Kirill Ospovat : "Sovereignty, Knowledge, Subjectivity" Première conférence de Kirill Ospovat, professeur étranger invité par le labEx Transfers. Cycle de conférences "Sovereignty as Practice and Manifestation : Terror, Reform, and the Poetics of Rule in Early Modern Russia and Europe"

In the first lecture, I will outline the basis of my approach which juxtaposes political history of (post-) Petrine Russia with conceptual paradigms developed across early modern Europe. Taking the well-documented Petrine import of various Western theoretical discourses into Russia as a starting point, I will explore these discourses as a key to Peter’s exercise of authority through reform. Reading Peter’s highly symbolic gestures, such as the foundation of Saint-Petersburg on uninhabited lands, with theorists such as Machiavelli and Descartes, I will illuminate the alignment of sovereignty and knowledge in the renewed visions of authority and subjectivity.