?
Дискуссии российских консерваторов о введении всеобщей воинской повинности в империи Романовых: социальная доктрина и языки легитимации (1864-1874 гг.)
The article examines the views of Russian conservatives in the 1860s – 1870s. on the problem of introducing universal military service in the Romanov empire. The author asks the question of how it became possible that conservatism, which rejected the social and political processes dating back to the French Revolution, almost completely supported the introduction of a concept similar to the revolutionary “Levée en masse”. To answer this question, an analysis of the elements of social thinking of conservative thinkers, manifested in the texts on universal conscription, is carried out. All those that existed in the 1860s – 1870s are examined. variants of conservative social doctrine - the concept of M. N. Katkov and his “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, the view of the circle of the newspaper “Vest”, formulated by R. A. Fadeev and the approach of V. P. Meshchersky, manifested in the publications of his newspaper-magazine “Citizen”. Based on the results of the analysis of the discussions, the author identifies three general trends in conservative social thought. The first is an orientation towards education. Each direction, either at the theoretical level (like the Vesti faction and Katkov’s circle), or forcedly (like Meshchersky) spoke out in favor of expanding society’s access to education. The second general trend is that all directions of Russian conservatism, regardless of their historical views, referred to the experience of European states and at least considered it worthy of study. The third and most important trend is the course towards the gradual egalitarianization of Russian conservatism. Factions of Russian conservatism introduced into their journalism ideological techniques and language that made it possible either to declare that the inequalities existing in society were temporary, or to make an apology for class by referring to the interests of institutions that were considered anti-hierarchical by conservative ideologists themselves. It is the third trend that is the answer to the research question posed by the author about the reasons for supporting universal equal conscription - Russian conservatism was confidently moving towards equality and could not develop otherwise, since it was formed as an ideology during the era of the Great Reforms, when a broad liberal consensus was formed in society.