Abstract
This paper tries to answer the question: To what extent is the conception of the Tsar's power that is present in emblematic Muscovite texts compatible with the concept of freedom of the individual? Then, we will attempt to situate our topic within the broader European context, wherein e.g. the demand for limited monarchic power is gestating, along with the idea of accountability being borne by a nation's leader, including the possibility of revolt, or even tyrannicide, against an unfit ruler, and the idea of a contract between the ruler and society as the foundation of the State's organization. Naturally we cannot overlook the fact that West European political and social thought is based on different foundations and historical experiences.
Regardless of its distinctive historical development, however, Muscovite Russia remains, in the cultural sense, a part of the European Christian sphere. In its literature, one will find heated polemics against Western heretics alongside a search for spiritual roots and for the beginnings of their own statehood in none other than Europe.