Moscow-The Third Rome or the New Israel?

Abstract

ecent events in the former Soviet Union have stimulated the rethinking of many previously axiomatic notions about the past and present of Russia. This situation creates a propitious environment for the reexamination of received views of the Russian past, including the famous idea that sixteenth-century Russians thought of themselves as inhabitants of The Third Rome. This idea, which sometimes seems like the only idea that the general public knows about Muscovite Russia apart from the imagined character and reign of Ivan the Terrible, has helped to create the impression that Muscovite Russia was exotic and expansionist, a worthy predecessor of the evil empire that occupied people's attention in the 1980s and before. This image of Muscovy, in turn, promotes the notion in the minds of Russians and foreigners alike that Russia is destined by her Muscovite past to behave in certain ways. Most specialists in the Muscovite period of Russian history are already aware that the conventional notion of the Third Rome theory as an early justification for Russian expansionism is badly flawed; the idea continues nevertheless to remain popular among nonspecialist writers. This article will point out briefly the relative scarcity of evidence for the Third Rome theme in Muscovite sources, especially in sources that originated before the 1590s. Most of our attention, however, will be devoted to exploring a complementary theme, a theme that is overwhelmingly better represented in the source base than the Third Rome idea, but that answers the same basic question about the self-image of the Muscovite state: the idea of Russia as a New Israel. Both themes were products of the Muscovite perception of history as a succession of chosen peoples: Israel to Roman Empire to Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) to Muscovy. (Other lists of chosen peoples were also available,