Perception of the european political tradition in Dagestan at the beginning of the 20th Century: towards the formulation of the problem

The article is devoted to the problem of perception of elements of the European political tradition in Dagestan in the early 20^th century. The source base of the study was the materials of the funds of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Dagestan, the National Museum of the Republic of Dagestan, published reviews of the Dagestan region, compiled by officials of the local statistical office. The methodological basis of the study is the conceptual approaches characteristic of the theory of modernization. The article shows that the socio-cultural environment of Dagestan did not create favorable conditions for the perception of the European political tradition. The bulk of the population lived in rural areas, the economy was predominantly agrarian, the level of urbanization of Dagestan was low. In the region, the press was virtually absent as a socio-political phenomenon: only the «Dagestan Regional News» was regularly published, which was of an official nature. This situation led to the fact that there was no basis for the emergence of branches of Russian liberal parties in the region, primarily the Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets). The author proves that under these conditions the activity of the Russian intelligentsia became an important actor in the processes of modernization of the region. In the process of colonization of Dagestan it was gradually drawn into the socio-economic processes characteristic of the Russian Empire as a whole. A significant role was also played by the influence on Dagestan of political impulses that came from those cities of the Caucasus where the processes of modernization of society developed significantly faster (for example, Vladikavkaz and Baku). The political mood of the population of the region was also influenced by Moscow and St. Petersburg opposition newspapers and magazines distributed in Dagestan. All this led to the fact that in Dagestan new phenomena arose, albeit very slowly, contributing to the socio-economic and political modernization of the region.