“Caring for real needs of the region”: proposals by S.I. Baranovsky for changing the political and administrative situation of the Grand Duchy of Finland in the middle of the 19th century

Introduction. The article presents an analysis of proposals to change the political and administrative position of the Grand Duchy of Finland, formulated in the middle of the 19th century by the famous Russian scientist S.I. Baranovsky. Methods. The empirical base of this study was made up of sources of personal origin - notes and memoirs of contemporaries that reveal the relationship between the individual consciousness of the author of the source and the prevailing ideas about the most pressing problems and prospects for the development of the outskirts of the Russian Empire. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study includes the application of a general conceptual approach in the form of a synthesis of civilizational and modernization theories, as well as a set of specially historical methods and methods of intellectual history that allow us to consider the emergence of the main ideas of a scientist in a specific sociocultural context. Analysis. The special rights and opportunities granted to the Grand Duchy of Finland at the beginning of the 19th century stimulated the formation of a national movement in it - Fennoman movement and a special layer of intellectuals who support it and advocate, including for the Russian-Finnish rapprochement. A special place among them is occupied by the Russian scientist and inventor S.I. Baranovsky. In the middle of the 19th century, in a special note entitled "Sincere Thoughts", which had not previously been put into scientific circulation and stored in the Secret Archives of the Third Section, he put forward a number of proposals for changing the political and administrative position of Finland within the Russian Empire. Speaking for the immediate convocation of the Sejm, the abolition of the post of governor-general in the region, the scientist expressed the position of the liberal public and called for compliance with the "fundamental laws of the principality" and the separation of powers. Results. According to Baranovsky, his proposals addressed to Emperor Alexander II were supposed to ensure the conflict-free integration of Finland into the Russian Empire and its further development on the basis of broad autonomy. The Grand Duchy of Finland was to become an example for political transformations in the Russian Empire.