ABSTRACT
The body politic is composed of political bodies. The single most visible body among them belongs to the ruler. It attracts the largest number of codings. In monarchical, authoritarian, totalitarian regimes the ruler’s body embodies the system. It is the Grand Symbol, the Total Totem. It is the object of universal attention, venerated, loved, feared, hated, interpreted. Its physical features and physiological facts are turned into objects of signification, symbols, omens, emblems, and markers of the leader’s virtues—or depravities. But even in more open political systems the semiotics of the ruler’s body still dominate the discursive space of politics. The two most important Russian leaders of the 1991–2008 period, Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, are a case in point.
