Formation of Political Discourse of Orthodox Western Russian Clergy during January Uprising of 1863

The author examines the regional characteristics of the Polish separatist uprising of 1863 (January Uprising) in the territory of Lithuania and Belarus, a territory which was part of Western Russia at the time. The general goals of the uprising aimed at separating the Kingdom of Poland and Western Russia from the Russian state, and its regional Western Russian characteristics had a direct impact on the formation of the political discourse of the Orthodox clergy and their conceptual output. The special role played in the uprising by the politicized Roman Catholic clergy determined the content of those concepts and the ideological values of the component of discourse used by them. An important role in the religious and political propaganda of the Polish Catholic clergy was played through the issue of restoring the Uniate Church of Western Russia, which had been abolished at the Synod of Polotsk in 1839. The Western Russian Orthodox clergy, which mainly consisted of former Uniates, turned out to be an attractive subject for such propaganda. The propaganda arguments in favor of restoring the union were accompanied by threats, violence, and murders of Orthodox priests. The response to the actions of the separatists was a political discourse, the main concepts of which were formed by Metropolitan Joseph (Semashko) of Lithuania, who had previously belonged to the union. The historical basis of the discourse was the conceptual ideas of N.G. Ustryalov, who considered the history of Russia as all-Russian, including the history of Western Russia. The author comes to the conclusion that the main concepts of the political discourse were “Russian nationality” and the unity of Western Russian Orthodoxy (political, ecclesiastical, and ethnic) with the Russian monarchy, the Russian Church, and the Russian people. The political discourse of the Western Russian clergy found expression in church services, publications of the church press, sermons, and overt actions to support the policies of Alexander II.