“Time has suffered a surprise”: the repressive politics of Nicholas I and the change of political languages

Abstract. The article is devoted to the analysis of the styles of political thinking that determined the way of action during the political crisis of December 1825. I trace the
agency of participants who used different political languages in response to the challenge of the era of mass politics, which displaced the political culture of the Napoleonic era. The uprising on Senate Square and the movement of the Chernigov Infantry Regiment are seen as a manifestation of a republican tradition that focused on ancient models of valor, active participation in the defense of freedom, and the laws as the main condition for freedom.

Keywords: chronotope, republicanism, Decembrists, history of political culture, Peterloo, Riego, Spanish Revolution of 1820, military revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Bonapartism