Kremlin's New Ideology | T.S.Tsonchev | Art: Lilias Buchanan: Series of illustrations for Leo Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'...
The Montreal Review
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3 weeks ago
There is a kind of fusion of religion and politics in contemporary Russia. This does not mean that there is a de-secularization of the Russian state and society; rather we witness a recovery and reinvention of an old form of caesaropapism that is traditional for the Russian political culture and experience. Over the centuries, before the end of monarchy, Russia considered itself as a Christian empire, the Third Rome, a successor of Byzantium, the Euro-Asiatic empire destroyed by the Ottomans. In Byzantium the emperor was the head of state and church. He was God's representative on earth. And now, in the 21st century, we see how these old ideas and mythologies are resurrected and successfully exploited by the power in Kremlin.........