The role of orthodoxy in Sergey Glinka's conservative model of social organization

In the present article, the author considers the role of Orthodoxy in the conception of social and political organization created by Sergey Glinka, a well-known representative of the conservative political wing during the reign of Alexander I, publisher of the patriotic journal Russky Vestnik, and author the famed Russian History at the beginning of the 19th century. Glinka's conservative project was a response to the French Revolution, which he thought was caused by the atheist ideas of European Enlightenment. In his work, Glinka offered a constructive alternative to Enlightenment ideas in the form of a “new” history focused on “righteous deeds and charitable institutions”. Its primary value was the threesome formula “God. Faith. Fatherland”. Glinka believed that Orthodoxy, as the historical faith of the people, formed the Russian national character and a special political order with evident conservative tendencies: the presence of powerful monarchical authority, a social hierarchy, and a highly valued role of the church and family in the life of the society. Glinka's ideas preempted the appearance of Sergey Uvarov's famous formula “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Populism.”