Emperor of Holy Russia

 What were the ideological outlook, ideology, and collective ideas of Moscovia in the 15th and early 18th centuries? How broad was the circle of supporters of “high browed” teachings, and how meaningful were the concepts of political culture? Can we speak of the Russian state of this period as an empire, a monarchy, or a republic? How did the subjects of this country see themselves, and what collective identities did they consider significant? Why, in addition to chronicles, and partly replacing them, did a genre of self-awareness such as history emerge? How did the past of historians differ from that of chroniclers and annalists? The study focuses on such ideologemes as the people and Holy Rus, the tsar and the emperor, post-apocalyptic history and the Third Rome, and such forms of collective political action as the interests of the people, res communis, and the citizenship. Despite non-modern communication technologies, intensive sacred reading, and the instability of sovereignty doctrines, Russian culture was a legitimate part of the Renaissance during this period, as evidenced by polemical writings, lexical and historical statements by intellectuals, monuments of ceremonial, historical, political and everyday thought, as well as traces of the reception of world events, anonymous discourses, and visual representations of the present and the past. Moscovia was also drawn into one of the most significant debates of the modern era — that of disarmament as a necessary condition for civil life. Konstantin Yerusalimsky is a Doctor of Historical Sciences and professor at the European University in St. Petersburg.

Konstantin Yerusalimsky. Emperor of Holy Russia. — Moscow: New Literary Review, 2025.