‘Holy Russia’: The story of the concept’s development in English literature (1870–1910)

Abstract

The concept of ‘Holy Rus’ [‘Svyataya Rus’] starts to play a pivotal role in the processes of national self-identification that occupy Russian intellectuals in the first half of the 19th c. It gains a special kind of multidimensionality in the literature of the day, with the motif of personal responsibility for proximity to God and adherence to the ideal of holiness coming to the foreground. The core of the English concept of ‘Holy Russia,’ in use by the British since the 1870s, finds itself in stark opposition to contemporary meaning of the ‘Holy Rus’ concept. Its original meaning was largely defined by the specifics of Anglo-Russian political relations. At the same time, its core is consistent with peripheral meanings of the contemporary Russian concept: the image of an aggressive militaristic empire it creates and promotes shows clear parallels with public speeches of A. Herzen and M. Bakunin. By the end of the 19th c., the concept of ‘Holy Russia’ develops a new semantic layer that incorporates elements corresponding to both liberal and conservative meanings of the original concept in its contemporary form.