{"id":5969,"date":"2015-10-25T19:46:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T23:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/?p=5969"},"modified":"2015-10-25T19:46:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T23:46:32","slug":"father-of-the-fatherland-a-modern-tsar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2015\/10\/25\/father-of-the-fatherland-a-modern-tsar\/","title":{"rendered":"Father of the Fatherland: A Modern Tsar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The concept of a \u201creforming tsar\u201d as a secular and progressive position is interesting, given the long history Russian rulership has with the Orthodox Church.\u00a0 Indeed, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century the tsar was a far cry from the parallel monarchs of Western Europe. He was assumed to be a protector of the lower \u201ccastes,\u201d and, bound in such a role, was unable to provide the domineering influence necessary of a true autocratic ruler to provide guidance.<\/p>\n<p>Peter the Great did away with the notion of the tsar as a servant of God, replacing it with the concept of subservience to the state as a whole.\u00a0 Such an ideological shift provided the motivational impetus necessary to seize the power and \u201cmodernize\u201d Russia, as it were.\u00a0 Peter set into place a concept that would become the crux of tsarship until the destruction of the position in 1917. With Peter\u2019s fascination with Western Europe, and the modernizing reforms that followed, came the idea among the Russian people that it was appropriate, if not necessary, for the tsar to take it onto himself to be a vessel for change.<\/p>\n<p>Cynthia Whittaker posits that is was the concept of the \u201creforming tsar\u201d that allowed the autocracy to survive so long, and abandoning the idea was what brought the position to an end.\u00a0 To be accepted as a worthy ruler of the people, the tsar had to be responsible for bringing innovation.\u00a0 In fact, many subsequent tsars claimed a connection between their own reforms and Peter\u2019s, to feed off of the legitimacy of his innovation.<\/p>\n<p>At the dawn of the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century, however, reform was no longer tied to Peter, but viewed as an intrinsic duty of the office of tsar.\u00a0 The concept of a single authority as the only political entity capable of fomenting change is reminiscent of the early Roman emperors, dictators to free the state from the floundering of a bloated and fractured ruling body. \u00a0The title \u201cMost Pious Tsar\u201d was shed in favor of \u201cFather of the Fatherland,\u201d a decisive move to represent the primacy of a tsar\u2019s mortal responsibilities over his religious ones.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting thought is the parallel between the concept of the tsar\u2019s duties as \u201cFather\u201d and the duties of a father in a traditional Russian household demonstrated to us in earlier sources.\u00a0 Both represent harsh realities of leadership and made use of a strong hand to instill discipline as the father saw fit.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/files\/2015\/10\/Peter-the-Great-Pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"245\" \/>Peter the Great, First Father of the Fatherland (1672-1725)<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker, Cynthia. \u201cThe Reforming Tsar: The Redefinition of Autocratic Duty in Eighteenth-Century Russia.\u201d\u00a0<em>Slavic Review<\/em>\u00a0no. 51 (1992): 77<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The concept of a \u201creforming tsar\u201d as a secular and progressive position is interesting, given the long history Russian rulership has with the Orthodox Church.\u00a0 Indeed, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century the tsar was a far cry from the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2015\/10\/25\/father-of-the-fatherland-a-modern-tsar\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104482],"tags":[110597,104638],"class_list":["post-5969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history253_earlyrussianhistory","tag-absolutism","tag-reforming-tsar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}