Analysis of the “East” image in the works of the Beijing spiritual mission leaders of the XVIII – early XX centuries

The purpose of the study. The article is devoted to the problem of forming ideas about the East in the representative writings of the Beijing Spiritual Mission. Special attention is paid to the ideas contributed to the formation of the socio-cultural construct “East”, which is important for the formation of the Russian state identity today, in the context of the formation of a multipolar world model. Conclusions. As a result of the research, we traced the evolution of the East images as “alien” and “other” in the intercultural interaction context through the activities of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing, which created the foundations for an effective intercultural dialogue of the period previously considered.