Care for the Poor as a Factor of Russia’s Domestic Policy

Tatyana Evgenevna Pokotilova,Anzhelika Anatolyevna Sergeeva,Lubov Konstantinovna Ulibina

doi:10.7596/taksad.v8i2.2147

Tatyana Evgenevna Pokotilova, Anzhelika Anatolyevna Sergeeva + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v8i2.2147

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Abstract

The article deals with the problem of genesis and evolution of such a factor of Russian domestic policy as care for the poor. By the particular historical examples it is shown how, under the struggle for power between secular and religious authorities, in the period of completion of the unification of the Russian lands and the establishment of autocracy, the idea of care for the poor promoted by the church developed into ideology. As a church thesis on the necessity to take care of each other and give alms, it provided an opportunity to use the ideology and traditions of charity established in Old Russian society not only for harmonizing and stabilizing social relations and mitigating socio-economic contradictions but also for strengthening the position of the state in struggle for property and power against the Russian Orthodox Church. The continued aspiration of the church to defend its privileges through the ideology of care for the poor as a major means of struggle alongside the manipulation of the idea of care for the poor on the part of the state led to strengthening the patriarchal thesis of poverty blessed by the God in Russian public consciousness.

Highlights

IntroductionToynbee’s point of view, who singled out Orthodox Christian civilization (in Russia) among 21 civilizations, civilization is a closed society characterized by a set of determinative features
The issue to be studied in this article is associated with the direct involvement of both the secular authority of the Old Russian State that completed the unification of the Russian lands and the Russian Orthodox Church into its historical realization
In the implementation of this political program a special place was occupied by the controversy about the legal regime of the Russian Orthodox Church and its economic independence

Summary

Introduction

Toynbee’s point of view, who singled out Orthodox Christian civilization (in Russia) among 21 civilizations, civilization is a closed society characterized by a set of determinative features. He considered religion (and the form of its organization) and territorial basis as the most stable criteria and proved that civilization develops by means of "challenge and response". The authors of this article intend to give reasons for the further study of the history of Russia as history unique in its way by considering the phenomenon of care for the poor as one of the factors of domestic political life of the Old Russian State that, in its turn, determined one of the civilizational features of Russia

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