Category Archives: Boris Porshnev

Eighteen months of ‘Sunday Histories’

Posted on July 1, 2026 by stuartelden

I posted a short piece to this site every Sunday through 2025, and am now half-way through 2026. I don’t seem to be running out of ideas, usually with a few in progress at any one time, though some have … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Giorgio Agamben, Lucien Gerschel, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco, Vladimir Nabokov | 1 Comment

Boris Porshnev – from peasant revolts in 17th century France to cryptozoology and the quest for the Soviet Yeti

Posted on December 14, 2025 by stuartelden

I first read the work of the Soviet historian Boris Fyodorovich Porshnev because of Michel Foucault. (His name is sometimes transliterated, especially in France, as Porchnev.) In his 1971-72 Collège de France lectures, Penal Theories and Institutions, Foucault spends the first … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Books received – Porshnev, Jameson, Coveney, de Menasce, Foucault, Medby, Chimisso, Blencowe, Braudel, Jakobson

Posted on December 4, 2025 by stuartelden

A few books bought recently, mostly second-hand; Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, Cristina Chimisso, Hélène Metzger, Historian and Historiographer of the Sciences, Ingrid Medley, Arctic State Identity and Claire Blencowe, Spirits of Extraction, in recompense for review work; and Foucault’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Fernand Braudel, Fredric Jameson, Ludwig Binswanger, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Boris Porchnev/Porshnev on feudalism – were any of his works translated from Russian?

Posted on September 7, 2015 by stuartelden

I mentioned Boris Porchnev/Porshnev in a previous post today, looking at the two editions of his work on peasant uprisings in seventeenth century France. Foucault uses his work in his reading of the Nu-Pieds revolts in Théories et institutions pénales. In Claude-Oliver … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

Boris Porshnev – the two editions of Les soulèvements populaires en France: a book by one of Foucault’s key sources in Théories et institutions pénales

Posted on September 7, 2015 by stuartelden

Russian historian Boris Porshnev is one of Foucault’s key sources for the discussion of the Nu-Pieds revolts of 1639-40 in Théories et institutions pénales. Following my regular practice of reading Foucault’s sources as well as his own work using them, I bought a copy of … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Michel Foucault | 5 Comments