“Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics

Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2012.

Uspensky B. A., Zhivov V. M.

Under the general editorship: M. Levitt

Translator: M. Levitt, D. Budgen, L. Bliss

This is a collection of essays on the semiotics of history, a product of the 30 years collaboration of the two co-authors. All the articles are devoted to the history of the Russian culture, treating it not as an isolated phenomenon, but as an integral part of the world culture. Semiotic analysis of various fonts allows to define both universal and pecular characteristics in the history of Rusian culture.

Chapters

Tsar and God: Semiotic Aspects of the Sacralization of the Monarch in Russia

Uspensky B. A., Zhivov V. M., , in: “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics.: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. P. 3–112.

The present study simultaneously belongs to literary studies and to social history, including the history of culture and of political ideas.  Indeed it concerns attitudes about the tsar in Russia during various periods of Russian history, and the linguistic - and more generally speaking, semiotic - means in which these attitudes were manifested.  Obviously, this ...

Added: February 17, 2013

Tsar and Pretender: Samozvanchestvo or Royal Imposture in Russia as a Cultural-Historical Phenomenon

Uspensky B. A., , in: “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics.: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. P. 113–152.

The psychology of royal imposture in Russia is directly connected with the question of the attitude to the Tsar, i. e. the special way in which royal power was understood. Pretenders made their appearance in Russia only after there were Tsars, and this is connected with the sacralization of the Tsar. The notion that the ...

Added: February 17, 2013

Enthronment in the Russian and Byzantine Traditions

Uspensky B. A., , in: “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics.: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. P. 153–174.

After the fall of Byzantium a restoration of the Byzantine Empire was enacted in the Muscovite state.  Thus originated the tsardom of Muscovy, which subsequently became the Russian Empire.  This tsardom was modelled as a theocratic one: Moscow was conceived as the New Constantinople and the Third Rome. In conformity with this conception, there appeared ...

Added: February 17, 2013

Europe as Metaphor and Metonymy (in Relation to the History of Russia)

Uspensky B. A., , in: “Tsar and God” and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics.: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. P. 175–190.

The diffusion of a name related to a certain cultural-historical center and representing a particular cultural-historical tradition, generally speaking, may be based either on the principle of metonymy or on the principle of metaphor. In the first case we have a natural process of cultural expansion, while in the other we face an artificial process ...

Added: February 17, 2013

Keywords: история России, Петр I, славистика, семиотика истории, Semiotics of history, semiotics of culture, sacralization of monarch, Peter I, семиотика культуры, сакрализация монарха