This issue of the Journal of Frontier Studies (Vol. 11, No. 3, 2026) examines ethnic processes in Russia’s borderlands from the 19th through the 21st centuries. It draws on papers presented at the Seventh International Scholarly Conference, “Ethnic Minorities in Russian History,” held on April 24–25, 2026, at Pushkin Leningrad State University. Edited by Vladimir N. Shaidurov, Doctor Habilitatus in History, the volume brings together studies in historical anthropology and ethnodemography that reflect the diversity of frontier contexts during the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods.

The section “Frontiers of the Russian Empire” features articles on state policies toward ethnic and religious minorities. Particular attention is given to Yakutia’s administrative staffing capacity in the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century and to the place of the “Finnish” and “Polish” questions in the state policy of the Russian Empire during the first half of the nineteenth century. It also examines the demographic and socioeconomic development of the Veps, the economic life of Swedes in the Urals, relations between Russians and Turkmens in the Transcaspian Region, and representations of non-Russian peoples and non-Orthodox believers in the railway travelogues written by Russian participants in the Russo-Japanese War.

The section “Frontiers in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Spaces” encompasses a broad chronological and geographical range, extending from the policy of indigenization in the Russian-Belarusian borderlands in the 1920s to demographic shifts in southern Western Siberia in the 2020s. It analyzes the experiences of Jewish communities in Khabarovsk Krai and transformations in religious policy toward Buddhists in the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.