HSE Publishing House

Anatomy of Power is issued from a common work of 28 scholars from leading universities and academic centres of Russia, dealing with the phenomenon of power in medieval and early modern Europe. Relations of domination and submission, political institutions, processes and technologies are represented in all intricate details, as a real organism, a body politic, on a large chronological and geographical horizon: from Rus’ to Byzantium, from Pyrenees to Island. Several aspects of the European history are discussed: juridical fundaments of power, its symbolic communication with society, rituals and self-representation, strength and weakness of individual rulers or institutions, ascents and falls, historical criticism of sources related to power, historical thought at its service, power and religion, the prince’s body, and mythology. All microanalyses have been conducted on original sources in different languages, some of them are presented in translations into Russian.
This book is addressed to a wide public interested in general history, but also to professional scholars of humanities.