ENLIGHTENMENT IDEAS AND THE IMAGE OF RUSSIA IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF MODERNITY
The image of Russia as Europe is the first in the system of representations of the unity of the country, which includes its territory, population and state. This article discusses the dynamics of the image of Russia as a European country in the space of geographical images of the Enlightenment, shows the influence of Enlightenment ideas on the internal geopolitics of the Russian Empire, draws the conclusion about its value on the formation of another image of Russia as a distinctively original country, the image which is more recent, was formed under the influence of Romanticism and theoretically grounded in Slavophil and Eurasian conceptions.