Autokrácia, abszolutizmus, isteni jogalap: a 16-17. századi moszkvai hatalmi ideológia fõ jellemzõi és tipológiája
Autocracy, absolutism, divine right: chief characteristics and typology of the 16-17th-century power ideology in Moscow

Summary/Abstract: According to the author of the essay, the Russian notion of power in the 16th and 17th centuries, on account of its differences in content and form, cannot and must not be described in a terminology characteristic of Western culture. Thus, the term ”political ideology” cannot be applied to the period in question – he proposes the use of ”power” ideology instead. For political issues were raised as religious issues, and they were discussed not in abstract treatises but in symbols. This is why the author, after D. Rowland, interprets ideology as a system of symbols. Most important of the symbols was the image of the prince as the image and likeness of God/or ruling under divine inspiration. Biblical lines, also occurring as proverbs, like ”The Tsar's heart is in God's hand,” or ”Fear God, respect the Tsar,” were key elements of the ideology of power. The second part of the essay considers the question why the Muscovite ideology of power cannot be called absolutistic. While absolutistic authors described the position of the monarch in legal (philosophical) terms (Roman Law, natural law, fundamental laws), their Russian contemporaries completely lacked this perspective. In what the Russian notion of power was similar to – but not identical with! – that of the Western one was the doctrine about the divine right of kings. In order to express the quality of the similarities and differences, the author proposes to use the following term for the Russian ideology of power in the 16th and 17th centuries: the legally unlimited divine right of Tsars, expressed mainly in theological symbols.

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