The Sacralisation of the Battle of Poltava in the Eighteenth-Century Russian Empire

Maksym Yaremenko

doi:10.36253/studi_slavis-11551

Abstract

Shortly after its completion, the Battle of Poltava became a key symbol of Russian imperial ideology. Yet the successful completion of the military campaign in Poltava acquired the status of a sacred event only in the last decades of the 18th century. In this article I investigate both the reasons why during Catherine ii’s reign this military event was granted its own entry in the Church calendar and the internal and external affairs that encouraged the process of sacralisation of the victory over the Swedes by the synodal Church. I argue that the analysis of the Poltava victory as a sacred symbol, which has been largely disregarded by historians, allows us, inter alia, to better assess the mobilising role of the Church feasts in the 18th-century Russian imperial policy.

Highlights

The calendars published in the late eighteenth-century Russian Empire, and assigning one date out of the year for each and every canonised saint to be remembered, included over 600 non-movable feasts
This paper aims to bridge this knowledge gap and demonstrate that such an investigation allows us to better comprehend the ‘mobilising role’ of Church holidays in the eighteenth-century Russian imperial policy: these proved to be, powerful and effective strategies for motivating and engaging the Orthodox population
The second entry is the date of the Poltava ‘victory’, which came to be included in the Church calendar under Catherine ii, and the specific ecclesiastical strategies which I mentioned above were used by the monarchy during the entire eighteenth century

Summary

Introduction

The calendars published in the late eighteenth-century Russian Empire, and assigning one date (or several dates) out of the year for each and every canonised saint to be remembered (svjatcy), included over 600 non-movable feasts. It goes without saying that appealing to God for His help neither turns a profane into a sacredly charged event nor can transform it into a Church feast, and even more so in the premodern period. It can be understood from the passage above that the celebration for the success of Poltava was not being commemorated because of the work of the heavenly Powers (as, for example, in the case of the miraculous appearance of icons and the alike), but essentially as a strategic victory reaffirming tsarist authority. This paper aims to bridge this knowledge gap and demonstrate that such an investigation allows us to better comprehend the ‘mobilising role’ of Church holidays in the eighteenth-century Russian imperial policy: these proved to be, powerful and effective strategies for motivating and engaging the Orthodox population

Commemorating the Battle of Poltava

The Battle of Poltava

Concluding Remarks

Brikner, Vojna Rossii s Šveciej v 1788-1790 godach, Sankt-Peterburg 1869

Proskurina, Imperija pera Ekateriny ii: literatura kak politika, Moskva 2017