Kaplunovsky , Alexander Kusber , Jan Conrad , Benjamin The Enigmatic Tsar and His Empire: Russia under Alexander I. 1801–1825 (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 177 discussions of the more recently discovered artworks in Broumov, Český Krumlov and Prague. Rywiková’s ability to use them to underline not only the importance of the Czech lands in the late medieval period as expressed through these works, but also the ways in which the unique religious environment there is reflected in the work is masterful. Some of Rywiková’s more interesting findings include a fifteenth-century depiction of The Triumph of Death from the Old Prelature of Český Krumlov where death is depicted riding a wooden hobby-horse, combining depictions of deathandthefoolinmedievalartasapotentTriumphofDeath.Herethecadaver serves as a forceful reminder that death can carry off young and old alike, and that ignoring one’s religious obligations can result in the ultimate eschatological death of the soul (pp. 200–01). Rywiková’s study also helps the arguments of other Czech art historians such as Alexander Patschovsky in actively identifying the figure of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg in a Dance with Death in the famous Bible of the Hussite Priest (p. 172) My critiques of this work are few, and the first is that I simply would have liked more. I agree wholeheartedly with Rywiková’s note in the Appendix that the Czech lands are unique in the completeness of late medieval macabre iconography because of the influence and power of the Luxembourg court. Ideally, I would have liked to see Rywiková address this at further length. Otherwise the only flaw is not the fault of Rywiková, but rather her copy editors who have not managed to engage robustly enough with the difficulties of translating Czech into English and in particularly the difficulty of articles. Rywiková’s lucid and intricate work is done a disservice by a number of missing definite articles which a simple copy edit by a native English speaker would quickly flag up. This is a disappointment in a work with such a large potential audience and of such fine quality research, and the author has been let down here. Nevertheless, Speculum Mortis remains an important work and a welcome addition to English-language work on the medieval Czech lands. Department of International History Eleanor Janega The London School of Economics Kaplunovsky, Alexander; Kusber, Jan and Conrad, Benjamin (eds). The Enigmatic Tsar and His Empire: Russia under Alexander I. 1801–1825. Transformations. Differentiations. Perspectives. Mainz Studies on the Modern Age, 5. Peter Lang, Berlin, New York and Oxford, 2019. 378 pp. Illustrations. Notes. References. Index. €65.40: £54.00: $78.95. Given the relative paucity of new publications in any language on the history of Russia under Alexander I, the appearance of this intriguingly entitled SEER, 99, 1, JANUARY 2021 178 monograph is, on the face of it, to be welcomed. It is, in fact, a collection of fifteen articles by fourteen scholars, of whom six are based in Germany, seven in Russia and one in Canada. It is the fifth volume in the series, ‘Mainz Studies on the Modern Age’, but the first to be devoted to a Russian theme. It is also the first to be published in English rather than German, though no translator is credited. It derives from an international conference held in March 2017 at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz on the theme ‘in search of narratives for the Alexandrine age’, where we are assured that the ‘lively discussions on the conceptualization of the Alexandrine epoch’ proved to be ‘intellectually fun for the organizers’ (p. 5). The resulting sbornik, as the editors state at the outset, is an attempt to ‘demonstrate that Alexandrine Russia may be interpreted as a “laboratory” in whichdifferentpotentialscenariosformodernisationweredesigned,discussed, and tested — but also rejected and forgotten’ (p. 10). In his introductory chapter, ‘Alexander I, the Russian Empire, and the “Sattelzeit” 1790–1830’, Jan Kusber suggests that the epoch ‘lacks a clear political character’, remains ‘highly underresearched’ (p. 33), and might be described as ‘Sattelzeit’ in Russia. Oddly, however, Reinhart Koselleck’s compound noun (literally: ‘saddle-time’) is not given any corresponding English equivalent which might have helped readers better understand its sense and intention. It is, after all, a coinage perhaps not as well-established in historical discourse as Kusber appears to suppose. The remaining thirteen...