Suchergebnisse

Don't lead the people to expect miracles. It is necessary to expunge from people's minds a belief in the "good tsar," in the assumption that someone at the top will impose order and organize change–Mikhail Gorbachev, 1988The idea of the "good tsar" originated in Muscovite times and obviously has since become a commonplace of Russian political culture. However, Gorbachev's statement does not really define a "good tsar" but what should instead be called a "reforming tsar," a term that more aptly characterizes the changed expectations of a ruler in the Imperial period of Russian history