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This article focuses on the conflict associated with the claim of both the church and state for political power in Russia during the period between 1439 and 1503. Several historians considered the emergence of the concept and reality of individual liberty as the direct result of this conflict. Others see the conflict as limiting the idea of the divine right of kings, thereby leading to the growth of republican forms of government. Towards the middle of the 15th century, two independent events of great magnitude fundamentally altered Russian state-church relations: the decline of Mongol domination; and the fall of the Byzantine empire. These events forced the church into a subordinate political role from which it could not escape, sinking deeper under the power of successive secular authorities until finally its highest office was dissolved by Peter the Great in 1721. The church had been independent from Russian secular authority through all of its history before 1439 because of allegiance owed to foreign secular authority and immunities received from it and because the independent economic foundation of the church had been insured by the foreign and Russian secular authorities.

The article reports on the historical perspective of Gustav Stresemann, a stateman, on political realism in Russia. In analyzing Stresemann's success, open-mindedness, optimism and flexibility were stressed. Some of the fundamental aspects of Stresemann's foreign policy are noted. An overview of the written Stresemann' biographies is also mentioned.