Present-day etiquette proposed by professor Artsishevsky – at the Presidential Library video lecture hall

The recognized person of the national etiquette culture, Ivan Sergeevich Artsishevsky, noted at the beginning of the lecture that he never liked the word “etiquette”. Due to the fact that the majority means under it a set of rules on how to behave correctly in a given situation.

 “I give lectures almost every day, and everyone waits from the teacher for a set of rules. But etiquette is not an instruction on exemplary behavior, it is not just “will you be so kind to give me a plate” - this is first of all communication of people, during which everyone’s value system is exposed and allows you defining an important thing in a conversation or a behavioral model: “yours” or “someone else“ came into view for a few minutes or forever... In short, if in centuries past ethics meant a set of recommendations, today we consider etiquette as a system of multi-level interaction of people in the communication space”, - said Ivan Sergeevich.

Of the three generally accepted areas of communication - business, secular and religious - the lecturer focused on the first two, since the latter has its own specifics and requires separate consideration. "The etiquette situation", - continues Artsishevsky, "is the system of seniority, which is different in each area". For example, in the business area, the age of a director does not matter, his status comes first, that is why his employee greets him first. In a situation of social communication the first place is gender and age. Older woman - the main at the reception or at a family holiday. The guest enters and greets first of all the hostess and decides (not her) whether to kiss her hand or not. 

In any of the above areas, communication begins with the determination of status - by age, by speech, by clothing.

The mathematician and philosopher Artsishevsky is one of those people whose biography could become a plot of a fascinating novel: born abroad, in a family of Russian émigrés, lived in China, graduated from college in South America and spoke Portuguese better than Russian. He is an expert on a unique culture of national etiquette, preserved by the first wave of Russian emigration; it was this quality that enabled him to hold the 1st Congress of Compatriots in Leningrad in 1991, and later to take the post of Head of the State Protocol Office of the Administration of St. Petersburg. After leaving Smolny, Ivan Sergeevich, relying on his high experience, organized the School of Protocol and Etiquette, the first licensed institution of a similar profile. With time, the school was transformed into the European format etiquette center, and then, as a result of the expansion, into the Ivan Artsishevsky Center for Effective Communications. 

At the Presidential Library’s video lecture he also considered the protocol from the point of view of state symbols.

It should be noted that the Presidential Library forms the country's largest electronic repository of documents on the history, theory and practice of the Russian state, including palace etiquette of tsars and emperors.

"Our ancestors, the Slavs, were pagans and were not particularly distinguished by their subtle mores", - says V. Zelinsky in his study "The Sacred Coronation of Russian Tsars, Empresses and Emperors" (1882). - Before the appearance in Rus’ of a common prince over all of them, there was no sign of anything resembling organized civilian life. In private life, i.e., there was a disorder in everyday relations. <...> The neophyte, Metropolitan of Ephesus, inclined Prince Vladimir to the world, after which he crowned him in the Kiev cathedral church as an imperial crown and proclaimed the Russian tsar. This is precisely the first historical record of the formal rite of the coronation of the Russian sovereigns upon their accession to the throne”.

N. Volkov, speaking of “The Court of Russian Emperors in His Past and Present” (1900), emphasizes: “There can be no artificial or random phenomena in the historical life of people. No matter how different it may seem to be unimportant to the superficial glance of idle thought, it always stands in a causal relationship with the entire historical life of people and occurs only because this life makes it necessary”.

The Presidential Library’s attention to the problems of ethics is today the very need to understand the subject that Professor Artsishevsky so interestingly and skillfully presented on the video lecture hall. The lecture was broadcasted live on the Presidential Library’s portal.