Privileged strategic partners: The history of the establishment of cultural and diplomatic relations between Russia and India in XVII-XIX century

Relevance. A new trend in modern international practice discards the previous tolerance. The previous historical experience of communication between the two countries is becoming the imperative basis on which the modern configuration of relations is being constructed. These relations are significantly influenced by the perception of peoples by each other, which fixed in the ethnic consciousness. Reconstruction of the roots of these relations, their character and nature makes research relevant.

The purpose of the study is to reveal notion about the intensity and direction of cultural and diplomatic contacts between Russia and India in the XVII-XIX centuries, as well as the question on how t this contacts influenced the modern relations of two countries.

Objectives: based on the analysis of a large corpus of documents of the Posolsky Prikaz (Embassy) (orders to ambassadors, reports of ambassadors, testimonies of Russian travelers); to create a retrospective of the key events of Russian-Indian cultural and diplomatic contacts during the 17th-19th centuries.

Methodology. The author applied the principles of objectivity and historicism. To solve the tasks, historicalgenetic, historical-comparative, and retrospective methods were used. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the text, the style and tone of the documents, which prove that Russian-Indian relations initially were regarded as partnership, built on respectful and fair principles, and never had even a sign of colonial superiority.

Results. The study of unique sources made it possible to reconstruct Russian-Indian relations during a long historical period, to show the positive impact of stereotypes of the collective memory of the peoples of Russia and India on modern relations between the two countries, which are privileged strategic partners.

Conclusions. Historical contacts between Russia and India during the 17th-19th centuries cannot be represented as curious, but insignificant episodes. This is a well-formed direction in Russian foreign policy. Contacts of this period are extremely important, since they formed the goals of contacts between the two countries, the notion of the peoples about each other, the view on the traits of the national character, the respect of the peoples for each other, which influenced the modern relations between Russia and India.

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