JOHN CAPODISTRIAS’ POLITICAL VIEWS

This article is devoted to the research of the political views of famous diplomat J. Capodistrias. Capodistrias’ political ideals were based on the ideas of the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment (Locke, Montesquieu and others). He considered that any facts have their roots in the past. Consequently he thought that the causes of the actual political events were hidden in the events of the Napoleonic Wars period. In Capodistrias’ opinion, the principal consequence of the Napoleonic Wars was the rise of the public opinion authority. He considered public opinion as the principal factor of the political process. So policy that has no public support is doomed to failure. Capodistrias was a partisan of the autocratic governance. At the same time he was the partisan of the adoption of constitution in European states. Such political views were popular among the Russian political elite. His ideas were close to the views of Emperor Alexander I, his teacher La Harpe, S. S. Uvarov, D. N. Bludov, N. M. Karamzin and many others.

political views, J. Capodistrias, monarchy, republic, constitution, public opinion, revolution, philosophy of Age of Enlightenment