About the Author

Darin Stephanov

E-Mail: dstephanov@gmail.com

Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Darin-Stephanov

Darin Stephanov is a historian specializing in comparative Ottoman and Russian imperial history, especially in ruler visibility, public space/sphere, and popular forms of belonging. He is also a multi-year grant holder of the Kone Foundation (Helsinki), Finland’s largest private foundation. Darin Stephanov’s scholarship combines a commitment to macro-historical issues of group mentality formation with a dedication to micro-historical methods of close textual analysis. His research over the past twenty-five years has led to a new model of the modern ethnonational mindset with a wide range of potential applications across the globe.

Contributions by Author: Darin Stephanov

Issue 20
ruler visibility
popular belonging
theatricality
authenticity
Enlightenment
absolutism

Absolutist Celebration in Late Ancien Régimes

Reflections on the Ruler Rituals of Empress Catherine II of Russia and King Gustav III of Sweden

This _Essay is a link in a chain of works I have written over a number of years that have brought forth and developed a novel theoretical and methodological apparatus, centered on the concepts of ‘ruler visibility’ and ‘popular belonging,’ for studying the origin, nature, and evolution of the modern mindset on a mass scale. The essence of it…