Prince or King? Reflections on the Book by Christian Raffensperger “The Kingdom of Rus’”

Abstract

Publication deals with the monograph by Christian Raffensperger, published in 2017, dedicated to the rulers’ titles of the Medieval Rus’. Raffensperger gives a number of arguments in favor of replacing the term prince, which is used to translate the title knyaz with the word king when writing in English. The author shows the artificiality of the term prince application, which began to be used for historical reasons, and not as a result of researches’ consensus. The reviewer tries to assess the pros and cons of the proposed innovation. Without a doubt, it is very important to realize the difference between the medieval and modern understanding of the word knyaz, and its translation as prince cannot be considered as quite accurate, as it creates undesirable connotations. However, the use of the word king also has significant drawbacks, which include the regular use of the term king by the Rus’ chronicler in relation to the Hungarian king. Thus, the question of the medieval titles translation allows us to look at the source study and historiographic problems from an unusual point of view.