Violence and Power in Muscovite Russia

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable discussion seeks to explore the ways in which violence, real or fictitious, manifested itself in Muscovite Rus’. Where is the difference between real violence and the depiction of it? And how can we read sources in a time when people were thinking about power and the abuse of power through the application of violence? What do our sources say about the limits of power to apply violence and could violence be just another word for the abuse of power? How could people restrict the power of rulers and their apparatus? The participants of this roundtable will discuss depictions of violence in the sources on Ivan the Terrible and accounts of religious confrontations at the Council of Florence, violence exercised in the criminal law and court trials as well as street fights and paramilitary violence in early modern Moscow. The roundtable format offers us a means of exploring limits, transgressions and rights on violence in a broad ranging discussion, engaging a greater audience input than a traditional panel would allow.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, to 1800 

Chair

• Brian James Boeck, DePaul U

Roundtable Members

• Earl Joshua Hodil, Yale U

• Nancy S. Kollmann, Stanford U

• Cornelia Soldat, U of Cologne (Germany)

Session Manager

• Ellen Bleier, U of Notre Dame