The enthronement ceremony of the Russian tsar was a key channel for the monarchy to convey an idealized image of the ruler and the empire to his subjects. In his widely known work on the subject, Richard Wortman demonstrates how the concept of Russia's supreme authority evolved from the image of a lofty ruler far removed from the masses, to one of a lord bound to his people by unbreakable spiritual ties. Elsewhere, Wortman just as convincingly shows how the position of the empire's non-Russian peoples changed alongside these symbolic transformations. While non-Russians had long remained undifferentiated from the general masses of subjects, by the mid-nineteenth century they came to occupy a specific place among them. The rulers of the empire gradually came to realize that the diversity of its subjects bore vivid witness to its greatness. These metamorphoses can be observed in the peculiarities of ceremonial practice; in plans and scenarios for ceremonial events; in coronation proclamations; and in descriptions published in newspapers, magazines, and anthologies.

The enthronement ritual was about more than a powerful elite reflecting on its own power. The sparkle and grandeur of the ceremonial activities, public illuminations and entertainments, fireworks, theatrical productions, and excursions that accompanied the ritual were all designed to impress delegates from all the regions and peripheries of the Russian Empire, who were each charged with returning to their home region and spreading the myth of the superiority and unrivaled greatness of the Russian monarch.