The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome: Texts and contexts

Published Date:

 

For citation: The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome: Texts and contexts, in Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana. 2023. № 2. Pp. 67-98. DOI https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu19.2023.205

Title of the article

The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome: Texts and contexts

Authors

Dmitriev, Mikhail Vladimirovich — Dr. Sc. in History, Professor, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, Orc ID 0000-0002-4101-8755, Scopus ID 38761280700, SPIN-code 7730-6875; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Bulanin, Dmitriy Mikhailovich — Dr. Sc. in Philology, Chief Researcher, Institute of Russian Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House), St. Petersburg, Russia, Orc ID 0000-0002-5480-7964, Scopus ID 56146532400, SPIN-code 8372-1469; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Gurianova, Natalia Sergeevna — Dr. Sc. in Historys, Chief Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation, Orc ID 0000-0002-8957-2018, Scopus ID 57222243564, Spin код 1840-4214; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sirenov, Aleksey Vladimirovich — Dr. Sc. in History, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Director, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, Orc ID 0000-0002-2862-7214, Researcher ID J-8623-2013, Scopus ID 26034767300, Author ID 76889; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Korenevskiy, Andrey Vitalievich — PhD in History, Head of the Department of Russian Medieval and Modern History, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Orc ID 0000-0002-0617-121X, Scopus ID 57218995590, SPIN-code 4928-2273; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In the section  Commentarii / Статьи
Year 2023 Issue 2 Pages 67-98
Type of article RAR Index UDK; BBK UDK 279.99+2-475.5+821.161.1;
BBK 86.372.81+83.3(2=411.2)4 
Index DOI https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu19.2023.205
Abstract The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome, defined five centuries ago by the monk of the Pskov Eleazar Monastery Filofei, is considered as one of the most identifiable literary images of Russian history. At the same time, there is an incredible dispersion of appraisals and opinions in its perception and comprehension — both among professional historians, philologists and philosophers, and in public discourse. This concept has been seen and continues to be seen at various epochs and up to the present day as the key to guess a riddle of the Russian national character and the embodiment of Russia’s age-old hostility towards the West, a mystical epiphany about its soteriological mission and the doctrine of the world domination of the emerging empire. Some scholars consider the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome to be a kind of quintessence of «Russianness», others — a reflection of common Christian and pan-European ideological trends; some investigators look at Filofei as a brilliant thinker-innovator, others completely deny him any creative singularity. On this basis, we have invited experts in the history of Russian political thought to answer the following questions: how unique is the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome, and is it exclusively a fruit of the Russian medieval intellectual environment, to what extent can monk Filofei be considered the author of the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome, what is the fundamental novelty of his concept does it mean that Filofei’s theory did not receive a response among his contemporaries, and if so, why, what are the similarities and differences in its understanding by Filofei himself and people of those epochs when receptions of this idea were undertaken — in at the end of the 16th and 17th centuries, in the 19th century, in contemporary times, and etc.
Keywords Moscow as the Third Rome, Filofei, Byzantium, the New Jerusalem, the New Israel, Holy Rus’, eschatology
Full text version of the article Article language  Russian
Bibliography

Bloch, Marc. Apologiya istorii ili Remeslo istorika [Apology of History, or the Historian’s Craft]. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1986. 257 p. (in Russian).

Fedotov, Georgiy Petrovich. Stikhi dukhovnye: Russkaya narodnaya vera po dukhovnym stikham [Spiritual Poetry: Russian folk faith in spiritual poetry]. Moscow: Progress, Gnosis Publ., 1992. 68 p. (in Russian).

Kallis, Aristotle. The «Third Rome» of Fascism: Demolitions and the Search for a New Urban Syntax, in Journal of Modern History. 2012. Vol. 84. No 1. Pp. 40–79.

Khunchukashvili, David. Die Anfänge des letzten Zarentums. Politische Eschatologie in der Moskauer Rus’ zwischen Byzanz und dem Heiligen Römischen Reich [The Beginning of the Last Kingdom.Political Eschatology in Muscovite Rus’ between Byzantium and Holy Roman Empire] Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. (Europa im Mittelalter. Abhandlungen und Beiträge zur historischen Komparatistik. Т. 42). 417 р. (in German).

Kloss, Boris Mikhailovich. Ocherki po istorii russkoy agiografii XIV–XVI vekov [Essays on the History of the Russian Hagiography of the 14th – 16th Centuries], in Kloss, Boris Mikhailovich. Izbrannye trudy [Selected Works] Vol. II. Moscow: Yazyki russkoy kul’tury Publ., 2001. 488 p. (in Russian).

Korenevskiy, Andrey Vitalievich. Klyuchevyye mifologemy russkoy srednevekovoy religiozno-politicheskoy mysly v slovesnykh, vizual’nykh i prformativnykh tekstakh: Ot Novogo Ierusalima k Novomu Gradu Konstantina i Tretyemu Rimu [The Key Mythologems of the Russian Medieval Religious-political Thought in the Verbal, Visual and Performative Texts: From the new Jerusalem to the New City of Constantine and the Third Rome], in Teoriya «Moskva — Tretiy Rim» v slovesnykh i vizual’nykh obrazakh [The theory of Moscow as the Third Rome in verbal and visual images. Legends and reality]. Moscow: KURS Publ., 2022. Pp. 12–52. (in Russian).

Kostof, Spiro. The Third Rome: The polemics of architectural history, in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 1973. Vol. 32. No 3. Pp. 239–250.

La Pira, Giorgio. Mosca e Roma [Moscow and Rome], in Milig G. Gli anni messinesi e le «parole vita» di Giorgio La Pira [Messina Years and «Life Words» of Giorgio La Pira]. Messina: Intilla editore, 1995. Pp. 227–230. (in Italian).

Lamansky, Vladimir Ivanovich. Rossiya uzhe tem polezna slavyanam, chto ona sudchestvuyet [Russia is Already Useful to the Slavs Because It Exists], in Lamansky, Vladimir Ivanovich. Geopolitika panslavisma [Geopolitics of Panslavism]. Moscow: Institut russkoy tsivivlizatsii Publ., 2010. Pp. 432–462. (in Russian).

Lidov, Aleksey Mikhailovich. Ierotopia. Prostranstvennye ikony i obrazy-paradigmy v vizantiyskoy kul’ture [Ierotopia. Spatial icons and images-paradigms in Byzantine culture]. Moscow: Dizain. Informatsiya. Kartografiya Publ., 2009. 350 p. (in Russian).

Litovchenko, Elena Viktorovna. Captatio benevolentiae in Late Antique epistologaphy as a means of preserving communication of the intellectual elite, in Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Istoriya [Messenger of Perm State University. History]. 2022. No 4 (59). Pp. 11–17.

Rowland, Daniel. Moscow — the Third Rome or the New Israel, in Russian Review. 1996. Vol. 55. P. 591.

Rozov, Nikolay Nikolayevich. Povest’ o belom klobuke kak pamyatnik obscherusskoy publitsistiki XV v. [The Tale on the Whitw Cowl as the monument of all-russian publicism of 15th c.], in Trudy otdela drevnerusskoy literatury [The Works of the Department of Old-Russian Literature]. Vol. 9. Moscow; Lennigrad: Nauka Publ., 1959. Pp. 178–219. (in Russian).

Schettini, Glauco. Building the Third Rome: Italy, the Vatican, and the New District in Prati di Castello, 1870–1895, in Modern Italy. 2019. Vol. 24. No 1. Рp. 63–79.

Shakhmatov, Aleksey Aleksandrovich. Zhitiye knyazya Vladimira: Tekstologicheskoye issledovaniye drevnerusskikh istocnikov XI–XVI vv. [The Life of Prince Vladimir. Textual Study of Old-Russian Sourses 11th – 16th Centuries]. St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin Publ., 2014. 384 p. (in Russian).

Sinitsyna, Nina Vasilyevna. Tretiy Rim: Istoki i evolutsiya srednevekovoy kontseptsii (XV–XVI vv.) [The Third Rome: The genesis and evolution of the Russian medieval conception (15th – 16th centuries)]. Moscow: Indrik Publ., 1998. 416 p. (in Russian).

Soloviyev, Vladimir Sergeevich. Panmongolizm [Panmongolism], in Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeevich. Stikhotvoreniya i shutochnye pyesy [Poetry and Comic Plays]. Leningrad: Sovetskiy pisatel’ Publ., 1974. Pp. 104–105. (in Russian).

Stefanovich, Piotr Sergeevich. Inok Filofey i Rossiyskoye tsarstvo [The monk Filofey and Russian Tsardom], in Drevnyaya Rus’. Voprosy medievistiki [Ancient Rus’. Issues of Medieval Studies]. 2003. No 1 (91). Pp. 133–140. (in Russian).

Strémooukhoff, Dmitriy Nikolaevich. Moscow the Third Rome: Sources of the Doctrine, in Speculum. 1953. Vol. 28. No 1. Pp. 84–101.

Stremooukhov, Dmitriy Nikolayevich. Moskva — Tretiy Rim: Istochniki doctriny [Moscow — the Third Rome: The Sources of Doctrine], in Iz istorii russkoy kul’tury [From the History of the Russian Culture]. Vol. II. Book 1: Kievan and Muscovite Rus’Moscow: Yazyki russkoy kultury Publ., 2002. Pp. 425–441. (in Russian).

Tikhomirov, Mikhail Nikolayevich. Filosofya v Drevney Rusi [Philosophy in Old Rus’], in Tikhomirov, Mikhail Nikolayevich. Russkaya kul’tura X–XVIII vekov [The Russian culture of 10th – 18th centuries]. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1968. Pp. 90–172. (in Russian).

Tikhonyuk, Ivan Aleksandrovich. Izlozheniye paskhalii moskovskogo mitropolita Zosimy [Paschal canon of Metropolitan of Moscow Zosima], in Issledovaniya po istochnikovedeniyu istorii SSSR XIII–XVIII vv. [Studies of sources of history of USSR of 13th – 18th centuries]. Moscow: Institut of history RAS Press USSR Press, 1986. Pp. 45–61. (in Russian).

Toumanoff, Cyril. Third Rome. Genesis and significance of a politico-religious idea, in The Catholic Historical Review. 1955. Vol. XL. January. Pp. 442–447.

Ukolova, Viktoria Ivanovna; Shkarenkov, Pavel Petrovich. Obraz Rima v russkoy politicheskoy kul’ture [The Image of Rome in the Russian Political Culture], in Noviy istoricheskiy vestnik [The New Historical Messenger]. 2015. No 4 (46). Pp. 10–23. (in Russian).

Val’denberg, Vladimir Evgrafovich. Drevnerusskiye ucheniya o predelakh tsarskoy vlasti: Ocherki russkoy politicheskoy literatury ot Vladimira Svyatogo do kontsa XVII veka [Old-Russian doctrines on the limits of Tsar’s power: Essays in the Russian political literature from Vladimir the Saint to the end of the 17th century]. Moscow: «Territoriya buduschrgo» Publ., 2006. 368 p. (in Russian).

Wolff, Robert Lee. The Three Romes: The Migration of an ideology and the making of an autocrat, in Daedalus. 1959. No 2. Pp. 291–311.

Yarkho, Boris Isaakovich. Iz knigi «Srednevekovye latinskie videniya» [Medieval Latin Visions], in Vostok — Zapad: Issledovaniya, perevody, publikatsii [East — West: Studies, translations, publications]. Issue 4. Moscow: Nauka, Glavnaya redaktsiya vostochnoy literatury Press, 1989. Pp. 21–55. (in Russian).

Zolotukhina, Nataliya Mikhaylovna. Razvitiye russkoy srednevekovoy politiko-pravovoy mysli [The Development of the Russian medieval political-legal thought]. Moscow: Press of Legal Literature, 1985. 200 p. (in Russian).

Tags: Byzantium, COMMENTARII / ARTICLES, BULANIN D. M., cultural studies, byzantinistik, DMITRIEV M. V., KORENEVSKIY A. V. , Byzantine cultural influence, GURIANOVA N. S., SIRENOV A. V.

  • Hits: 45