The Moscow Kremlin Museums held the scientific conference “Crises of Power in the Russian State of the 16th-18th Centuries: Reasons, Solutions”

Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Moscow Kremlin Museums Andrey Batalov and chairman of the conference, leading research scientist of the Department of Weapons and Horse Harnesses of the Moscow Kremlin Museums Vasily Novoselov
Exposition of publications of the Moscow Kremlin Museums’ library
Participants of the conference
Participants of the conference
Head of the Department of Weapons and Horse Harnesses of the Moscow Kremlin Museums Sergey Orlenko with a report “Revisiting Peter Alexeevich’s Enthronement in 1682”
Head of the Department of Numismatics and Archaeology of the Moscow Kremlin Museums Sergey Zverev with a report “The Reflection of 1741 and 1762 Coups D’Etat in Numismatics. Similiarities and Differences”
Head of the Department of Foreign Art Fyodor Panfilov with a report “In Search of Ancient Legitimacy: the Legend of the Monomakh’s Gifts in the 18th Century”

On 19-20 November 2024, the Moscow Kremlin Museums held a conference devoted to the studies of crises in the history of Russian statehood in the 16th-18th centuries and the strategies that power and society devised to overcome them.

The themes chosen for the conference were: the ideology of autocracy in Russian society and the factor of foreign interference in the history of Russian statehood in the 16th-18th cc., dynastic crises and succession of power, relations of authority and nobility, the role of guards in the period of regime change, the formation of the image of power and propaganda as the method of confirming rights to the throne.

Deputy Director for the Scientific Work of the Moscow Kremlin Museums Andrey Batalov addressed the guests with a welcoming speech.

“We are practically at that very place where the Russian history was made. Here we meet one paradox: despite all its opportunities, the power is extremely vulnerable. The carelessness towards this vulnerability led in the 18^th century either to the imprisonment of a legal monarch or to his assassination. Despite its wide chronologic and terminological frames, the conference's title narrows the theme. For this reason, the organisers exerted every effort to make all reports linked to the theme to a certain extent. I hope that everyone leaving this table would be satisfied with unexpected scientific knowledge since every round table or scientific colloquium is meant for only one thing - to multiply our conception of history,” noted Batalov.

Members of the staff of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, Institute of the Russian History of the Russian Academy of Science, Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, Russian State War-Historical Archive, History and Archive Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities spoke at the conference.

The first day of the conference finished with a guided tour round the exhibition “Legacy of Peter the Great and Coups D’Etat in the Russian Empire”, which is exposed in the venues of the Patriarch’s Palace and the Assumption Belfry.