“Live” Autocracy, Africa and Asia: The Interconnection Between Russia’s Domestic and Foreign Policy in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuriesстатья
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Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 20 декабря 2019 г.
Аннотация:This article focuses on insufficiently studied aspects of interaction between domestic and foreign policy in the Russian empire in the late
19th and early 20th centuries and the impact of popular ideas in society on
the foreign policy activities of the state. The article shows that in the 1880s,
the ruling upper echelon and conservative circles believed that so-called “live
autocracy,” a system based on the autocrat’s personal authority, the activities of his trusted advisers, and the tsar’s direct contacts with the “ordinary
folks,” should prevail in Russia. These ideas became popular at the same time
as the public developed a growing interest in remote and unknown countries,
specifically Ethiopia, where, as many conservatives held, a patriarchal monarchy predominated, with its people sharing many features inherent in Russian commoners (religiosity, loyalty to the monarch, etc.). In the 1890s, they
began to look for new “younger brothers” in Asian countries that presumably gravitated towards Russia (India, China, Tibet, Mongolia, etc.). In their
perceptions, the ruling classes were increasingly divorced from reality. Exposed to “live autocracy” influences, the administrative system was simultaneously eroded by voluntarism and arbitrariness, which eventually made
Russia become involved in a disastrous war with Japan.