The meal of power and order: comparative semiotics of politics in Chinese and Russian banquet rituals

the article is devoted to a comparative study of semiotic mechanisms of political legitimisation embodied in banquet rituals of Chinese and Russian cultural traditions. The analysis focuses on gastronomic practices as complex semiotic systems mediating power relations through the symbolisation of hierarchies and collective identities. At the intersection of food anthropology and political semiotics, the author explores historical (imperial feasts, royal meals) and contemporary cases (state receptions, diplomatic banquets) containing universal and culturally specific patterns. Structural analysis focuses on the spatial semantics of the table (the arrangement of guests, topography of dishes), the semiotics of utensils (material, shape, ornaments) and gesture codes (toasts, serving rituals), and reconstructs their connection with cosmological models. Special emphasis is placed on the transformation of rituals: from the sacralisation of power through metaphors of the ‘heavenly feast’ in the Confucian tradition to contemporary media representations of banquets as instruments of ‘soft power’. The comparative approach reveals how food codes, inheriting archaic layers, are adapted to construct political narratives in changing historical contexts.

gastronomic culture, semiotics, cultural code, comparative analysis