ABSTRACT
Peter Morriss (1987, p. 2) believes that “ordinary men and women frequently know more than academics about the meaning of ‘power.’” Language serves a depository for this “folk wisdom.” A simple search using two keywords “power” and “authority” in the Google database consisting of 8 billion documents shows that the relative frequency of the latter is almost two times higher in English (5.4:1) than in Russian (9.8:1). For instance, if people vested in power and their organizations are colloquially called “authorities” in English, they are referred to as “powers” (vlasti) in Russian. Upon closer inspection it appears that even the meaning of power as one’s capacity to impose will has particular connotations in the Russian case. “In Russian the term ‘power’ is usually used for the description of someone’s ability to control (dominate, compel, influence) others, ‘power’ is imagined as something that is ‘over’ us, that limits our freedom, creates obstacles, etc.” (Ledyaev, 1997, p. 95; emphasis in the original). An attempt to inquire into what power is in Russian, or “Russian power,” follows.
