The Sacralisation of the Battle of Poltava in the Eighteenth-Century Russian Empire

Abstract

Shortly after its completion, the Battle of Poltava became a key symbol of Russian imperial ideology. Yet the successful completion of the military campaign in Poltava acquired the status of a sacred event only in the last decades of the 18th century. In this article I investigate both the reasons why during Catherine ii’s reign this military event was granted its own entry in the Church calendar and the internal and external affairs that encouraged the process of sacralisation of the victory over the Swedes by the synodal Church. I argue that the analysis of the Poltava victory as a sacred symbol, which has been largely disregarded by historians, allows us, inter alia, to better assess the mobilising role of the Church feasts in the 18th-century Russian imperial policy.