 previous article in this issue | next article in this issue  |
|
Document Details : Title: Onorthodoxe aspecten van de orthodoxe kunst Subtitle: Politieke thema's op Russische en Oekraïense iconen (N.a.v. de canonisatie van tsaar Nicolaas II) Author(s): VAN DEN BERCKEN, Wil Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies Volume: 53 Issue: 1-2 Date: 2001 Pages: 31-67 DOI: 10.2143/JECS.53.1.1044 Abstract : Although icons are intended to be a representation of the divine and holy they have often been used for Church political and state ideological purposes. Byzantine emperors and Russian rulers have been portrayed on icons and frescos, from Constantine the Great until Nicolas II. The Mother of God has also been portrayed in a political context in Russian iconography, analogously to the Catholic Ukrainian and Polish nationalistic use of Mary. The article analyses the political content of twenty-five Russian and Ukrainian icons. It distinguishes four stages in the development of political iconography: 1. Spontaneous patriotic piety in the Middle Ages; 2. Explicit Church-state philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; 3. Nationalistic themes from the eighteenth century until 1917; 4. Icons of tsar Nicolas II after his canonisation in 1981 and 2000. The article expounds the difference between the naive medieval mixture of religion and politics and the intentionally ideological connotation of icons of Nicolas II. It shows how the iconography of the last tsar is accompanied by ideological hagiography in numerous booklets, which do not all have ecclesiastical approval but nevertheless are sold in church kiosks. The only real saint of the Romanov dynasty is Elizaveta Feodorovna, whose sainthood even goes beyond the ecclesiastical borders of Russian Orthodoxy. |
