Populism: Divining the Future

I just read a charming piece at Quillette about the sacred calling of Russia, featuring Ivan the Terrible, who ended 200 years of the lamentation of Russian women under the Mongol horde. The idea is that

after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow was the last true seat of Christian orthodoxy. And there would be no other…

Therefore, the true salvation of humanity lay with holy Russia. And this idea, of Russia as a providential land chosen to save humanity, is at the very heart of both the Russian Empire, and, later, [Russian] communism. It’s deeply connected to the sacralization of power because it presents the Czar as the direct manifestation of God on earth — as Ivan the Terrible saw himself.

For, the fact is, it took a monster like Ivan the Terrible to send the Mongols back to Mongolia where they belonged.