When making statements like this, it's important to choose our words carefully so that it doesn't sound like we're implying that the European perspective is the only one. To say that northern Canada and Greenland were "unexplored" before 1900 is to ignore the existence of the people who have inhabited those lands for thousands of years. Next time make sure to say something like, "Most Russians had very little knowledge of that area at the time" instead of "it was unexplored".
Taking into an account that the OP implied perspective of the Russian Empire, discussing things from that perspective is quite appropriate. Of course, if the OP was about the Inuits spreading all over the territory shown of the map, then their perspective would have to be reflected.
Term "
exploring" is routinely used and there is even a notion of the "
The Age of Exploration" (XV-XVII centuries) also known as "The Age of
Discovery". See, for example
https://www.thoughtco.com/age-of-exploration-1435006
Yes, terminology reflects the European perspective but the history does not change just because we start using euphemisms. Everybody knows that there is more than one perspective to pretty much everything so why is there a need to insist on pointing out the obvious?
However, when you start lecturing people on what
in your opinion represents a correct language, be careful. Let's look at what you wrote. For example, somebody may take offensive to your statement "
Most Russians had very little knowledge of that area at the time" as implying that
most of them had been generally ignorant (time frame not being defined, this could be even a reference to the early modern times) and you would not be able to back up you statement with any reliable statistics showing break-up of the Empire's population by degree of a knowledge of that area and to come with an objective way to define which amount of knowledge qualifies as "
very little". Without these data somebody of the excessively patriotic persuasion may counter you statement with a claim that most of the Russians had an adequate knowledge of the subject and how are you going to object to it? So, it would be necessary to point out that all these people could be quite knowledgeable in some other areas while probably some unidentified number of them were not quite competent in some specifics of the area in question. So "very little" is out.
Then, many "
Russians" in question were not ethnic Russians and did not even speak Russian and as of now would consider being called that way as an offensive. So the "Russians" are out as extremely controversial and politically poisonous.
Next, a noticeable part of the population of Russian Empire lived in Asia and as such hardly represented
European perspective and we have a dilemma: is saying that the area was not explored by, say, the Chukchi still a reflection of the "European perspective" or is it permissible because they are indigenous people who live in Asia?
Term "
knowledge" is also reflective of the European perspective because information deemed important by the Europeans (for example, drawing maps of Greenland) would be rather irrelevant for the Inuits while the rules for proper cutting a walrus were of the primary importance to them but not of a special interest to the visiting Europeans unless they decided to live among the locals (long ago I read a book written by one such person, the rules were quite explicit and not obvious to an outsider). Taking into an account that your statement hints to the ...er.... European perspective of the "knowledge", the word is out because it is too vague and too controversial.
The list of the potential offensives in your single paragraph is quite long for someone who is reprimanding others. Relatively (no guarantee for 100%) non-offensive formula would be something along the lines "allegedly, an unidentified majority of the members of the various ethnic entities populating territory of the Russian Empire in 1900 never had been in Canada and Greenland."
