EUROPEAN SOURCES OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE RUSSIAN ATTITUDE TO THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE ABORIGENS OF SIBERIA IN THE PETROVSKIAN ERA
The article examines the changes that took place in the Russian policy towards the indigenous population of Siberia under Peter the Great. It focuses mostly on the transition to large-scale and partly forcible Christianization of the aborigines in the first decades of the seventeenth century. It is noted that the translation of European knowledge, the intensity of which at that time qualitatively increased, had a significant impact on this process. The following factors can be highlighted. First, the penetration into Russia of information about missionary work carried out among pagans by monks-missioners in different parts of the world. Secondly, the lust of Peter I for rationalization, order and uniformity on a national scale. Thirdly, the views of the Tsar-reformer on progress and transition from “barbarism” to “civilization”, which were widespread at that time. Fourth, his ambition to copy the structure of the European colonial empires.