����Ӱ��

Law and Religion in Muscovite Russia

Public Lecture by Prof. Boris Uspenskij

(Russian National Research University Higher School of Economics)

Doctor Honoris Causa of Tallinn University

There was no witch-hunt in Russia at the time when it was a common phenomenon in Western Europe. The lecture will argue that witches had a special social and legal position in Muscovite Russia. Their position can be understood only in view of specific relations between the Church and the state in the country.

Boris Uspenskij (born in 1937 in Moscow) is one of the most outstanding scholars in semiotics, slavistics and general linguistics of our time, one of the founding members of Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics. He is Professor emeritus of the Naples Oriental University and Full professor at the Russian National Research University Higher School of Economics. Prof. Uspenskij’s work has ranged very widely, from general linguistics to history of Russian language, from literary theory to visual semiotics, from religious studies to cultural theory, from textual criticism to semiotics of history. Among his most important publications, widely translated around the world, one can mention Поэтика композиции (1970), Семиотика искусства (1995), Семиотика истории. Семиотика культуры (1996), История русского литературного языка (ХІ-ХѴІІ) (2002), Крест и круг (2006) and Ego Loquens. Язык и коммуникационное пространство (2007).

The lecture is in English and will by preceded by the ceremony of awarding the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of Tallinn University to Prof. Boris Uspenskij.