The ideal of the popular monarchy in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th — the early 20th centuries

Abstract

The article reveals the Russian popular idea of autocratic rule endowed with God by the dictatorship of the Orthodox conscience, raising the sovereign over all classes and all parties damaged by the fall of society. It is proved that the conservatives in the person of Mikhail Katkov and Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the Slavophiles in the persons of Aleksey Khomyakov, Ivan Kireyevsky and Konstantin Aksakov were aware of the special role of the ideal of “people’s monarchy” in the historical fate of Russia, the radical democrats represented by Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen. Russian literature was also involved in the ideals of the “people’s monarchy”: Alexander Ostrovsky in the historical chronicle “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, Nikolay Nekrasov in the poems “The Unfortunate”, “Silence” and “Parable”. The rootedness of the monarchy instinct in the Russian national consciousness of the early 20th century is shown by Boris Shiryaev in the artistic and documentary narrative about the fate of the peasant tsar Peter in Uren, at that time an Old Believer village of Varnavino district of Kostroma Province.

Keywords

• popular monarchy
• dictatorship of conscience
• conservatives
• slavophiles
• westernisers
• peasant tsar