In 1957 Ernst Kantorowicz published a book that would be the guide for generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. In The King's Two Bodies, Kantorowicz traces the historical problem posed by the "King's two bodies"--the body politic and the body natural--back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates, by placing the concept in its proper setting of medieval thought and political theory, how the early-modern Western monarchies gradually began to develop a "political theology."

The king's natural body has physical attributes, suffers, and dies, naturally, as do all humans; but the king's other body, the spiritual body, transcends the earthly and serves as a symbol of his office as majesty with the divine right to rule. The notion of the two bodies allowed for the continuity of monarchy even when the monarch died, as summed up in the formulation "The king is dead. Long live the king."

Bringing together liturgical works, images, and polemical material, The King's Two Bodies explores the long Christian past behind this "political theology." It provides a subtle history of how commonwealths developed symbolic means for establishing their sovereignty and, with such means, began to establish early forms of the nation-state.

The review provides a detailed analysis of main trends in Russia's economy in 2014. The paper contains 6 big sections that highlight single aspects of Russia's economic development: the socio-political context; the monetary and credit spheres; financial sphere; the real sector; social sphere; institutional challenges. The paper employs a huge mass of statistical data that forms the basis of original computation and numerous charts.

The review provides a detailed analysis of main trends in Russia's economy in 2015. The paper contains 6 big sections that highlight single aspects of Russia's economic development: the socio-political context; the monetary and credit spheres; financial sphere; the real sector; social sphere; institutional challenges. The paper employs a huge mass of statistical data that forms the basis of original computation and numerous charts.

The paper studies the patterns in the development of the Russian financial market after the crisis of 2008. It’s shown that along with positive phenomena, such as the creation of a modern financial market infrastructure and financial stabilization in 2015-2016, there are tendencies of deterioration of quantitative characteristics of the domestic stock market, it’s lagging behind external competitors, and a decline in the role of this market in the economy. As the key reasons restraining the growth of the financial market, the study addresses the problems of the scarcity of attractive instruments of domestic savings, excessive administrative burden on the business, restrictions on internal competition, the lack of a strategy for developing the financial market, linked to the priorities of economic policy.