Political theology" in Elizaveta's Age: Legitimation of Elizaveta Petrovna's power in court sermons of the 1740s-1750s

The article deals with the ideology of legitimation of Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress of Russia, that was formed through the efforts of the hierarchs of Russian Orthodox church and court sermonizers in the 1740s-1750es. Though the middle of 18th century is widely considered to be the age of secularization in Russia, in fact, the religious ways of thinking and speaking about politics remained quite important. During the first decade of Elizaveta's rule, the number of printed sermons increased greatly, which mirrored the attempts of the new government to use "political theology" as an ideology for legitimation. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the main concepts and strategies of Elizaveta's "political theology" in order to improve our understanding of the political culture of 18th century Russia. The sources of the study are the complex of political sermons that were delivered at the imperial court by different authors in the 1740s-1750s; all of them were printed as separate books. The leading proponents of "political theology" under Elizaveta were such church sermonizers as Amvrosii (Yushkevich), Silvestr (Kulyabka), Porfirii (Kraiskiy), Simon (Todorskiy), Platon (Malinovskiy), Markell (Rodyshecskii), Alexey (Florov), Mikhail (Kozachinskiy). The ascension manifestos of Elizaveta combined different arguments in favor of legitimacy of the daughter of Peter the Great (testament of Catherine I, dynastic legitimacy, general desire of subjects, God's will), the theological approach to the legitimacy of Elizaveta soon became dominant with the efforts of the above-mentioned sermonizers. The court preachers were elaborating a new political language, based upon the Biblical analogies, presenting Elizaveta as new Judith or Deborah, and even comparing her to Jesus Christ. The same line of visual images was used to decorate the solemn entrance of the new empress to Moscow. The preachers were emphasizing the providential character of Elizaveta's ascension to power, while leaving all kinds of juridical legitimation (like the testament of Catherine I) almost totally neglected. In general, these sermons and panegyrics exploited four main strategies of legitimation of the power of the new empress: the providential origin of her power, the motif of sacrifice, the understanding of a palace coup as a miracle, and the Petrine cult and the rhetorical figure of embodiment (Elizaveta as a new Peter). This political ideology was peculiar, combined the religious tradition, the concepts of Baroque Catholicism (translated through Kiev) and the Russian innovations derived from the Westernization process.

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