What Is the State? The Russian Concept of Gosudarstvo in the European Context

Bibliographic Data

ID7797067
AuthorsOleg Kharkhordin (0000-0001-8241-8600, European University at Saint Petersburg, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume40
Issue2
Pages206-240
Publication date2001-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/0018-2656.00163
OpenAlexW2037340875
LanguageEN
Citations received12

What allows us to talk about the state as an active agent when we understand that only individuals act? This article draws comparisons between Quentin Skinner's exposition of the history of the concept of the state in major European languages and the history of its equivalent Russian term gosudarstvo in order to provide some general hypotheses on the development of the phenomenon of the state, and on the origins of this baffling usage. First, summing up a vast number of historical and lexicographical works, it attempts a detailed reconstruction of the conceptual development of the term in the Russian language. Second, a peculiarity of the Russian case is discussed, in whichabsolutist thinkers (and not republicans, as in western Europe) stressed the difference between the person of the ruler and the state. Third, political interests in introducing such novel usage are discussed, together with the role of this usage in the formation of the state. This allows us to see better the origins of current faith in the existence of the state as a more or less clearly designated and independent actor, predicated on the mechanism of what Pierre Bourdieu described as “mysterious delegation

Art · Context (archaeology · Delegation · Epistemology · Exposition (narrative · Faith · Literature · Order (exchange · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Ruler · Sociology · State (computer science · Term (time · Computer Science · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Science Research and Education · Political Theory and Influence · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia