Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on April 23, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute for a Russian History Workshop with Andrey Ivanov. Moderated by Catherine Evtuhov.
What constitutes an empire and who can be an emperor? The Latin title of “imperator” belonged originally to the Western, Eastern, and Holy Roman realms. This exclusivity came to an end in 1721, when Peter I proclaimed what became known as the world’s first non-Roman imperium, setting an example emulated later by Napoleon of France, Agustin de Iturbide of Mexico, and many others. Yet, while the tsar was the recipient of the new honor, Ukrainian archbishop Feofan Prokopovych (1677–1736) was its chief architect, overseeing both the ceremony and the legal-intellectual framework behind the establishment of Russia’s imperial title. This chapter will demonstrate how forging the new empire was closely tied to the breadth of Feofan’s polymathic scholarship. This undertaking drew on the intellectual synthesis of ancient pagan tradition, early Enlightenment’s political theories, Holy Roman jurisprudence, Lutheran theology, and the “pseudo-Roman triumph.”
