Issue № 35. December 2012

Images of State and Society as Perceived by the XIXth Century Russian Conservative: Native Traditions and the European Context

Ph.D., associate professor, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
E-mail: polunov@spa.msu.ru

The article compares the political views of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, well-known conservative statesman of Russia, with the main tendencies of the development of Western political thought in the second half of nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pobedonostsev’s image of the autocratic power, as it is shown in the article, depended heavily on his assessment of the contemporary social and political processes in the European countries. Being highly critical of the main tendencies of Western development, Pobedonostsev nevertheless perceived the Tsarist Russia as an integral part of the European world. He even tried, though unsuccessfully, to use the arguments of the Western conservative thought in his polemics with Russian opponents.

Keywords

Social order, image of power, parliamentary institutions, revolutions, K. Pobedonostsev.