Virtualization of the Socio-Cultural Frontier “Tertius Romae”

The relevance of the study is due to the need to clarify the semantic core of the sociocultural frontier Tertius Romae. The theoretical construct Tertius Romae by Mark Cicero has undergone semantic transformations throughout history. It acquires various meanings of political and geographical ambitions, including the ideas of "Moscow is the Third Rome" and "Third Reich", the connotations of Christian sacral and eschatological expectations, the form of the core of the idea of national sovereignty, world domination, the global economy and, finally, the global virtual world. The purpose of the study is to determine the historical stages of the evolution of the socio-cultural frontier Tertius Romae. Apart from the time time when the construct Tertius Romae appeared in the work of Cicero, we also distinguish three global stages of its evolution: sacred (5th – 16th centuries), secular (16th – 20th centuries) and virtual (starting from the 21st century). If during a long sacred stage, the control centers form the semantic core of the Tertius Romae frontier, then at the subsequent stages they actively exploit it. The concept of a socio-cultural frontier in the new digital reality acquires the meaning of the moving boundaries of a technologically backward periphery, dependent on a more developed metropolis, providing communication services, regulating information content and ensuring information security. The theoretical construct, once tied to a territory and a certain form of government, is now acquiring the meaning of virtual power, and socio-cultural frontier is more due to the quality of communication and the power of the final equipment.