Moscow as the Third Rome: New Confirmations of Historical-Philosophical Concept

Session 7 “Historiosophy of the Russian Way”

My talk today will be quite short, but at the same time exhaustive. The topic is "The concept of Moscow as the Third Rome." It is quite popular because everyone knows it from school. But even the representatives of the so-called patriotic wing, the conservative wing, usually do not take it seriously. In the meantime, it has received a number of confirmations from a wide variety of historical points of view.

Since we are talking about the third, we should mention the first two Romes. The first Rome was the Roman Empire with Rome as its center, and the second Rome was Constantinople, the center of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is interesting to note that in the history of the Roman state, the Romaic, as the Byzantines called it, there has been a constant drift of the capital to the east. First from Rome to Constantinople. And then, when the Eastern Roman Empire was attacked from the west, and from the east, by the way, as well. In 1204, it was temporarily incapacitated as a state with its center in Constantinople, but in 50 years, it was reunited. The Nicaean Empire again occupied Constantinople and part of the Balkans. The only place that remained separated was the Empire of Trebizond with Trebizond in the center. The Empire of Trebizond was closely linked to the statehood of the Principality of Theodoro, located on the territory of the mountainous Crimea. It should be noted that the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 was followed by the fall of the Trebizond kingdom 10 years later, in 1461. The Principality of Theodoro was the last stronghold to fall. It did so in 1475. Here we have such a shift of the capital, a shift of the center to the northeast. By the way, I'm rather inclined to a moderately universalistic approach. I mean, I admit of course that every state, every civilization has a certain cultural specificity. Nevertheless there are some general patterns in world development. There are plenty of them. China has often experienced a similar situation. I will give you just one example of the capital of the Western Han. When the Han Dynasty was at the peak of its power, its capital was the city of Chang'an, now called Xi'an. And then, in 25 BC, the capital was to be moved to the east, where the state existed for no less than about 200 years. The tradition of the eastward shift of the centre is characteristic not only of the Roman-Romanic world, but also of the Eastern world.

Now let's move on to our history. Beginning with Novgorod and Ladoga, Russian statehood seems clear. After all, Kiev became a city that was to join a single Russian state a bit later. And the two most important trade routes, i.e., the route from the Varangians to the Greeks and the route from the Varangians to the Arabs, that is, the Volga trade route, still had Ladoga, Beloozero and Novgorod, that is, the North Russian lands, as their most important unit. As we know, Russia, as well as many other medieval states, went through a process of disintegration. Its center also shifted to the northeast, as we know. The Vladimir-Suzdal Principality was once the center of our state. Then Moscow rose on its basis. Kiev, historically the capital, became a minor city on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian state. Of course, it wasn't the last. But it wasn't the capital, to put it mildly. Well, we must remember that Andrei Bogolyubsky made Kiev an actual formal center as early as the 12th century.

Speaking about the family tree, it is clear about the Rurik dynasty. On the one hand, we know the story of Sophia Palaiologina, with no need to retell it once more. On the other hand, we know the story of Vladimir Monomakh. But the House of Romanov is much more interesting. The House of Romanov often appears in historical literature as a dynasty of lesser nobility that came to power by accident, through a consensus of rather heated negotiations in 1613. However, the Romanovs' story is not as simple as it may seem. We still don't know who the grandmother of the first Russian tsar was, because there were two possible mothers of Fyodor Romanov, or Filaret. His father had two wives, but not at the same time, of course, and so we do not know exactly which of them was Filaret's mother. Firstly, it might be Varvara Khovrina-Golovina. The Khovrins are obviously descendants of the Byzantine Gabras. And there is some evidence, including the letters of Andrei Kurbsky, who was much closer to the events of that time and who obviously knew the history of the Khovrins or Golovins in sufficient detail. The Gabras were a powerful Byzantine dynasty in close contact with the throne, although they never fully occupied it. Closer or farther away from time to time. Researchers of Crimea usually do not confirm the idea that the Gabras reigned in Theodoro, with Mangup as the capital, located in the mountainous territory of Crimea, Bakhchisarai district. Despite the fact that Inkerman is a city under the federal jurisdiction of Sevastopol. There are different opinions regarding whether the Gabras and Theodore were connected, or not. For example, a prominent Crimean professor Herzen thinks they were not. But the book History of the Principality of Theodoro: Greek Toponymy of Crimea by Panae͏̈t Kesmedži and Georgij Kesmedži states that rather they were. As for the Shuisky dynasty, here is the second person to be considered Fyodor Romanov's mother. The Shuisky dynasty was descended from Andrey Yaroslavich, the younger brother of Alexander Nevsky. The Nevsky dynasty was one of the Monomashichi line, descendants of Vladimir Monomakh, grandson of one of the Eastern Roman Emperors, Constantine Monomakh. Of course, you could argue that not everything depends on the dynasty, and I would agree, but it's really interesting to determine it. It is much more interesting that Russia, if you will, has preserved and carried through the centuries this tradition of being a large multinational state. Although the Russian Empire in its heyday was naturally larger than the Russian Federation today. In spite of the expansion of its territories, Russia was able to occupy large areas of Central Asia in the second half of the 19th century. They were later lost. But the Eurasian Economic Union and other economic organizations are still under Russia's influence. But most of the areas, such as Siberia and the European part of Russia, remain. Western countries have a different history. For example, the largest, most significant part of the British Empire, 13 colonies of the future United States, separated long ago, but at the beginning of the 20th century they were part of Great Britain in various statuses: as dominions, colonies, or mandated territories. So the territory was huge. But currently the British Empire only occupies the territory of the island, the north of Ireland, and some really small territories like the Falkland Islands, which are disputed with Argentina. And the British Commonwealth, now just the Commonwealth, is no longer Britain's backyard, because the Solomon Islands, for example, are willing to host Chinese military bases on their territory. In other words, the British Empire has really collapsed. Yes, the UK still has some influence. It's a pretty rich country. They may want to claim imperial status, well, let them want to, but there are neither opportunities nor control over territories, so the attempt to create a multinational British Empire has obviously not worked. The idea of exploitation of colonies and distancing from them has not been a success. At the same time, the Russian model, in my opinion, is quite successful. It goes back to the traditions of the Eastern Roman Empire, which goes back to the traditions of the United Roman Empire, and we can see that Russia in the 21st century is growing with new regions, and it's not bad. And the northern Black Sea region and the Sea of Azov will become, as the Romans would say, "Mare Nostrum" - "our sea". It's not that big. But still. It is already something. We cannot turn the Black Sea into "Mare Nostrum", because of Turkey in the south, etc. In other words, during my talk, on the one hand, we traced the continuity between the Rurikovichi dynasty and the House of Romanov and the Eastern Roman Empire. This continuity can be seen at every point of the Romanov family tree. On the other hand, we can say that the Russian statehood, its stability, and its geographical position also correspond to this model of the development of the Roman Empire and then the Eastern Roman Empire. Finally, we have touched upon an interesting phenomenon of the shift of the center to the east that Russia has experienced in history, if we go from Rurik and Oleg, annexed Kiev to the Novgorod state. In my opinion, this is one more proof that the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome has a rights to exist. Sure, it has a certain number of blind spots, as does any ideological concept, but it is nonetheless much more testable than a number of others.

Translated by Alena Mokicheva