Whither Intellectual History?: Endre Sashalmi, Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable will discuss the controversial monograph by Endre Sashalmi. It sweepingly assesses, drawing upon late Medieval and Early Modern European thinkers—who fielded their own cultural and political constructs—the Muscovite and Petrine realms which had their own supportive vocabulary. The author uses contemporaneous European theoretical, political treatises; discourses by figures such as Iosif Volotskii, Georgii Kotoshikhin, Simeon Polotskii, and Feofan Prokopovich; and later Russian historiographical works and Richard Pipes as a foil to field his own interpretations. Sashalmi does so, inter alia, in order to lengthily parse—even deconstruct—a raft of terms such as gosudarstvo, samoderzhets, grazhdanstvo, vlast' derzhavnaia. The author’s comparative sweep, forays into historical linguistics, literary deconstruction, bold, methodological jaunts, inclusion of American specialists’ scholarship, and strong opinions make for an eye-catching study in Muscovite and early Imperial Russian history. Our panel will energetically unpack this ambitious and provocative work, and it comports well with the 2024 Conference theme of liberation. The state and the individual remain an enduring preoccupation of Russian specialists, and our panel with its targeted monograph handily encompasses this theme. Since we wish to discuss a particular book, roundtable format is superior to a panel.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Eve Levin, U of Kansas

Roundtable Members

• Carol Kira Belkin Stevens, Colgate U

• Russell Edward Martin, Westminster College

• David Goldfrank, Georgetown U

• Lawrence Nathan Langer, U of Connecticut

• Donald Ostrowski, Harvard U