Электронная библиотека

This article studies how the apology of the politician came about in eighteenth-century Russia. According to this apology, courtiers integrated Christian ethics with political mastery. The concept of duty developed by Christian political theology presupposed observation of moral norms pending a reward from Providence. In Modern Europe, reactions to N. Machiavelli’s ideas advocating that the state’s interest be free from Christian morality led to devising what a courtier’s specific political skills would be that consisted in recurring to rhetoric to serve the state’s interests as well as his own while remaining a moral person. Texts written by eighteenth-century Russian politicians or their wingmen show an adaptation of elements of this approach. However, the development of such an apology of the politician was hampered by the conceptual foundations of the political culture of Russian monarchism, in which, according to E. Wirthshafter, morality stood against politics.