#20 - JRL 2006-218 - JRL Home
Russia Profile
September 28, 2006
Monarchist Past and Future
Comment by Andrei Zolotov Jr.
Editor, Russia Profile

Thousands of Petersburgers and millions of television viewers yesterday witnessed the culmination of a promotional campaign: A magnificent ceremony of reburial of the Danish-born Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna ­ the mother of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II. It is a fitting moment to speculate on the place of the monarchist idea in modern Russia.

First of all, I should state that I have not been part of any discussions of a monarchist plan with any group, however legitimate or even remotely proximate to the corridors of Russian power. Nor have I any evidence that such discussions have taken place or are under way.

Yet some recent occurrences suggest that the monarchist idea is not simply an element of the traditional Russian mentality. It is also a spice, if you will, in the country’s political kitchen in which the recipe for the next presidential term is being prepared. The reburial splendor is just the last episode in an ongoing row, which will not be settled soon.

About a month ago I received a strange package. Inside was a nicely printed, anonymous book with a gilded cover called Proekt Rossia, or Project Russia. It was mailed to me without a return address, but with a mysteriously self-important stamp: “To the leaders of public opinion. Special distribution.” Inside was a well-written, scathing, and intermittently very persuasive 380-page-long critique of democracy as a form of government. The main claim was that the power of the people is a myth, and in a democratic society, the blind masses are always ruled by mammon. The text then moves to an apology for monarchy in its authentic, autocratic form. “There is no greater authority than the power from God,” write the mysterious authors. “Whether or not we believe in God, such a conclusion is absolute.”

Above all, the authors argue that ­ in a sentiment shared by many Russians ­ the country needs a continuity of power rather than a constant change of government mandated by democracy. Such a change leads to a short planning horizon, theft, and further degradation of Russia. As an interim solution, until the society matures to the point where monarchy can be restored, it is worth keeping the current team rather than changing it. Sounds somewhat similar to those arguing in favor of President Vladimir Putin’s third term, doesn’t it?

The publisher, OLMA-Press, said in a preface that the book, which is rumored to have been conceived in the depths of the security services, was apparently written in 2004-2005 and distributed to the upper echelons of the Russian elite in September 2005, prompting a lively internal discussion in these circles. OLMA said it had failed to find the author but decided to go ahead with the publication, promising the authors a hefty fee were they to surface. The book is labeled to have a staggering print run for non-fiction in Russia -- 50, 000 copies.

A quick Internet search also located a website where the opus is published http://projectrussia.ru (allegedly on behalf of a young man who found the book on his four-star general father’s desk). I witnessed an alarmed reaction to the book from Alex Goldfarb, a pro-democracy activist and an associate of Boris Berezovsky. He cites CIA interest in Project Russia and suggests that Putin's Kremlin is connected to the initiative. Goldfarb has called on Russia’s liberals to rally against monarchist totalitarianism instead of mobilizing to oppose a bogus fascist threat.

I don’t know who the authors are and whether there is a connection to the Kremlin. But this monarchy promotion appears very well organized and well funded. Project Russia is a far cry from the amateurish monarchist leaflets of the early 1990s which were printed on bad paper, handed out by poorly dressed bearded men, quoting the motto from the early 20th century priest, St. John of Kronshtadt: “Democracy is in hell, and in the Heaven ­ Kingdom!”

Then last week the government-owned VTsIOM polling agency published figures stating the number of monarchy supporters in Russia has doubled over the past decade and now stands at about 10 percent. Twenty percent of Russians would support restoring the monarchy but don’t see a suitable candidate. A solid majority -- about 65 percent ­ are firmly against monarchy, saying that it is a past phase for Russia.

What is most interesting, however, is that younger, educated urbanites are more likely to favor the monarchy than their less educated elders, who were perhaps more influenced by Soviet anti-monarchist propaganda. This pattern is confirmed in similar polls conducted by other companies, such as the 2002 report from the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), which puts the number of monarchy supporters at around 20 percent. FOM found that representatives of higher socio-economic strata are most likely to be monarchists.

Some liberal commentators suggested the VTSIOM monarchy poll was requested by the Kremlin. I called a friend from VTSIOM. He said that the inclusion of monarchy questions into the standard regular poll reflects the personal interest of one VTSIOM researcher, who has been pushing for it for a long time. Colleagues were simply tired or resisting. “There was no order from above,” the friend said.

There is one identifiable pattern however: monarchy issues resurface in Russia towards the end of presidential election terms, when powers that be are preoccupied with the search for the successor.

I have heard from several sources that back in the 1990s monarchy was one of the scenarios seriously considered in the Kremlin as a means of ensuring continuity of power for Boris Yeltsin and his entourage. At one point, there was a plan to grant some official legal status to one of the branches of the Romanov family. In 1998, after a lengthy, controversial, and inconclusive identification process, remains believed to be those of Tsar Nicholas II and his family (but not recognized as such by the Russian Orthodox Church, despite strong government pressure) were ceremoniously interned in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in the presence of President Boris Yeltsin.

In the second half of the 1990s, Yevgeny Kiselyov, then an influential anchor on Vladimir Gusinsky’s NTV channel, produced several documentaries on the Romanovs, prompting allegations that he was orchestrating a Kremlin-ordered pro-monarchist campaign.

Kiselyov confirmed in a telephone interview that he had heard from several prominent figures (including film director Nikita Mikhalkov and oligarch Boris Berezovsky) that a constitutional monarchy would be the best regime for Russia. However, Kiselyov also said NTV coverage of the Romanovs simply arose on slow news days. He adamantly denied receiving any requests from Yeltsin’s inner circle asking him to popularize the idea of monarchy: “It is just a story that’s interesting and it sells well ­ it generates good ratings.”

So, maybe the answer is that there is no planning under way and monarchy keeps returning to the public scene simply because it sells well? Perhaps the explanation is that royal families are celebrities similar to pop stars? Maybe OLMA-Press simply wants to make money on Project Russia?

But why does the monarchist idea sell so well? How many miles of opinion columns discuss the lack of democratic tradition in this country? There is an opinion that Stalin saw himself as an emperor of a distorted Communist version of the Russian Empire; others note the disproportionately strong presidency and the fact that the 1993 constitution bestows upon the head of state more powers than Tsar Nicholas had after 1905! Or take the very concept of VLAST ­ that impersonal, top-down alien force, which weighs down upon everything in this country ­ without which no Russian political or business discourse can take place and which we struggle to translate into English inadequately, as “power” or “authority.” Doesn’t it speak of the essentially monarchist mentality of my compatriots?

On the one hand, the degree of monarchist sentiment within the Russian Orthodox Church is astounding. Although the Church has officially declared that it is not affiliated with a particular form of government, Nicholas II, who was canonized under vast popular pressure in 2000, is one of the most venerated saints today. The hierarchy is ineffectively fighting a heresy within the Church which sees the slain emperor as a “co-redeemer” on par with Jesus Christ. The situation is such that I have heard a prominent priest exclaim at an internal conference: “We are becoming Ceaserodox instead of Orthodox!”

For the state, on the other hand, there is a fundamental, long-term unsolved question of legitimacy. After all, the Russian Federation is a successor to the Soviet Union, itself the result of a coup d’etat. The quest for continuity with historical Russia recalls the “new old” flag and coat of arms, the rebuilding of a throne hall in the Kremlin and the reburial of the Romanovs. But it doesn’t address the actual issue, which the restoration of monarchy would have solved. It would give direction and meaning to Russia’s development; it suggests the elusive national idea which the country’s elite has been unable to formulate during the past 15 years.

Yet any discussion of the monarchist idea in Russia leads to several major stumbling blocks. First, are we talking about a constitutional or an absolute monarchy? In the 1990s, the talk was about the constitutional one (6 percent are in favor according to the latest VTsIOM survey). Project Russia calls for the absolute one (3 percent support it in the VTsIOM poll). In a 2002 interview, Putin ruled out the former, but jokingly defended the latter. Second, would the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church be sufficient to legitimize a new form of government in the eyes of the country’s non-Orthodox and atheist minority? And third, who would be the new Tsar, when the Romanovs are too remote and divided? How do you convene today the new Council of the Estates to elect the new Tsar and what should the criteria be? Or do you elect the Constitutional Assembly according to the laws of 1917?

Take these questions, add more than 60 percent of those opposed to monarchy, and you realize that no matter how attractive the idea might be, no matter how organic it appears for the Russians almost 90 years after they lost their monarchy, its restoration is largely unrealistic. Perhaps Russians' attitude to monarchy should be similar to that of the Jews to the Temple of Jerusalem: We should mourn its loss every day without tryig to rebuild it.

But then again, as my monarchist friends say, when the right time comes, God will simply make manifest the Tsar.