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Russian Monarchy - Eighteenth-Century Rulers and Writers in Political Dialogue (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R1,303
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Russian Monarchy - Eighteenth-Century Rulers and Writers in Political Dialogue (Hardcover, New)
Series: NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Russian monarchs have long been regarded as majestic and despotic,
ruling over mute and servile subjects in a vast empire isolated
from the rest of the European continent. Challenging this view,
Cynthia H. Whittaker uncovers a political dialogue about the nature
and limitations of monarchy in eighteenth-century Russia-an
interchange that took place between rulers and writers under the
influence of western and central European Enlightenment thinking.
Roughly 250 authors participated in this public discourse on
monarchical power, producing more than 500 publications and
official pronouncements on monarchy. Beginning with Peter the
Great, Russian rulers shifted the foundation for legitimacy from
its religious underpinnings to a secular basis, as notions of a
monarch's duty to reform began to replace divine right as the
justification for absolute power. During the recurring crises of
succession in the eighteenth century, monarchs sought further
legitimacy and celebrated their "election" by the "people" (that
is, key members of the elite). Writers, in turn, engaged rulers in
public discussion via the printed word as they examined monarchical
legitimacy and debated its feasibility with sophisticated arguments
drawn from the arsenal of classical and current European ideas.
Intended for the eyes of both the sovereign and the educated elite,
publications in nearly every genre contained didactic passages
explaining proper conduct for a monarch. Writers also warned of the
dire consequences awaiting the ruler who did not abide by these
accepted standards of behavior; and in the course of the century,
three monarchs lost the throne. Russian Monarchy shows how this
eighteenth-century dialogue between elites and their monarchs
revolutionized the concept of rule and gave writers a role in
shaping their political environment.
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