Imperial Southwest in P. A. Krushevan's Travelogue “What is Russia?”

This article examines P. A. Krushevan's trave logue “What is Russia?” (1896) within the con text of imperial perceptions of the Southwest ern fringes of the Russian Empire. The rel evance of this study lies in the necessity to explore the mechanisms of imperial policy and nationalist discourse in travel writing as instruments for shaping ideological views on space and population. The paper investigates Krushevan's journey, his concept of unifying nationalism, and the imagological strategies employed in his descriptions of Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and other ethnic groups. It estab lishes that the author places particular empha sis on Kyiv as a sacred center of Russian state hood and a symbolic space where the question of acceptable boundaries for national amalga mation is addressed. The study demonstrates how, through his travel narrative, Krushevan projects an envisioned image of imperial unity by utilizing the mechanism of imagined bor ders. It explores the connection between his route and the ideological concepts of Russian civilizational mission, where territorial integ rity is seen as a guarantee of national unity. Key elements of imperial discourse are identi fied, including notions of an internal “East,” national hierarchies, and strategies of ex clusion. Analyzing the travelogue provides deeper insights into how images of “the famil iar” and “the other” were constructed within the imperial consciousness and what rhetori cal techniques were employed to legitimize them.

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