The article is focused on the role of the orthodoxy in the public presentation of the Russian monarchy under the Nicholas II (1894–1917). Author analyzes two public events connected closely with the orthodoxy, in which Nicholas II played a key role. The canonization of Serafim of Sarov in 1903 and the celebration of the Romanov Tercentenary in 1913 were conceived as a great public festivities which had to bring the emperor and the people together. Both events presented the tsar as very pious man who cared deeply for the people. However, the longterm effect of such presentation was dubious, because the ordinary people, mostly peasants, remained rather indifferent to the state ideology "orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality".
This study focuses on the issue of Russian conservatism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The author works in a multifaceted way with Alan Sked's work on British conservatism in the early 19th century and points out that the conclusions which Sked outlined for the British setting can also to some extent be applied elsewhere, specifically to the setting of the Russian Empire.