«He Sighed from His Heart and Began to Gather Soldiers»: Emotions in Russian Political Narratives

Abstract

Political functions of demonstrative emotional behavior have been extensively studied by Western medievalists, but little, if at all, discussed by scholars of Rus. This article offers an analyis of representations of emotions in Russian political narratives; it is informed by the concept of Spielregeln («rules of play»), developed by the German historian Gerd Althoff, and by application of anthropological theories to the medieval studies practiced by Anglophone scholars, such as Stephen White and Paul Hyams. These historians showed that societies lacking explicit normative documents regulated political and social interaction by means of implicit «rules of play» manifested in ritual behaviors. Public display of emotions was probably the most prominent among such behaviors. A comparison of information derived from Russian primary sources with the picture that emerges from scholarly literature on emotions in political narratives of the high medieval West suggests that social functions of emotions and the ways to send a political message by means of public emotional display were essentially the same in Rus and Latin Europe.