Constitution et diffusion d'un savoir occidental sur le monde « russe » au Moyen Âge (fin Xe-milieu XVe siècle) (2e partie)

Abstract

St. MUND, Constitution and diffusion of Western knowledge about the « Russian » world in the Middle Ages (end of the 10th-middle of the 15th centuries) (Part 2). This article is a synthesis of the knowledge about « Russian » culture in Western Europe between the end of the 10th century (when the Kievan Russia converted to christianity and its sovereigns established relationships with other Christian kings) and the middle of the 15th century (just before the Moscovite Russia, which had succeeded Kievan Rus’, joined the political and economic Western sphere). It presents a systematic survey of all Western European mediaeval sources about Russia over this long period. These are chronicles, sagas, encyclopaedias, travel narratives, maps, or chivalric literature. These sources are analysed according to a typological approach, i.e. focusing on the authors, their origin and educational background, on the characteristics of the texts and on the information they provide about Russia. This typological approach shows that an image of Russia emerged in medieval Western Europe, however partial and fragmentary it may have been. Not until the late 15th and the early 16th century was Russia really discovered by Western European diplomats and merchants.