NATIONAL AND CONFESSIONAL POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORIOGRAPHY

The paper analyzes the problems and conceptual approaches of researches on the history of national and confessional policy of the Russian Empire, which were published in the last two decades. Through the prism of historiography the author shows the history of imperial policy in the Volga-Ural region, primarily with respect to such categories of population as steppe nomads, Muslims, pagans, baptized «aliens». The particular attention is paid to the debates around education policy of the Russian Empire in the region.