Critique of Parliamentary Democracy in Russia at the End of the Nineteenth Century: Constantin Pétrovitch Pobedonostsev, Theorist of Autocracy
2005; Presses Universitaires De France; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2102-5177
Autores Tópico(s)Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation
ResumoIn spite of the so-called liberal reforms of the sixties, the Russian empire was still ruled at the end of the XIXth century by a monarch who was entitled : « Tsar and Autocrat of all the Russias ». In addition, the emperor was the defender and the guardian of the orthodox faith. – In 1881, tsar Alexander IInd was murdered. Since then, Konstantin PetroviA, Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), high prosecutor of the Holy Synod and also very close to the new monarch (Alexander IIIrd ), has embodied the will of maintaining autocracy. In his Reflections of a Russian Statesman (English transl. : 1898), he criticizes every institution of liberal democracy : separation between Church and State; universal voting and speaches around national sovereignty ; free and compulsory education; freedom of press ; popular jurys in courts ; etc. – However Pobedonostsev stays a subject of interest considering his stand about what Western democracy implies : 1o / tyranny of parties; 2o / politician’s combinations; 3o / hypertrophy of the ego; 4o / levelling-down of people’s minds under a press uncontroled power.
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