The Problem of Political Leadership in Historical Retrospective

Abstract. This issue dedicated to political leaders in history and politics. We cannot ignore the phenomenon of political leadership itself and issues related to the context of the emergence of leaders/chiefs, the peculiarities of their formation, the influence of the environment and the system, etc. Researchers of the phenomenon of political leadership cannot help but recall the Soviet leaders (in our case, the leaders of the late Soviet period) and the images that have developed in modern historiography, especially since 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. Such dates provide an opportunity to once again discuss issues related to the problem of political leadership. The participants in the discussion also analyse the problem related to the image of a political leader. Some authors consider the issue of using images of the past in legitimizing a political leader and the influence of memorial culture on his position. At the same time, an attempt was made during the discussion to consider the image of a leader through the relationship of power between him and the political elite. Other authors consider it important to clarify the features of the image of a political leader in a modern national state and its transformation. Other authors found it important to show the process of becoming a leader and the influence of various circumstances on it. In general, we can note that the “image” in the course of the discussion becomes a common unifying thought, because any leader is, first of all, an “image of a leader”, and not the person as such. Addressing the issue of political leadership, each researcher can give his own answer to the question about the essence of power, the most significant leadership qualities; outline his understanding of the classification of political leadership, the degree of influence of various circumstances, situations and individuals on it. Intentionally we asked these questions, each of which may itself be the basis for a new discussion, a conference topic or a fundamental monograph. We will not give exhaustive answers to them, but we would like to once again clarify the positions of philosophers and historians regarding the questions of the essence and characteristic features of a political leaders in historical retrospect based on the consideration of various cases related to both the history of Russia and the history of the foreign countries.

Keywords: political leader, political leadership, image of a leader, historical analogies, power and society.