Lenkhoff , Geil Kniaz' Feodor Chernyi v russkoi istorii i kul'ture: Issledovanie i teksty by V. P. Efimenkov B. M. Kloss (review)

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REVIEWS 773 and aspire to Western European Humanism’ (p. 173). In this world of globalized cinema, it begs the question of whether or not a book titled The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader might not be anachronistic, or that the inclusion of the allegedly Russophobe Loznitsa within it renders the idea of Russian cinema itself problematic. These caveats notwithstanding, the book under review is a useful, readable and often incisive, reference guide to recent ‘Russian’ cinema. Department of History Steven A. Usitalo Northern State University Lenkhoff, Geil [Lenhoff, Gail]. Kniaz´ Feodor Chernyi v russkoi istorii i kul´ture: Issledovanie i teksty. With V. P. Efimenkov and B. M. Kloss. Al´iansArkheo , Moscow and St Petersburg, 2019. 350 pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Appendix. Indexes. R750.00. This book deals with Prince Feodor the Black Rostislavich of Smolensk and Iaroslavl´ (d.1299). Gail Lenhoff previously studied the same subject in her Early Russian Hagiography: The Lives of Prince Fedor the Black (Wiesbaden, 1997). Important developments have taken place in the field since 1997. New scholarship, including Lenhoff’s own works, has significantly advanced out understanding of the Book of Degrees, which contains a vita of Feodor. O. V. Loseva has also discovered an early commemorative notation on Feodor (c.1400). Part one of the book opens with a biography of Feodor (chapter one). In chapter two, Lenhoff dates the canonization of Feodor and his sons to the 1460s. The canonisation was initiated by the monks of the Iaroslavl´ Saviour monastery, which was under Feodor’s patronage. The cult had no anti-Muscovite connotation. Rather, it became popular in Moscow, especially during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Lenhoff also provides a descriptive account of Feodor’s cult in imperial, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Chapter three is devoted to Feodor’s Vita. On the basis of 197 manuscripts, Lenhoff offers a classification of existing manuscripts, detecting five redactions of the Vita. She studies the Vita from the perspective of regionalism and form criticism in the context of Byzantine and Early Slavic hagiography. The section on Byzantine saints’ lives is largely a translation of relevant sections from the 1997 book, but it does incorporate new scholarship on Symeon Logothetes. In chapter four, Lenhoff’s PhD student, V. P. Efimenkov, confidently discusses the liturgical commemoration of the Iaroslavl´ saints. This is a very successful debut publication. In chapter five, B. M. Kloss, who previously contributed to the 1997 book, describes 203 manuscripts of the Synaxarion Lections, the Vita and hymns. Lenhoff concludes the first part of the book by noting that Feodor was a loyalist of the Mongol khan. Thanks to the khan’s support, Feodor SEER, 98, 4, OCTOBER 2020 774 restored the importance of Smolensk in Baltic trade. After Feodor, Smolensk declined and was eventually absorbed by Lithuania. Texts associated with Feodor’s cult underwent stylistic embellishment but retained social memory of the Iaroslavl’s community. The second part of the book contains a critical edition of vitae and liturgical texts. Some observations on the cult may need adjustments. Lenhoff notes that the c.1400 commemorative notation in what she describes as a north-eastern liturgical calendar lacks context (pp. 43, 168). In fact, the notation appears in the famous Pogodin Synaxarion, whose origin is unclear. Its miniatures reveal Novgorodian (i.e. north-western, not north-eastern) stylistic traits, though there are no Novgorodian linguistic features in the text. The provenance of the book is thus more complex than Lenhoff posits. The preparation of such a complex publication in Russian was undoubtedly a challenging task. The literary editor Ekaterina Kislova should be credited for the natural Russian, though some editorial decisions are questionable. The use of otechestvennye (compatriot) with respect to Russian scholars in Lenhoff’s text is amusing (p. 83). More importantly, the account of Lenhoff’s examination of the saints’ relics concludes that they have remained netlennye (uncorrupted, p. 65 note 105). This is a loaded term which the church used for justifying canonization. Furthermore, the relics were frequently relocated. Their history from 1928 to 1986 is known exclusively from oral sources (p. 66 note 106), and we cannot be even sure what remains we are dealing with. Speaking of...