Abstract
This article contributes to our understanding of the role of personality in authoritarian regimes and the development of presidential personality cults under such political systems. As most authoritarian systems have experienced only one cult of personality, the article provides for the first time (at least in the post-Soviet research) a comparative perspective on two different presidential personality cults.
This advantage enables the author to explore the continuities and discontinuities of different leaderships, along with their particular ideologies, under two authoritarian regimes. The text also enriches research on state- and nation-building.
It shows that personality cults in highly centralized systems are deeply embedded in the processes of state- and nation-building.