Portrait of Russian Diplomat in Everyday Life of His Podillia Estate at the end of the 18th Century: Arkadii Morkov
Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to analyze the life of Arkadii Morkov, one of the leading Russian diplomats, to reproduce the content of the characteristic features of the worldview and legal thinking and behavior of representatives of the ruling elite of Russia during the period of expanding of the empire’s borders at the end of the 18th century, in a collision with the worldview beliefs and behavioral traditions of representatives of the privileged classes in the system of European political space.
The scientific novelty. The documentary sources reveal the peculiarities of the behavior of the Russian Empire’s leading nobles, who, having received large landholdings in Podillia gubernia, sought to establish the usual order of the Russian system of social and political relations as soon as possible, thus entering the irreconcilable conflict with the emancipated worldview and legal thinking, common among the estates elite and even among the lower strata of Right Bank Ukraine.
Conclusions. The commitment of modern Russians to a rigidly centralized system of political rule in their own state is, to a large extent, justly determined by their historical heritage. After all, a peculiarly Russian mechanism that traditionally underlies the construction and functioning of their society is the principle of the absolute dependence of social and political success/failure of all individuals (regardless of the level of their position in the hierarchy) on the level of trust/distrust on the part of the ‘first person’, or the inner circle close to the ‘first person’. At the same time, the complete dependence of even the ‘by blood’ noble and influential dignitaries on the ‘will and grace’ of the ‘first person’ is usually compensated by absolute autocracy within the territorial/administrative estates received ‘for faithful service’.
Such a worldview and legal paradigm of thinking and behavior, which is common to Russians, was and remains categorically unacceptable and even repulsive for the traditional European environment, in which, among others, the Polish and Ukrainian national worldview systems were formed. Since a person, feeling free, always pronouncedly respects his or her own individuality and always strives to ensure the preservation of personal freedom, as the main sign of human dignity and honor; and self-respect is also based on it.
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