The Controversy about the Introduction of the Russian Language into Catholic Worship in the North-West Region in the Domestic National-Conservative Discourse in the Second Half of the 19th Century

The article is devoted to the controversy that unfolded in the domestic national-conservative discourse on the issue of introducing the Russian language into additional Catholic services. The article examines the ideological foundations of
the position of supporters and opponents of this idea. Supporters of the policy of "Russifi cation of the Church" proceeded from the secular idea of a political nation, internally linked by linguistic unity, recognizing that Catholics who say prayers
in Russian can be Russian. It is noted that the development of a modern concept of Russian-language Catholicism was one of the ways of peacefully "integrating" Catholicism into the imperial system. The position of opponents of this idea
was based on the desire to protect the spiritual foundations of the Russian people from the penetration of alien elements, warning against a violent and unnatural separation of the people from the faith. The article points out that this dispute
was a signifi cant part of a broad public discourse devoted not only to the search for optimal and most confl ict-free ways to integrate the northwestern outskirts into a single state space, but also to the problem of unifying the national outskirts
of the Russian Empire as a whole.