Russian Federation
The article is devoted to the analysis of empire as a special political form of civilizational organization using the example of Byzantium, in the context of the modern discourse on the multipolarity of world politics. The purpose of the study is to identify the role of the ideological and value core in ensuring the integration stability of a multinational state. The objectives of the work include: 1) determining the relationship between the concepts of "civilization" and "empire" in the political and philosophical tradition; 2) considering the Byzantine model as a synthesis of the universalist idea of "eternal Rome" and the Christian mission; 3) analyzing the mechanisms of integration and crises of imperial identity. The research methodology is based on historical and philosophical analysis and a comparative approach. The work uses sources of ancient, medieval and modern European thinkers (Polybius, Cicero, Augustine, Montesquieu), as well as works on Byzantine studies. Interdisciplinary methods are involved - the history of ideas, the civilizational approach, institutional analysis. The theoretical significance of the article lies in the fact that it contributes to the development of civilizational and imperial approaches in political science, showing the relationship between the value core and institutional stability of complex political systems. The analysis of the Byzantine experience allows us to enrich the discourse on multipolarity, revealing the mechanisms of ideological integration and their limits in the long term. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the author comes to the conclusion that the stability of the imperial form is determined not only by military or economic power, but above all by the presence of an integrating idea that ensures the unity of value and institutional foundations. Byzantium demonstrates the high efficiency of a model based on the sacralization of power, the doctrine of the "symphony of powers" and a universal mission. However, the dominance of a centralized religious and cultural standard and the inability to adapt it to the diversity of regional identities, combined with external pressure and internal elite conflicts, led to a weakening of the ideological foundation and political disintegration.
Byzantium, sacralization of power, "symphony of powers ", ideology, values, institutions, multipolarity
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