The article analyzes the concepts of ‘samoderzhaviye’ (‘autocracy’) and ‘soglasiye’ (‘consent’) as value categories, which are the most important for the Russian spiritual and political thought of the 11th-17th centuries. Both of these concepts have undergone some semantic changes, but in general they have retained their semantic core and continue to influence in social and political discourse in the present day. Being value categories, ‘samoderzhaviye’ and ‘soglasiye’ were used in texts of different genres and by different authors, which allows us to trace their development in detail. The concept of ‘samoderzhaviye’, related with sacred meaning and a strict hierarchical structure, is in many ways similar to the modern idea of sovereignty. The concept of ‘soglasiye’ implies a kind of universal agreement, good-neighborly cohabitation within a single community. In Russian spiritual and political thought of the 11th–17th centuries the concepts of ‘samoderzhaviye’ and ‘soglasiye’, although not in an obvious way, were linked together: autocracy ensured the preservation of consent; consent gave a permission to autocracy. Both autocracy and consent were aimed at maintaining the power and independence of the Russian state. These and other conclusions were made based on the study of Russian texts of the 11th–17th centuries using the search database of the National Corpus of the Russian Language.

The article focuses on two important problems for contemporary Russian political science: the problem of understanding the concept of ‘statehood’ and the problem of building a model of Russian statehood. In the first case, the various points of view existing in Russian social and humanitarian knowledge are considered in detail, and on the basis of the Russian traditionalist conservative methodology, an original understanding of statehood as a stable axiological complex of spiritual and political principles is proposed. In the second case, based on the axiological nature of statehood, the research potential and limitations of possible modeling of statehood in general and Russian statehood in particular are clearly shown. At the same time, new methodological approaches have been developed that seem to allow continuing work on the development of normative and historical models of Russian statehood.

The article examines the evolution of the image of the Russian autocrat (samoderzhets) and the concept of autocracy (samoderzhavie) in the 1610s–1660s. It is examined how the idea of the monarch’s power was formed and changed in the social consciousness during the key period of the Romanov dynasty establishing. The research methodology is based on a comprehensive analysis of various sources: official documents, historical chronicles, other historiographical and literary monuments, and folk art.
The study shows that the legitimacy of the power of the first Romanovs was based on three key elements: dynastic succession, “people's will” and Divine election. It is revealed that in the official discourse there was a gradual shift in emphasis from popular election to the sacralization of power, the source of which was declared solely the will of God. The analysis of non-governmental sources demonstrates that all classes of Russian society have accepted this transformation, while expecting the autocrat to fulfill his duties as a defender of the faith, preserve “silence” and regather lands. Thus, autocracy (samoderzhavie) has established itself as a value core uniting the state and society.