The Idea of Autocracy among Eighteenth-Century Russian Historians

Abstract

The idea of autocracy changed profoundly in eighteenth-century Russia. Among the educated elite, secular justification for power replaced religious sanction. Dynamic change legitimized the office rather than maintenance of stability. Rationalist arguments superseded acceptance based on tradition. The figure of the Russian autocrat as the equivalent of other European absolutist monarchs supplanted the image of an isolated and unique Orthodox ruler. The vast majority of Russians clung to the older views, but the Petrine reforms and Enlightenment ideals propelled a general movement among the educated public toward greater participation in political culture and prompted an unprecedented reappraisal of its central feature, the autocracy. Diplomats, clergy, bureaucrats, journalists, scientists, professors, men and women of letters, army officers, court personnel, even autocrats themselves joined the public discussion, causing a political watershed: for the first time, Russians engaged in sustained and relatively widespread discourse about their form of government and thus transformed the political environment.' The official documents, political treatises, histories and various literary genres in which this discourse unfolded reveal attitudes that run contrary to current assumptions, since historians over the past century focused either on oppositional individuals and groups or on the alienation of society from government. A fresh reading of the materials indicates widespread support for autocracy and demonstrates its function as a source of integration and cohesion among the educated elite.2 These Russians discussed autocracy's legitimacy, debated its feasibility, and elaborated so-