The Image of Aleksandr Nevskiy in Medieval Russia: Warrior and Saint by Mari Isoaho (review)

Abstract

128 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2OO9 book is of its informed insightson a goodly number of subjects, not least the arrival and departure ofGorbachev. In general, the treatment of the Soviet period ismore balanced than is stilloften to be found even inpost-Cold War years. The account of the arrival of theCold War itselfisa pertinent example. And excellent use ismade of the author's other work, especially his book The Making of EasternEurope. In his Preface to the Paperback Edition, 'in the lightof thepast' no doubt, Longworth makes a prediction: 'The new Russian Empire will not be like the last, but a sphere of influence, as is theAmerican' (p. ix).Here is an insight deserving further consideration in any future edition, well worth inclusion in the comparisons he has already made with earlier counterparts. For, gener ally speaking, we cannot fully understand the nature of Russian empires without due consideration of theirpeers. Universityof Aberdeen Paul Dukes Isoaho, Mari. The Image ofAleksandr Nevskiy in Medieval Russia: Warrior and Saint. The Northern World: North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 AD. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 21. Brill, Leiden and Boston, MA, 2006. viii + 417 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. 129.00: $168.00. Narrative sources convey images of events. Some historians seek to peer through the image in search of, say, political facts, others focus on the image itselfas a cultural fact.Mari Isoaho is among the latter. In this book the 'real' Prince Aleksandr Iaroslavich (d. 1263) is but a shadowy precursor of the narrative images ofAleksandr Nevskii as created in his late-thirteenth century Life and as retold and remodelled over the subsequent centuries. The bulk of the investigation covers sources from the pre-Pe trine age, though Isoaho adds an 'Epilogue' (pp. 363?79) taking the story on from Peter the Great's installation of the cult in his new city on theNeva, down through Karamzin, Eisenstein and even into the post-Soviet period. The adaptations of Aleksandr's image are traced through the major chronicles, the Life of Dovmont, the 'Kulikovo Cycle', the Stepennaia kniga and the late-sixteenth century revised Life by Iona Dumin. In each phase of the story, Isoaho also looksmore broadly at the changing ideological landscape, relating the trans formations of Aleksandr's image to changes in 'historical consciousness'. Thus in the earliest version of theLifeAleksandr isprimarily an idealized warrior prince of Novgorod, a frontier defender, a Christianized Hezekiah (as well as a Solomon), while in later accounts other attributes appear, or are more heavily accented, or are variously recombined: defender of the faith, prince of Suzdal, prince of all Rus', representative and defender of the dynasty, self-sacrificer (humbling himself before theMongols to protect his people), miracle-worker (especially after formal canonization under Ivan IV) and eventually monk. This is a useful book. The overall conception isvalid, and scholars will be grateful to Isoaho for perusing such a range of sources, and for producing a coherent overview of the cultural representations of Aleksandr. reviews 129 This is also a somewhat frustratingbook: a dissertation which would have benefited from severe pruning, editing and checking. In the lengthy chapter on the Life, in particular, Isoaho strives too hard to make simple points complex, to seek analogies and precedents of dubious relevance, to knock down opponents (sometimes forwhat theydon't actually say), and on occasion to use trenchancy as a substitute for argument or self-criticism. For example, Isoaho insists that in order to understand the image ofAleksandr in the Life we have to understand hagiographic conventions and perceptions, but then blurs thedistinction between hagiography and eulogy (and indeed other forms ofmedieval writing) to an extentwhich compromises any genre-specific argu ment on hagiography as such. Too many statements are methodologically confused or confusing. Thus (p. 138): thewriter of theLifewas 'clearly famil iarwith the obligations that a true chivalric hero had to fulfil,because the narrative repeats the metaphors for honour in war that were well-known all over Europe': what exactly isbeing claimed here about thewriter's knowledge of European images of a 'true chivalric hero'? Is there any textual basis for such a major claim? 'Clearly' is not an argument. Or (p. 45) 'the...