Third Rome
The expression " Moscow , Third Rome " ( Russian Москва - третий Рим ) is used in the 16th century in three letters from Philotheus (Filofei), star of the Pskov Eleazar monastery, to Grand Duke Vasily III. , to the clerk Misjur Munechin and to Ivan the Terrible . Since then, this phrase has been taken up again and again as an alleged state theory to underpin Russia's claim to power .
First and Second Rome
First Rome is the city of Rome as the center of the Roman Empire . The fall of Rome is equated with the adoption of the Roman Catholic Faith when Rome became the center of the Roman Catholic Church . Constantinople is regarded as the Second or New Rome, or the Holy Roman Empire as the successor to the Western Roman Empire . Chance also includes the Papal Papal States as the second Rome.
concept
Originally, the concept of the “Third Rome” was to be understood less imperial than apocalyptic . According to this idea, the Principality of Moscow was the last little remnant "in the wilderness" of the once great Christian civilization, after heresy had spread everywhere else . Both Catholicism and Islam were seen by many Orthodox as heretical branches of the Judeo-Christian tribe. Moscow was compared to the seven thousand Israelites who, according to the account in the biblical Book of Kings, had refused to worship the Ba'al in the time of the prophet Elijah . Only over time did this idea change into a great empire idea.
development
The Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir I married Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II in 989 , and converted to the Greek Orthodox faith. With him, his Russian subjects were also Christianized. Since the fall of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Empire , the Russian Orthodox Church has viewed Moscow as the Third Rome, i. H. as the center of Orthodox Christianity . The marriage of Grand Duke Ivan III. with Sofia Palaiologa , niece of the last Byzantine emperor , Constantine XI. Palaiologos (1448–1453), underlined Moscow's position.
Origin of the term
After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453, the Grand Duke of Moscow was the leading representative of the Orthodox Christians. This also underpinned Moscow's position of power ideologically. The theory of the Third Rome arose from this and was constructed among others by the monk Filofei around 1500 after the historical events. In this theory Filofei also describes the genealogical connection through the marriage of Ivan III. with Sofia Palaiologa. Sofia is said to have embodied the Byzantine tradition in person and allegedly spread the Byzantine culture at the Moscow court through Greek and Roman companions. With the marriage, the Byzantine court rite as well as the coat of arms with the double eagle and the title Tsar were introduced as symbols of the Orthodox imperial power.
Problems of the term
This theory was only written down later (around 1510) by Filofei and was based on historical events.
Sofia had two brothers (Manuel and Andreas ), Ivan III. could therefore not assert any inheritance claims to the Byzantine imperial throne. Her brother Andreas even sold his Byzantine inheritance claims to a Spanish grandee in 1483 and again to King Charles VIII of France in 1494 .
It should also not be forgotten that Sofia was not Greek Orthodox when she came to Moscow, but belonged to the Uniate Church . She had never seen Byzantium, so it is unlikely that she brought the Byzantine court ceremony to Moscow. The double-headed eagle did not appear in Byzantium until the first half of the 14th century and was never a direct symbol of rule of the Byzantine emperor. The ruler was always on coins and seals. In the west, however, the double-headed eagle appears very soon. It is not possible to determine exactly when Ivan III. used the eagle in his seal. It was not until Vasily III. used it for good. The title Tsar for the Moscow Grand Duke can be traced back to earlier times, but initially had a stylistic function. In the report on the Council of Florence , the title is used for Vasily II . The title of Tsar was officially mentioned for the first time in the 1474 armistice with Livonia . There Iwan III. and his son called the Tsar. Nevertheless, the title Ivan III changes. something, instead of calling himself lord as before , he more and more often calls himself ruler .
The supporters of the idea
Since the idea of Moscow as the heir to Byzantium and thus the Third Rome was only written down later, especially after the reign of Ivan III. Followers of this idea. For Ivan III. and Wassili III. Tsar meant nothing more than "great ruler". Ivan III did not think of assuming the universal inheritance of the Byzantine emperor, but mainly refugees from Byzantium and Serbia saw the "refuge of orthodoxy" in the Moscow Empire, as it was the only representative of the Orthodox Church to act freely. The development of this ideology comes from the monastic area (Filofej von Pskow / Pleskau). Archbishop Feofil was with Ivan III's policy. dissatisfied. In 1478 the church had to hand over many lands to grand dukes and in 1479 Ivan III's visit ended. in Greater Novgorod with the arrest of Feofil.
After the monk Filofei, Moscow is the third Rome as well: “... there will not be a fourth” (... четвёртому не быти), because the end of the world would be near.
effect
The naming of Saint Petersburg in 1703 by Peter the Great should be placed in this context.
The political scientist Jörg Himmelreich pointed out that the understanding of Russian history as a continuous part of salvation history shaped the political systems not only of the tsarist empire but also of the Soviet Union and, with the rule of Vladimir Putin, shaped Russian state thinking more than ever:
“As in the centuries of the past, the Orthodox Church is again the servant of her master. This centuries-old state ideology of the Orthodox Church is deeply engraved in Russian rule psychology [...] Even Soviet communism bore Orthodox rule features. In the end it was nothing more than an earthly ideology of Russian orthodoxy transformed into the secular and political, as the monk Filofej had formulated it 400 years earlier. The messianic expectation of salvation of the "Third Rome" corresponds to the worldly idea of liberation of communist ideology. To be in possession of the ultimate absolute truth alone as the “last Rome” of Christianity refers to the totalitarian claim of Soviet communism. Just as Russian orthodoxy has served since Vladimir's baptism in 988 only to disguise the goals of political power under Russian rule, so under Stalin the ideology of Soviet communism was only a makeshift moral cover of naked violence. Orthodoxy and Soviet communism, as twins, have been the main source of legitimation for Russian autocracy and Russian expansion for a millennium. [...] So the historical, orthodox ideology of rule is once again the gold ground for Putin's autocratic regime and his revived Russian expansionism "
See also
literature
- Wilhelm Lettenbauer: Moscow, the third Rome. To the history of a political idea. Munich 1961.
- Hildegard Schaeder: Moscow the third Rome. Studies on the history of political theories in the Slavic world . Darmstadt 1957.
- Illya Kozyrev: Moscow - the third Rome: a political theory with its implications for the identity of the Russians and Russian politics. Cuvillier, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-86955-625-3 (also dissertation at the University of Vechta 2009).
- Hans-Heinrich Nolte , Wolfgang Vetter: The rise of Russia to a major European power , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-12-429900-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Himmelreich: Putin's servant. The Russian Orthodox Church and its mission Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 2, 2015
