Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality

[5] It was soon embraced by Nicholas and his establishment and gained wide public recognition, vocally supported by intellectuals like Mikhail Pogodin,[6] Fyodor Tyutchev,[7] and Nikolai Gogol.

[8] Defunct Nicholas I emerged as the Emperor in the wake of the Decembrist revolt; subsequent investigation proved that disloyalty was deeply rooted within the noble estate—the sole foundation of the House of Romanov.

Keen to eradicate the rebels and ensure his own physical security, Nicholas carefully studied proceedings of the Decembrists' investigation and was aware of defects in his predecessor's government that fueled the mutiny.

"[10] Nicholas, acting in line with his absolutist predecessors of the Age of Enlightenment, developed a state education system and completed codification of the law.

[5] Russia, according to his point of view, succeeded in the Napoleonic Wars while more advanced regimes failed, saving Europe from plunging into decay and atheism.

[1] In 1833 Uvarov forged the Emperor's program into a brief statement of ideology: It is our common obligation to ensure that the education of the people be conducted, according to Supreme intention of our August Monarch, in the joint spirit of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality.

I am convinced that every professor and teacher, being permeated by one and the same feeling of devotion to the throne and fatherland, will use all his resources to become a worthy tool for the government and to earn its complete confidence.

According to Uvarov's theory, the Russian folk (narod) were very religious and devoted to the Emperor, the Orthodox religion, and autocracy as unconditional bases of the existence of Russia.

The chief of Russian political police (the III Department of His Majesty's Personal Chancellery) A. Benckendorff wrote that "the past of Russia was wonderful, the present is splendid and the future is above all dreams".

[7] Nationality through empowerment of the people was not a choice from the start and became even less probable after the dreaded nationalist Revolutions of 1848 "reduced Nicholas to a state of almost catatonic fear".

[19] Stepan Shevyryov, editor of Moskvityanin magazine, asserted that "even if we did pick certain unavoidable blemishes from the West, we have on the other hand preserved in ourselves, in their purity, three fundamental feelings which contain the seed and guarantee of our future development.

[22][23][24][25][26] Faith Hillis of the University of Chicago has argued that Putin "wants to reconstitute the Russian Empire and its guiding ideologies, which were orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality—except now, under the power of a very sophisticated police state.

"[29] Foreign Policy journalist Michael Hirsh has stated that the policy "isn’t mentioned in Putin’s speeches and writings—he still likes to pretend Russia is a democracy—but it has been invoked by the far-right thinkers said to influence Putin, including Aleksandr Dugin, Lev Gumilev, Igor Shafarevich, Ivan Ilyin, Konstantin Leontiev, Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy, and others dating back 200 years.