Studia Bellorum

Studia Bellorum

 

Research seminar on the Theory and History of War and Military Violence: Practices, Structures, Comparative Analysis. 

 

The seminar devoted to a wide range of issues related to the social, economic, cultural and political history of war and military violence. Chronologically, our focus is on the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, which, however, does not preclude reference to other time periods. We intend to explore the military history of various regions of Europe through a broad comparative perspective. The seminar aims at an interdisciplinary synthesis of methodological developments in historical science and related humanities disciplines - anthropology, philosophy and linguistics. The seminar is based at the  Department of Medieval and Early Modern Studies of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences 

 

The seminar focuses on the following research areas: 

 

- ‘Military Revolution’, innovations and reforms in military affairs on the cusp from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age. 

 

- The military organization of feudal and composite monarchies. 

 

- Social and economic history of military communities. 

 

- The relationship between military violence and state power in pre-modern and early-modern societies. 

 

- Strategies of legitimising military violence and ways of limiting it. 

 

- Military law and customs of war. 

 

- Man at war: ethics, motivation, survival and career strategies, traumatic experiences. 

 

- Armed violence in everyday life and its regulation. 

 

- Formation, accumulation and transfer of knowledge about war. 

 

- Territorial, confessional and cultural boundaries as a source of conflict and deterrent. 

 

- Archaeological and bioanthropological research in the context of military history. 

 

- Economics of war: military production, supply, logistics. 

 

 

Discussions held: 

 

2025

25 September 2025. The twenty-second session of the seminar. Discussion of Oleg Kurbatov’s report "Russian and Lithuanian registered Cossack units in 1654–1667: tendencies of development".

28 May 2025. The twentieth session of the seminar. Discussion of Elena Braun’s report "The Wars of the Roses in children’s historical literature of the Victorian era".

23 April 2025. The nineteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Kamil Ernazarov’s report "The Boar, the Griffin and the Roses: military treatises and the behaviour of Henry Tudor and Richard III on the battlefield".

26 March 2025. The eighteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Oleg Voskoboynikov’s report "The Roman Curia and the rhetoric of war in the thirteenth century".

26 February 2025. The seventeenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Aleksandr Lobanov’s and Petr Knopf’s report "National peculiarities of fencing: George Silver and his treatises".

22 January 2025. The sixteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Evgenii Vdovchenkov’s report "The Sarmatians: social aspects of war".

 

2024 

20 December 2024. The fifteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Tatiana Oparina’s report "Natives of the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states in the Russian army in the late sixteenth – first half of the seventeenth century".

4 December 2024. The fourteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Ilia Berkovich’s report "Jewish soldiers in the Austrian army during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1788–1820)".

24 October 2024. The thirteenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Vladimir Kostyrev’s report "Ideas of paid military service in Western Europe during the Hundred Years’ War".

25 September 2024. The twelfth session of the seminar. Discussion of Nikolai Naumov’s report "Religious fundamentalism in the military psychology of the Hussites".

 

24 June 2024. The eleventh session of the seminar. Discussion of Petr Stefanovich's report "Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Tverskoy: hagiographic images of the holy princes-"defenders of the fatherland"". 

 

23 May 2024. The tenth session of the seminar. Discussion of Rustam Shukurov's report "War and human capital. The precedent of Byzantium in IX-XIV centuries". 

 

29 April 2024. Ninth session of the seminar. Discussion of Dmitriy Weber's report "Christianisation and war: Teutonic Order's strategy in Prussia and Livonia". 

 

28 March 2024. Eighth session of the seminar. Discussion of Irina Varyash's report ""People of War": business, religion, border on the Pirenea peninsula XIV century". 

 

29 February 2024. Seventh session of the seminar. Discussion of Ivan Kopylov's report "The Image of the First Horseman of the Apocalypse in the Exegetics of Blessed Gregorio Lopez (1542 - 1596): War in the Historical and Metahistorical Dimension". 

 

25 January 2024. Sixth session of the seminar. Discussion of Oleg Rusakovsky's report "Foreign regiments in Russia in 1631 - 1634: Biographical and prosopographical observations". 

 

2023 

21 December 2023. Fifth session of the seminar. Discussion of Sergei Gornostaev's report "Gunpowder, cogs, mercenaries. Hanseatic fleet and army in the first Danish-Hanseatic war of 1361 - 1365". 

 

23 November 2023. Fourth session of the seminar. Discussion of Alexei Korchagin's report ""Shout, daughters of Raba". Samuel 12:26-31 - Old Testament text in late antique and medieval sources. Senseless cruelty or translation error?". 

 

26 October 2023. Third session of the seminar. Discussion of Elena Kalmykova's report "The Church at War. The English example". 

 

28 September 2023. Second session of the seminar. Discussion of Elena Berger's report "How gunshot wounds were treated. Methods and practices of the 16th century". 

 

23 June 2023. First session of the seminar. Discussion of Pavel Uvarov's report "Military revolutions, military counter-revolutions and world-system theory". 

 

If you have any questions, please contact us by e-mail: studiabellorum@gmail.com 

 

Head lider of the seminar — Kamil Ernazarov, Junior Researcher of the Department of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences.