Week III-beg. Week IV

Culture of Kievan Rus

Required Reading:

• Franklin and Shepard, as previously assigned, esp. chs. 4, 6.
• Web page on conversion.  Several of the primary source readings immediately below are linked to this page.
• Levin, "Dvoeverie and Popular Religion."   Note:  this article is not confined principally to materials on the Kievan period, but it is extremely valuable for conceptualization of how we can best make sense of religion in Russia and assess the impact of the coming of Christianity.  It is an important response to, among other things, some of the points made in the discussion by Florovsky et al. in the recommended readings.
• The conversion tale in the Russian Primary Chronicle.  Note:  You do not have the whole text here.   This selection omits Vladimir's pagan past and shortens substantially the "testing" of the various faiths, their expositions of their beliefs, etc.
• The church statutes of Vladimir and Iaroslav, as previously assigned.
• Metropolitan Ilarion's "Sermon on Law and Grace."  this text is normally considered to be one of the best examples of the mastery of formal Byzantine rhetoric by a native of Rus' whose education was undoubtedly exceptional.  Whether Hilarion, one of the few natives of Rus' to preside over its church in the early centuries, really wrote the whole thing is questionable.  Of some interest is the section of the work praising Prince Vladimir and calling him our "Kaghan" (the title of the Khazar rulers!).
• Prince Vladimir Monomakh's "Testament".  Included in the Primary Chronicle, this document seems to be a genuine "instruction" of Monomakh to his sons and shows in interesting ways the juxtaposition of his faith with his accounting of his real world activities.  It captures something of the "princely culture" of the early 12th century and also provides insights into Rus' relations with the nomadic Polovtsy.  This will be useful to read in conjunction with the web page on the culture of the princely courts, as is the Igor' Tale.
• Haney and Dahl, On the Campaign of Igor:  1.  Introduction; 2. Text; 3. Commentary.
• Web pages on art and architecture.  You might start by at least skimming the pages on the background of Byzantine architecture and the development of Christian iconography, since these will help your understanding of the extent of Byzantine artistic influence in Kiev and the basic principles underlying the art.  You should definitely read the introductory comments on the Art of Kievan Rus and about the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia and its cultural setting.  The latter will allow you to take a tour to see some of the other buildings in medieval Kiev.  Once you have done that, explore the Christian imagery in the cathedral, and then move on to the imagery of the Kievan royal court.  The pages on the art of the Principality of Vladimir provide some interesting insights into the place of the principality in the European cultural context of the late 12th century and material on the cultural context of the "Igor' Tale," insofar as that epic poem seems to have been the product of one of the contemporary princely courts.

Recommended reading:

• Florovsky, Andreyev and Billington, "The Problem of Old Russian Culture."  This discussion is very stimulating, although many of the authors' statements are in need of revision.  Florovsky's main point is not always clear, although he provides a good sense of the ways in which previous writers have interpreted or misinterpreted the "Old Russian" cultural experience.   One needs to keep in mind that his particular concerns about "intellectual silence" reflect to some extent his expertise as a historian of Russian theology.   Points he makes need to be re-considered in the light of Levin's arguments and especially those by Veder (see below).  She also presents significant alternatives to some of Andreyev's assertions.  One important point that crops up in the discussion is the idea that the Mongols cut Russia off from the West, which simply is not true, as we will discover a bit later in the course.
• Veder, "Old Russia's Intellectual Silence Reconsidered."  A response to Florovsky et al. and to more recent work by F. J. Thomson.  This article is important for raising basic questions concerning whether Slavic bookmen and their readers did not, perhaps, have a distinctive understanding of the function of the written text.  Veder makes what some see as a defect of the early Rus compilations into a virtue.  It is easy to read around his (for the general reader) somewhat abstruse examples for his main points.
• Franklin, "Literacy and Documentation in Early Medieval Russia."  Franklin's conclusions can also be found in your course book by Franklin and Shepard.  The subject of literacy is much misunderstood though; his fuller analysis here is well worth reading.

Study questions:

• What do we learn from the primary sources about the pre-Christian religious beliefs of the Rus and their subjects?
• To what degree do such beliefs and practices seem to have survived the coming of Christianity?
• Why was Eastern Orthodox Christianity the religion of choice for Olga and Vladimir?
• To what degree was the culture of Byzantium accepted and spread in Kievan Rus? (Consider specific evidence in primary sources.)
• Does the "Igor Tale" in any way seem to contradict what we know from other sources about the culture of late Kievan Rus?  Does it provide us with information that we would not otherwise know?

Question for Paper Two (draft to be posted no later than 12 noon, Sunday, January 23; class discussion on Monday, January 24):

To what extent do the surviving sources (archaeological, artistic, and written) inform us about the culture of the mass of the population in Kievan Rus?  If, in fact, we seem to know little about the culture of the masses, then whose culture are we seeing in the sources?  To what degree does that culture seem to have been influenced by Byzantium and to what degree does it appear that Byzantine culture was adapted to accomodate local tradition?

Link  to Peer Review Page for Week III/beg. Week IV assignment [disconnected as of March 20, 2000].