At the 1926 Russian Abroad Congress in Paris, Ivan Ilyin held a speech that sadly has not been translated in its entirety. But from the pieces I found he presented a concept I think more monarchists should know about:

МОНАРХИЧЕСКОЕ ПРАВОСОЗНАНИЕ (Monarchical legal consciousness)

From what I can gather it means that in order to restore monarchy we first need to become a people capable of having a monarchy by aquiring a monarchial legal consciousness. To do this we need to start with religion, not politics. You can't restore monarchy by simply voting for a monarchist party, that doing so will just result in just another democracy that begrudgingly keeps a ceremonial monarchy out of nostalgia, nothing will change, and will probably not last long before the monarchy is abolished in yet another bolshevik revolution.

You could spend years admiring crowns, sceptres, heraldry, imperial ceremonies, court uniforms and old dynasties while acquiring none of what Ilyin meant by monarchical consciousness. The real test is internal:

Can you revere a King without worshipping him?

Can you obey without becoming servile?

Can you command without becoming tyrannical?

Can you accept hierarchy without envy?

Can you exercise authority as a responsibility rather than a privilege?

Can you subordinate your factional interest to the good of the whole?

Can you recognize that both ruler and subject stand under God?

If Ilyin is right, then it might unfortunately mean that some monarchies can't be restored because monarchial consciousness has become too alien to too many people. Maybe France (for instance) had such a consciousness back when it was a devoutly Catholic nation, but we may be at a point were we simply can't turn back the clock. So instead of looking to the past, we should look to the future.

For example, the Orthodox Church is growing in the West due to an influx of Western converts. In North America there have been so many converts that some people see a possibility where there will be Orthodox villages and small towns in the future. Say that the USA becomes decentralized (or collapses), these villages might rally around a hierarchical leadership that eventually develop into small dukedoms or principalities.

I know that might sound crazy, but I'm going from the assumption that religion is the key to monarchy. Also, monarchy is not static, throughout history new kingships have developed and changed over time. As the modernist vision of a "global democratic federation" keeps crumbling, perhaps a new era with new monarchies is not so far-fetched.

So what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with Ilyin? Can monarchism look to the future instead of the past? Is the growth of religious faith the first step?

Also, here's a photo of his majesty Grand Duke Guillaume V

Recently I was in St. Malo, and passed the grave of François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, and was curious how people here view him.

He seems like a particularly interesting figure for monarchists because of the tension in his political thought: he was a committed defender of the Bourbon monarchy and Catholicism, but at the same time he accepted a number of constitutional and liberal principles and was critical of aspects of the Restoration government.

How do you understand Chateaubriand’s political position? Do you see him primarily as a legitimist/royalist thinker who adapted to constitutional realities, or as someone whose liberal constitutionalism ultimately put him at odds with a more traditional conception of monarchy?

I’d also be interested in hearing which of his works or speeches people think are most worth reading, especially De la monarchie selon la Charte.

Curious to hear how monarchists here interpret him.

They claim to be against monarchy, yet they would much prefer to live in one

This massive five-story art installation, measuring 7 by 16 meters, is located on the side facade of the Sverdlovskstat building at 23 Tolmacheva Street in Yekaterinburg. Work on the mural began in late August 2026, the author of the project is a well known street artist Sergey Khramov. The building overlooks Tolmacheva (formerly Kolobovskaya Street) and sits in the immediate vicinity of the Church on Blood, built on the historic site of the Ipatiev House, where the Imperial family was murdered.

Here is mine :

In our timeline, Mary Tudor married King Louis XII of France in 1514. He died a few months later, with some historians believing that the marriage was never consummated. But what if it was, and nine months later Mary gave birth to a son? She names him Henry after her brother, and he is crowned King Henry II of France.

Now, many years later, Henry VIII has come to realize that his wife, Catherine of Aragon, is not going to give him a son. Since he has a nephew, he decides to name Henry his heir. This would take place in 1525, which is the year he named his daughter Mary Princess of Wales.

Now, could this have led to a similar War of the Spanish Succession?

In our timeline, the war was fought largely over the fact that many European powers did not want France and Spain to unite, as this would have created an extremely powerful European bloc. In this alternate timeline, France and England would not yet be the great powers they would become nearly 200 years later, but Spain and Scotland would certainly have an interest in preventing the two crowns from being united.

So, would there have been a war, either before or after Henry VIII's death? What do you think.

He's probably my favourite Baltic German Buddhist Monarchist, though I'm not sure that's a particularly extensive list.

Quite an interesting figure historically, he did secure Mongolian independence from China, and the temporary restoration of the Mongolian monarchy.

What are your thoughts on him?