Шапка Мономаха и шлем наследника: Репрезентация власти и династическая политика при Василии III и Иване Грозном
The Cap of Monomakh and the Helmet of an Heir. The Representation of Power and Dynastic Policy under Vasilii III and Ivan the Terrible

Summary/Abstract: This article re-examines the history of the most famous symbol of the Russian monarchy, the Cap of Monomakh, which is usually dated to the 14th century. For the first time in the historiography, the author studies the Cap in conjunction with the helmets commissioned by the princes of Moscow for their heirs, including the helmet of Ivan the Terrible (now kept in Stockholm) and the hel met of Ivan the Terrible’s heir Ivan Ivanovich from the Kremlin museums. The paper argues that the Cap and the helmets constituted a single set of dynastic headgear which accentuated the main priorities of the dynastic policy of Muscovite rulers: the continuity and succession of power. The reign of Vasilii III (1505–1533) was the formative period in the history of the ceremonial headgear. As a result of a dynastic crisis accompanying his ascensi on to the throne and the long lack of an heir in his family, Vasilii III (or his ideologists) embarked on a policy of recreating ancient non-extant headgear of his predecessors and imbuing it with new cultural meanings, like forged connections with Byzantium and Kiev. On the basis of a criti cal re-examination of written and visual sources about the treasury of the princes of Moscow, including royal wills, a little-known Western image of the Cap of Monomakh, and Timurid dynastic iconography, the author argues that the Cap was part of this “restoration policy” of Vasilii III. The Cap was created between 1505 and 1526 from parts of a dynastic helmet that originally belonged to Dmitrii Donskoi. The dynastic headgear of the princes of Moscow capitalised on the Mongol and Turkic traditions of representing supreme power. The reign of Ivan the Terrible (1533–1584) saw the introduction of new themes of Orthodoxy and piety into the ideological programme of the ceremonial headgear.

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