The failure to resolve the Polish question by the traditional expedient of assimilating the elites of the conquered territories forced the Russian imperial elite to reexamine its own identity. It came up with a formula that combined its traditional loyalty to autocratic imperial rule and the dominance of the Orthodox Church with the new concept of nationality. In historiography, that triad came to be known as “official nationality.” It would define Russian imperial nation-building projects for the rest of the century.
