Medieval Rus Research Articles

Ivan Karamazov and the religious literature of medieval Rus’

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of translation of medieval and religious literature in Fedor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In the chapters “Rebellion” and “The Grand Inquisitor”, Ivan Karamazov weaves two hagiographies, an apocryphal legend, and a passage from the Psalms used in the liturgy into the fabric of his argumentation with his brother Alesha. Ivan would have read most of these works in Church Slavonic, yet he quotes them in his own, contemporary Russian language. This study shows that, whereas Ivan’s references to Rus’ian literature are permeated by inaccurate assumptions current at his time, many of his misrepresentations are deliberate. Rather than leaning on careful readings of his sources, Ivan’s transpositions are an exercise in creative freedom that reveals the tension between his intellectual and religious convictions, and challenges the limits of text-centred definitions of translation.

New Rulers, New Rules? Changes in Military Equipment during the 13th and 14th Centuries in the Area of the Sanok Land

This paper discusses problems of changes in military equipment that was in use in the historical Sanok Land. Being situated in the borderland of Piast Poland and the Halych-Volhynia Principality, Sanok was located at the interface of two civilisations – Latin and Byzantine. This was naturally reflected in both the material and spiritual culture of this region which was incorporated into Kievan Rus’ in the 11th century and then became part of the Kingdom of Poland (Red Ruthenia) after 1340. A question asked by the authors is: did the change of state sovereignty in the mid-14th century and the appearance of colonists from the West result in popularisation of the ‘Latin’ model of weaponry or were medieval Rus’-style arms and armour still in use? On the basis of a confrontation of written, iconographic and archaeological sources which concern this region in the period between the 1st half of the 13th and the late 14th century the authors draw the conclusion that after the year 1340 some types which are characteristic for the Eastern European model of weaponry were replaced to a considerable degree by weapons evolving in the Latin sphere.

The history of Medieval Rus’: From political instrumentalization and conservatism of the academic tradition to axiological comprehension

The history of Medieval Rus’: From political instrumentalization and conservatism of the academic tradition to axiological comprehension

Международная научная конференция «Археология Древней Руси: проблемы и открытия (к 100-летию со дня рождения Д.А. Авдусина)» (Москва, 22–24 ноября 2018 г.)

The article contains review of reports submitted to the international conference. The mee­ting topic was attributed to broad academic interests of D.A. Avdusin (i.e., the greatest scholar dealing with the Ancient Rus archaeology, researcher of Gnezdovo archaeological complex and medieval Smolensk). Several topics (such as ancient Russian exequies, initial phases and methods of urbanization of various areas, regional and international relations, trade route generation, social and political aspects of primary power centre formation in medieval Rus, as well as issues related to life support, household, industrial art and culture in cities and villages) were discussed in 6 workshops.

The Burden of the Empire and the Vocation of Russia: George Fedotov’s Philosophy of History

The paper discusses the philosophical and historical doctrine of the Russian philosopher and historian George Petrovich Fedotov. The author focuses on the analysis of imperial issues in the works of G.P. Fedotov, especially of his views on the cultural history of the Russian empire and the essence of imperial project in Russia. Fedotov reconsiders the historical experience and revolutionary catastrophe of Russia and searches for the foundations of the social and cultural processes determining the events of Russian history. Fedotov’s works offer a variety of interpretations of the political and cultural phenomenon of empire. This reflects his evolution as a philosopher of history: the focus of his vision shifts from the Medieval Rus to the Empire of Peter the Great, then to the collapsed empire of Nicholas II and finally to the USSR (the latter was also an empire according to him). Fedotov’s concept of Empire evolves into a timeless cultural-philosophical phenomenon but originates from the historical description of the centralization of power in the feudal monarchy of Ivan the Terrible. The evolution of the philosophical and historical views of Fedotov is influenced by the changes of his attitude to the historical conception of Klyuchevsky. In the 1940s Fedotov considers the empire as a universal idea. The concept of empire proposed by Fedotov gives an understanding of the Russian historical development, especially the causes of the decline and fall of the Russian Empire. Fedotov associates the cause of the salvation of Russia with the study of ancient Russian culture, in which he founds a moral and political ideal of the “Republic of Saint Sophia.” The paper shows heuristic potential of Fedotov’s cultural and philosophical ideas on the vocation of spiritual elite and the creative role of personality in the process of nation-building.

Становление традиций монашеского общежития в Троице-Сергиевом монастыре

The article is devoted to the emergence of the monastic communal living traditions in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, one of the significant monasteries in Medieval Rus. The paper focuses on the activity of Sergius of Radonezh who contributed to the revival of the lost tradition of communal living and the enhancement of the principles and rules of monastic life. By using conventional sources (Life of Sergius of Radonezh, etc.) and relying on historical anthropological and hermeneutic approaches, the author focuses on the reconstruction of some aspects of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius monks’ everyday life, trying to identify internal and external factors that determined rules and standards as well as particularities of the monks’ lifestyle. The author concentrated upon the monks’ daily routine, monastic obedience, nutrition and clothing, embodiment of Christian ideals of monastic life, which quite often coexisted with deviations from monastic life standards, as well as on the existence of succession in the revival of the lost traditions of the monastic life.

ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННЫЙ ОПЫТ БОРЬБЫ С НАРКОПРЕСТУПНОСТЬЮ: ОТ ДРЕВНЕЙ РУСИ ДО ИМПЕРСКОЙ РОССИИ

The article deals with the problem of the efficiency of anti-narcotics policy and legislative support for drug addiction counteraction in Ancient and Medieval Rus, as well as imperial Russia. The discrepancy between the taken measures and the objective drug situation in the state is revealed. As a result of the research, the authors have concluded that the legislative efforts of the authorities to reduce the illicit distribution and non-medical use of drugs were ineffective; drug addiction in Russia became a global threat to the population’s health, the country’s economy, law and order, and the state security.

Bułgarski car Piotr i jego żona Maria Lekapena w Latopisie Helleńskim i Rzymskim drugiej edycji

The sequence concerning the reign of Peter and Maria Lekapene as well as the Byzantine-Bulgarian relations between 927 and 969 can be found in the second version of the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle. It is a vast historiographical work, whose authors attempted to demonstrate the history of medieval Rus against the broad background of universal history, drawing on the sources of Byzantine provenance known in Slavonic translation (mainly the chronicles of John Malalas and George Hamartolus). Given the fact that the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle does not contain information about the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the year 1453 is considered the terminus ante quem for the second version of the said chronicle, which is of interest to us here. Its oldest preserved copies come from the mid-fifteenth century. The passages about Maria and Peter are extensive. They include about six columns of text written in semi-uncial in the most representative copy of the second version of the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle, i.e. manuscript БАН, 33.8.13, which is dated to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Reading them allows one to ascertain that they constitute only a reworded version of the Slavic translation of the relevant passages of the B-version of the Georgius Monachus Continuatus. The content of the Byzantine source is quoted here in full without any abbreviations or author’s additions. The differences between the text of БАН, 33.8.13 and the text of РГБ, собр. Ундольского [Ф. 310], № 1289 – constituting the basis for editing the translation of the Georgius Monachus Continuatus of the B-version – are limited only to the stylistic and editorial level, except for the changes resulting most probably from the copyist misunderstanding the meaning of the original.

Russia and the Islamic World

This article offers a historical retrospective of the interactions between Russia and the Islamic world in all their diversity, beginning from the first trade contacts of Medieval Rus with the Arabs and Persians of the Abbasid era, as well as with the Turkic-speaking residents of Volga Bulgaria. The author concludes that except for the initial sporadic period, the connections between Russian and Muslim worlds have been stable and close throughout all the following periods. Moreover, with time, these two civilizational communities turned into communicating vessels because of the growing number of Muslims within the Russian State and in Russian society. Special attention is paid to Russian-Turkish relations across several centuries. A complete comprehension of the relations between Russia and the Islamic world through an example of the historical retrospective of Russian interactions with the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey helps to provide a full appreciation of the importance of joint efforts to secure a bridge connecting East and West and the oriental civilizations with Russia.

Историографические заметки к календарной стороне вопроса о крещении и имянаречении в средневековой Руси

Историографические заметки к календарной стороне вопроса о крещении и имянаречении в средневековой Руси

Monuments of Church Architecture in Belozersk: Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries

The history of the community associated with the White Lake (Beloe Ozero) is a rich one. This article covers a brief overview of the developing community from medieval through modern times, and then focuses the majority of its attention on the church architecture of Belozersk. This rich tradition of material culture increases our knowledge about medieval and early modern Rus’ and Russia.

Hezychazm na Rusi. Wpływy, idee, postaci

Hesychasm has been one of the most important spiritual tendencies in Byzantine monasticism. It turned out to deeply influence spiritual and philosophic development of medieval Rus'. Russian researcher Sergey Khoruji says even that hesychasm found its second homeland in Rus'. Rus' is very often considered as "Byzantium after Byzantium", but this concept is hardy unequivocally true. We can point out many "channels of influence" of Byzantium on Rus', but the most important is religion: hesychastic mysticism. Hesychastic tradition had existed in Russia since XIV century and is integral part of development of Russian philosophy.

Пролог в Александрии Троицкого хронографа: текстология и география

The Trinity Chronicle, the earliest representative of the family of “Chronograph po velikomu izlozheniju”, comprises Alexandria (the Old Slavonic Translation of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Alexander Romance) of the 2nd recension. Its compiler involved a variety of additional sources that is a distinctive feature of this version. From indirect date, one of them is an Old Russian Synaxarion (Prologue) that was very popular in Medieval Rus’ liturgical collection of short Lives and homilies. This assumption is supported by a set of geographical and personal names that appeared in the editorial passages and that compiler of the Trinity Chronicle introduced in the description of the Alexander’s campaigns and trips. His sources of information were not identified previously due to the lack of literal citation. It seems that texts of Prologue were recollected from memory. These features of Alexandria of the 2nd recension provide a starting point for dating Trinity chronicle after the 12th century, which is essential to the early history chronographic literature in general.

терминологияисториографическая и терминология реальная

“The Political Development of Medieval Rus’: Historians’ Terminology and That of the Sources”, by Anton A. Gorskii, Moscow State University. The article argues that artificial terms (“tribes”/plemena, “principalities”/ kniazhestva and “appanages”/udely) long used by scholars misrepresent the nature of political developments in Medieval Rus’ and should be replaced by terminology from the sources that reflects the evolution of the territorial-political structure (the Byzantine Σκλαβηνία/ Σκλαβυνία/slavinii and the Old Russian zemli and volosti).

Что нового в Киевской Руси?

Vadim Aristov outlines prospective directions for the study of Medieval Rus lands or, alternatively, East European Medieval history. He lists seven main objectives: deconstruction of seemingly self-evident concepts used to frame the historical narrative; critical revision of the available pool of primary sources; reflection on the analytical language of scholars; rehabilitation of the material aspect of the past currently overshadowed by textual projections; transcendence of the territorial and conceptual constraints imposed by national history; revolutionary innovation of themes and approaches to the study of the period; and last, but not least, proliferation of dialogue between different historiographic schools and traditions.

The Place of Rus' in Medieval Europe

Rus', the medieval kingdom that was the progenitor of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, has had a complicated historiography due to modern political trends. The chief problem that has shaped scholarship on medieval Rus' is what to do with it. Where does it belong? Over the last century alone, scholars have suggested that Rus' should be studied on its own, either as an autochthonous entity or otherwise; that Rus' was the mid-point on a thousand mile trek from the Varangians (in Scandinavia) to the Greeks (Byzantines) and Muslims; that Rus' existed as part of a Byzantine Commonwealth and thus should be studied in that context and separate from others; and the idea that Rus' was part of medieval Europe and should be studied as such. These various mindsets have been shaped by modern political developments and have created scholarly frames into which the evidence for Rus', and Rus' itself, has been placed. This article highlights these trends over the last one hundred years in largely Anglophone scholarship, demonstrating the current historical understanding of the place of Rus' in medieval Europe.

The Battle of Kulikovo Field (1380) in History and Historical Memory

Andrei Olegovich Amel'kin and Iurii Vasil'evich Seleznev, Kulikovskaia bitva v svidetel 'stvakh sovremennikov i pamiati potomkov (The Battle of Kulikovo in the Testimonies of Contemporaries and Memory of Posterity). 384 pp., illus. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2011. ISBN-13 978-5917910741. Sergei Nikolaevich Azbelev, Kulikovskaia pobeda v narodnoi pamiati: Literaturnye pamiatniki kulikovskogo tsikla i fol 'klornaia traditsiia (The Victory of Kulikovo in Popular Memory: Literary Works of the Kulikovo Cycle and the Folklore Tradition). 312 pp., illus. St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2011. ISBN-13 978-5860076679. In 1380, a Russian army led by Grand Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich of Moscow crossed the Oka River and rode into the steppe to meet the army of Emir Mamai of the Jochid ulus in battle on Kulikovo Field (Kulikovo pole). (1) The Russians won the battle but suffered extremely high casualties. Mamai regrouped, but his second army deserted to Khan Tokhtamysh, then client of the Central Asian warlord Timur (Tamerlane). After defeating Mamai, Tokhtamysh sacked Moscow in 1382. The battle of Kulikovo has received enormous attention in modern Russian scholarship for two reasons. First, it was the first time a Russian army had ridden into the steppe to fight the Tatars. Second, uniquely among battles in medieval Rus'/Russia, (2) it was the subject of a trilogy of literary works: the epic Zadonshchina, notorious for its crucial role in determining the authenticity of Slovo o polku Igoreve (The Tale of the Host of Igor'); the so-called Letopis 'naia povest' (Chronicle Tale) found within the corpus of Russian chronicles; and Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche (The Narration of the Battle with Mamai, hereafter the Narration). Evaluating the battle devolves into two related but distinct questions: what were the consequences of the battle for Russian--Tatar relations, and how reliable are the narrative details about the battle found in the monuments of the Kulikovo cycle? On the first question opinions differ. Historians in Russia going back at least to Sergei M. Solov'ev considered Kulikovo as Russia's liberation from the Yoke and minimized the importance of Tokhtamysh's restitution of Tatar rule until 1480. Kulikovo was a major turning point in Russian-Tatar relations because it proved that the Tatars could be defeated. Recent Western historians and a rare Russian historian, Anton Anatol'evich Gorskii, have dissented, arguing that Kulikovo did not materially change Russian-Tatar relations. Donskoi's Pyrrhic victory left him unable to oppose Tokhtamysh effectively. The real victor at Kulikovo was Tokhtamysh. (3) Kulikovo symbolizes that Moscow had risen to a point of preeminence in northeastern Russia before 1380, not the overthrow of Tatar rule after 1380. On the second question, historians who agree on the significance or insignificance of the battle disagree in evaluating the literary depictions of the narrative. The majority accept many if not most facts even when they contradict one another, and a minority takes a much more skeptical view. (4) I know of only one Tatar historian who has written about Kulikovo, Rustam Nabi (Nabiev). His Pravda o Kulikovskoi bitve (The Truth about the Battle of Kulikovo) concludes that there was no battle at Kulikovo. (5) The Kulikovo cycle deliberately misrepresented Russian military assistance to Tokhtamysh in a battle on the Dnieper River against Mamai as a Muscovite victory over Mamai on the Don River in which Tokhtamysh played no role. Nabi's views are taken seriously, if at all, only in Tatarstan. The two books reviewed here address the history and the historical memory of the battle of Kulikovo from different disciplinary perspectives: Andrei Amel'kin and Iurii Seleznev are historians, whereas Sergei Azbelev is a folklorist. Amel'kin and his protege Seleznev from Voronezh State University previously collaborated on two books, on Batu's invasion of Rus' and on Kulikovo in history and historical memory, respectively. …

The Validity of Russian Exceptionalism: Assessing Theories of Power and Lordship in the High Middle Ages

Russian historians have overwhelmingly adhered to one of two beliefs medieval Rus’ was either of a “feudal,” and hence European, character, or it was not feudal and thus unique. This schema is, however, fundamentally flawed because it does not consider the medieval world on its own terms. This article contemplates an alternative approach: the conception of power as lordship advanced by Thomas N. Bisson in The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (Princeton 2009). His notion that lordship was personal, affective, and not at all resembling of modern ideas of “government,” applies rather well to the rule exercised by Rurikid princes. Bisson’s more complex notion of a “crisis” that saw this lordship gradually become more accountable and government-like is more difficult to pin-point in Russia. Nevertheless, medieval Novgorod seems to have undergone a very Bisson-esque kind of crisis, ultimately suggesting that Bisson’s conception is a useful one to apply to medieval Russia.

Michael Confino (1926-2010)

Michael Confino (1926-2010) Alessandro Stanziani Michael Confino was not only one of the greatest historians of imperial Russia but also one of the few who were able to connect the historiography of Russia with that of other countries. For this, he was recognized by a worldwide community of historians and social scientists. Born in Sofia in 1926, he attended university in that city in 1945-48. He emigrated in 1948 to Israel, where he was a kibbutz member, a political activist, and a high-school teacher of history and sociology. In 1955, he decided to complete his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1955-57) and in Paris, where he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1959 under the supervision of Roger Portal. Confino was highly influential in the development of Russian studies in Israel: he founded and chaired (1964-69) the Department of Russian Studies at Hebrew University, chaired the Russian and East European Research Center at Tel Aviv University from 1971 to 1977, and held the Samuel Rubin Chair of Russian and European History and Civilization at Tel Aviv University from 1980 to 1995. Throughout his life, he was a path-breaking scholar who never lost his taste for questioning tendencies and categories in historiography that were uncritically accepted by others, such as "the Russian leviathan," "the revolutionary intelligentsia," "the passive peasant," or "Russian mentalities." He began working in the 1960s on agrarian relations in tsarist Russia. At the time, debate focused on the role of the Russian state in the rise of serfdom and on the passage "from feudalism to capitalism." The young Confino drew inspiration from a debate that was taking place at the same time among European medievalists. Following the seminal works of Marc Bloch (published from the 1910s through the 1930s), historians were progressively accepting the idea that feudalism had never existed as a system and that European serfdom was less a legal construction than a social practice. These new insights shattered the Marxist theory of historical stages as well as liberal interpretations of "the end of feudalism." [End Page 930] When extended to tsarist Russia, as in Confino's work, this analysis was radically disruptive. The very existence of "feudalism" in Russia was now under attack, and with it the entire Marxist and Soviet interpretation of Russian history—namely, the presumed passage from feudalism to capitalism under late tsarism and hence the historical explanation for the revolution. Confino refused to acknowledge serfdom as a system opposed to capitalism. According to him, the peasants felt bound to their landlords not because they were compelled by the law but because the peasant commune governed the entire agrarian economy, including seigniorial tenure. The peasants were willing to feed the landowners insofar as the latter served the tsar. Indeed, the three-field system was intimately linked to the peasant commune's practices of redistribution and to the relationships thereby created not only within the village but also between peasants and landlords. The Russian village thus formed a coherent system, and the peasants dictated their organization and rhythms to the landlords, not the other way around.1 Thanks to Confino, this approach has been widely accepted and remains widespread among scholars even now.2 This line of argument led Confino to smash another icon of Russian historiography: the role of the state. The conventional Marxist and liberal historiographies of Russia stressed the powerful role of the state, which was described as having promoted serfdom and controlled the continuities and changes in Russian history. A continuous line was drawn from medieval Rus' to the Soviet state. The corollary was the lack of a civil society, which was considered a mere passive recipient of state action—a "well-ordered society," in Marc Raeff's terms. Confino firmly criticized this approach. According to him, society did exist in imperial Russia, and it was not obliterated by the state. There was no such thing as a "divorce between state and society." As he recently summarized his main point, "if such a pervasive alienation did exist, it would have signified that there were no social relations between the groups, and if there were no such relations, then there would have...

In Quest of the Key Democratic Institution of Medieval Rus’: Was the Veche an Institution that Represented Novgorod as a City and a Republic?

In Quest of the Key Democratic Institution of Medieval Rus’: Was the <i>Veche</i> an Institution that Represented Novgorod as a City and a Republic?