard to other traditional religions and beliefs, a tolerant policy was carried out, which made it possible not only for Orthodox Christians to occupy major government positions and receive the highest military ranks. In the 20th century, the peoples of the Caucasus were legally part of the Russian Empire and, in addition to the general imperial legislation, their life was also regulated by local acts, which, unlike the legislation of other empires of those years, guaranteed them the preservation of freedom of conscience. The author does not agree with the statement that the imperial and Soviet authorities destroyed the traditions of real Christianity, Islam and folk beliefs in Ossetia by terror. Based on the analysis of the materials of the peoples of the Caucasus, the article characterizes the state-confessional relations in the mainstream of the country's domestic policy, emphasizes the historical continuity of the humanistic policy of the central Russian government in the national regions of the country.