Simon Franklin

The Emergence of Rus, 751200

The Christian culture of Rus (the medieval precursor of modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) is sometimes presented either as a reflection of an indigenous spirituality wrapped in borrowed (Byzantine) forms or, by contrast, as merely a provincial version of its Byzantine original. The essays in this volume start from the premise that neither view is adequate. The history of culture - even of a self-consciously imitative culture - involves a continual process of inevitable 'mistranslation', as the imported models are reshaped and reinterpreted according to local resources, circumstances and preconceptions. These essays explore aspects of the 'translation of culture' on several levels: from the semantic processes of the actual translation of written texts from Greek into Slavonic, through to larger issues of ideology and identity. They consider both the initial stages of such 'translation' (from Byzantium to Rus) and some of the subsequent 'retranslations' of the Byzantine heritage in the culture of Rus and - eventually - of Russia.

Studies in the Translation of Christian Culture

Byzantium-Rus-Russia

Jonathan Shepard

This eight-volume series, covering the history of Russia and its immediate neighbors from the emergence of Rus through to the present day, is written for students and non-specialist readers. A major strength of the series its the space it devotes to the less familiar histories of Rus and Russia before the time of Peter the Great. This eagerly awaited study--the first in modern times by western scholars, explores one of the definitive processes int eh making of modern Europe: the emergence, amongst the diverse inhabitants of the bast landmass east of the Carpathians, of the 'Land of the Rus' (Russia to medieval Latin writers), whose modern heirs include Ukraine and Belarus as well as Russia itself. In the eighth century, the region was sparsely inhabited by separate groups of Slavs, Balts, Finno-Ugrain and Turkic peoples, with few focuses of settlement or wealth, and little to link one group to another. By the late twelfth century, it bristled with prosperous towns, bonded in networks of trade and commerce, and ruled by members of a single dynasty. It communicated in a single dominant language (Slavonic) and professed a single dominant faith (Orthodox Christianity). How and why this transformation came about is the subject of this book. It starts with Scandinavian adventures traveling the northern forests in search of eastern silver. It shows how their successors opened the trade route south to Byzantium, and established themselves in Kiev, as their base for the hazardous journey across the steppes. It traces Kiev's rise to become, by the mid-eleventh century, a city of enviable wealth and self-confident Christian culture. And it shows how the ruling dynasty spread it operations north and west into new and increasingly prosperous regional centres, like Novgorod and Galich--and, most significantly for the history of Russia, into the heartlands of the future Muscovy. Within this framework, the authors explore every aspect of the world of the early Rus--social, economic, cultural and religious as well as political. In doing so they fill a vast blank in the mental maps of most of us. Better still, sifting the mass of post-Soviet historiography and using a wealth of evidence from archaeological and literary as well as archival sources, they are able to bring their unfamiliar subject vividly alive. Here are the laws and customs, the buildings and lifestyles, even the everyday letters about love and money (remarkably preserved on birch bark, and many only recently discovered) which illuminate this vanished world. The Emergence of Rus is a major contribution to Russian and Slavonic studies, and a masterly piece of historical synthesis.

750-1200

The Emergence of Rus

Explores a new approach to the history of writing, and a guide to writing in the history of Russia.

The Russian Graphosphere, 1450-1850

The authors included in this volume Ilarion, Klim Smoljatic, and Kirill of Turov are remarkable for both their personal and literary achievements. Simon Franklin prefaces the texts with a substantial introduction that places each of the three authors in their historical context and examines the literary qualities as well as textual complexities of these outstanding works of Rus literature.

Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus'

This book brings together papers arising from the 24th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies held in Cambridge in 1990. It represents a comprehensive investigation of Byzantine diplomacy from the emergence of the empire in late antiquity to its final throes as it fell to the Ottoman Turks. This is not just a narrow study of political relations, but a broad sweep from Italy to the steppes of Central Asia, from the imperial court to the marriage bed, from the scriptorium to the barracks. The book also includes a mysterious communication from a long-dead emperor.

Papers from the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March 1990

Byzantine Diplomacy

Emma Widdis

What is Russia? Who are Russians? What is 'Russianness'? The question of national identity has long been a vexed one in Russia, and is particularly pertinent in the post-Soviet period. For a thousand years these questions have been central to the work of Russian writers, artists, musicians, film-makers, critics, politicians and philosophers. Questions of national self-identity permeate Russian cultural self-expression. This wide-ranging study, designed for students of Russian literature, culture, and history, explores aspects of national identity in Russian culture from medieval times to the present day. Written by an international team of scholars, the volume offers an accessible overview and a broad, multi-faceted introductory account of this central feature of Russian cultural history. The book is comprehensive and concise; it combines general surveys with a wide range of specific examples to convey the rich texture of Russian cultural expression over the past thousand years.

An Introduction

National Identity in Russian Culture

Katherine Bowers

From the mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century Russia was transformed from a moderate-sized, land-locked principality into the largest empire on earth. How did systems of information and communication shape and reflect this extraordinary change? Information and Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1850 brings together a range of contributions to shed some light on this complex question. Communication networks such as the postal service and the gathering and circulation of news are examined alongside the growth of a bureaucratic apparatus that informed the government about its country and its people. The inscription of space is considered from the point of view of mapping and the changing public ‘graphosphere’ of signs and monuments. More than a series of institutional histories, this book is concerned with the way Russia discovered itself, envisioned itself and represented itself to its people. Innovative and scholarly, this collection breaks new ground in its approach to communication and information as a field of study in Russia. More broadly, it is an accessible contribution to pre-modern information studies, taking as its basis a country whose history often serves to challenge habitual Western models of development. It is important reading not only for specialists in Russian Studies, but also for students and non-Russianists who are interested in the history of information and communications.

Simon Franklin

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