"Our native Zion": the image of Kiev on the pages of the conservative press of the 1860s-1870s

In Russian conservative thought, Kiev was traditionally perceived as one of the sacred capitals - as the source of Orthodoxy and Slavic historical principles. The famous poem by Khomyakov from 1839 depicts the city as the indisputable center of all-Russian spiritual aspirations. The discussions of the 1860s related to the Polish and then Ukrainian issues once again actualized the need to defend the national identity of the ancient Russian capital - especially acutely realized by both regional Western Russian publicists and writers (M.V. Yuzefovich, K.A. Govorsky, N.S. Sokhanskaya, V.Ya. Shulgin), and Moscow spiritual leaders of the "Russian direction" (I.S. Aksakov, M.N. Katkov). Of course, the representatives of the regional Russian intelligentsia perceived this issue most acutely. Thus, in the program of the newspaper "Kievlyanin" each of the points began with a repetition of the thesis about the Russian character of the southwestern region. Much more attention to Kiev itself was paid by publications and authors who were either somehow connected with church circles or interested in religious issues. Unlike southern Russian authors, Moscow publicists appealed to political issues to a somewhat greater extent.