Records of mid-to-late 18th century academic expeditions as a tool for constructing imperial space

Statement of the problem. The article deals with the problem of constructing the imperial space in Russia in the 18th century through the reports on Academic expeditions. It is about mental geography, ideas about oneself and the Other, center and periphery, colonies and metropolis. The purpose of this article is to analyze the situation of constructing an imperial space through the text of a scientific study. Review of scientific literature on the problem. A lot of both Russian and international studies are devoted to this problem. These are works by E. Said, M. Bassin, T. Roboli, Y. Slezkin, A. Etkind. Methodology (materials and methods). The approach to the analysis of the imperial mental map formation toolkit is interdisciplinary. The work uses the structural and typological method and is grounded on post-structuralist research (M. Foucault). The study was carried out on the basis of reports on the Academic Expeditions of P. Pallas, I. Lepekhin, N. Ozeretskovsky. Research results. Based on the analysis made, it can be concluded that reports become an important link in the construction of a new imperial space, it is in them that ideologically important oppositions are identified: center-periphery, friend-foe, colony-metropolis. The documentary character of the texts maintains maximum objectivity in assessing the representations presented in them.