On the question of the Russian power distinctions: religious ideal principles and political practices

The article continues the discussion about the social nature of the Russian power. Under the conditions of formation of the new statehood of Russia, the revelation of factors of its stability is getting special importance. Conceptual metaphor "Russian power" appeared to be heuristically useful (in the interpretation of V.P. Makarenko, Y.S. Pivovarov and A.I. Fursov). Victor Makarenko sees in Russia the civilization typical for the East. In the basis of his understanding of the Russian power lies the idea of the "power-property". Yuri Pivovarov and Andrei Fursov consider Russia as a special civilization, which has no analogues neither in the East, nor in the West. In the basis of their interpretation of the Russian power lies the idea of the "power-coercion". The author shares the opinion about the Eastern path of Russia to civilization. Predominance of the state property is the quintessence of all the non-European societies, and Russia is not an exception in this regard. But the thesis that coercion as the way to transform the Horde-Muscovy power into the Russian one caused some objections. Oprichnina had played the important role in the struggle with the boyar opposition. However, the role of coercion in the matter of the country reformation should not be exaggerated. In order to understand the peculiar properties of the Russian power, it is necessary to come back to the consideration of great questions about Law, Truth and Justice. In this work there was given the substantiation of partial borrowing of the Ottoman and Byzantine state-legal order. Grand dukes tried to appear in the image of the redoubtable Eastern monarch, keeping justice by means of harsh treatment. The borrowing of the Orthodox cultural values started with acceptance of the Eastern trend of Christianity. Churchmen have firmly assimilated the idea of solidarity of secular and ecclesiastical powers as the foundation of the institutional structure of the Orthodox State. However, as a result of the Moscow interpretation of the Christian paradigm in Russia there was no place left for the dualism of Church and State. So, there was made the foundation for the supremacy of monarch. The main thesis of this article comes down to that the doctrine of the tsarist autocracy appeared on the Russian ground in the process of symbiosis of the Orthodox Christian and Muslim ideological elements. Borrowing the outside form of cultural patterns, the Russian State assimilated those fragments of cultural values that were necessary for the newly creating social order. In the basis of the Russian construction of power was put the myth "justice is the truth from the tsar". This is the key-point of the ontological status of power: initially "Russian power" was founded on the idea of truth, with the cessation of justice vindication the power was losing its legitimacy, but the enduring faith of people into "the truth from the tsar" each time had become the guarantee of its reproduction.

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