Zealots and Indulgers: Five Centuries of the Russian Debate on Power

Abstract. The article is an introduction to the main theme of the issue dedicated to various aspects of the centuries-old polemic of Russian intellectuals about pragmatics and axiology of politics. As an allusion problematizing this topic, the title of the once popular novel by D.L. Mordovtsev, dedicated to the conflict of supporters and opponents of Petrine reforms, was chosen, in which the author saw the continuation of the Russian dispute on power: should it serve people, or, vice versa, a person is obliged to sacrifice himself to the Moloch of the autocratic power; is it appropriate for a ruler to obey moral and religious imperatives (“ideals”), or the pragmatics of power (“realism”) is the justification for him? Considering this conflict from the standpoint of intellectual history and discourse analysis, the author looks at this polemic, which began long before Peter the Great and has not been completed until now, one of the key themes of the Russian socio-political thought. At the same time, to apprehend the essence of this debate, it is important to understand not only the positions and motivations of the disputers, but also how the state itself influenced the course of this discussion. In this regard, an event that took place exactly five centuries ago has a special symbolic significance: in 1522, the direct interference of the authorities stopped the polemic of the “Iosifites” and the “Nonpossessors” – the first Russian ideological and political discussion, which was allowed to continue exactly until one of the parties convinced the authorities of their readiness to be its “indulgers”. This is exactly how Andrei Kurbskii, who considered the defeat of the Non-possessors as a harbinger of the Oprichnina, called the henchmen of the authorities, contrasting them with “zealots” – nonconformists, people guided not by interests, but by values.

Keywords: Russian socio-political thought, pragmatics and axiology of power, D.L. Mordovtsev, Petrine reforms, Andrei Kurbskii, Iosifites and the Non-possessors, Metropolitan Daniel, Oprichnina.