The tragedy experienced by women poets of the World War 1 period makes Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem of... more The tragedy experienced by women poets of the World War 1 period makes Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem of March 1915 seem prophetic. Tsvetaeva herself was to live through emigration and exile, the death of one child in infancy and the arrest of another for espionage. Her husband, whom she had had to support through years of exile in France, persuaded her to return with him to Russia, only to fall a victim to Stalin’s purges. A few year after his execution in 1941, Tsvetaeva committed suicide, unable to go on.
The first stab of this study is aimed at the long-established glamorous image of the duel in Russ... more The first stab of this study is aimed at the long-established glamorous image of the duel in Russian culture as exemplifying heroic behaviour representative of the national character. It is made plain that Russian duels, in fact if not in fiction, were more often than not irregular affairs and occasions for a ’ritualized violence’ amounting to vicious brawling. How is this paradox, the contrast between sordid reality and radiant image, to be explained? The author’s argument is that the key to the hallowed status of the duel in Russian cultural memory is a collective understanding of it as an affirmation of the individual’s right to defend his personal space and resist any encroachment on his physical inviolability by his social superiors or, symbolically, by the state. It is on this semiotic aspect of the duel that attention is centred in the examination of the numerous duels in Russian
In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Musc... more In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Muscovites and Novgorodians accused of heresy. The Council found the men guilty and they were burnt at the stake in public executions in Novgorod and Moscow. The 1504 trial and execution was the last of three trials of a group of men accused of a 'judaizing' heresy and known to historians as the Zhidovstvuyushchie , or Judaizers. The first trial of the heretics had taken place in 1486 and the second in 1490. The evidence compiled for these trials by Archb'shop Gennady of Novgorod, who claimed to have discovered the heresy, the chronicle accounts for 1486 and 1490, the documents produced by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and the Prosvetitel' of Iosif of Volokolamsk, a polemical work against the heresy of the 'Novogorod heretics who philosophize judaistically' provide much material for a study of the first documented heresy in the Russian Church. Many historians have been attracted to such a study for, as a review of the historical background and historiography of the heresy in Chapter I shows, the involvement of many of the alleged Judaizers in the affairs of the Church and State during a period of important changes affecting both the Church and the State and the relationship between them, makes an understanding of the heresy important to our view of Russia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. But the many studies of the heresy of the Judaizers undertaken by historians from the nineteenth century to the present day have failed to yield agreement on the origin and nature of the heresy. It is seen variously as the result of Jewish propaganda in the Russian Church, of the influence of Western Renaissance and Reformation ideas in Russia or, and this is the view which has dominated recent Soviet historiography, as a symptom of an indigenous Reformation (or proto-Reformation) movement affecting the whole of Russian society in the late fifteenth-early sixteenth centuries. The present work is an attempt to resolve the questions posed by studies of the heresy on the basis of a re-examination of primary published and manuscript sources. These fall into two categories: sources presenting the evidence against the Judaizers (evidence of the accusers), and sources associated with the heretics themselves. Chapter II examines the evidence of the accusers in connection with the trials of 1488 and 1490 (the so-called Novgorod stage of the heresy). Most of this evidence comes from the pen of Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod - consideration of the pre-1490 writings of Iosif of Volokolamsk shows that these do not have a direct bearing upon the subject of this study. Gennady's evidence has not received the attention it deserves, for it provides valuable information not only about the heresy he discovered in Novgorod, but also about the procedures accepted in the Russian Church in this period for discovering and identifying any heresy. His evidence explains his choice of the 'judaizing' label and shows that heretical acts had been committed in Novgorod, though not necessarily by the men condemned in 1488 and 1490. Gennady's letters are complemented by the official documents issued by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and it is clear that the heretics were tried according to properly accepted procedure and that evidence and condemnation was obtained by Gennady with the full co-operation of the grand prince. Gennady remained Archbishop of Novgorod until 1503, but a study of the works produced at his court after 1490 (in Chapter III) provides little evidence of a continuation of his campaign against the heresy. For evidence against the heretics tried in 1504, historians have had to rely on the writings of losif of Volokolamsk, but an examination of his polemical tracts (later incorporated in the Prosvetitel' ) and letters written before 1504 yields little reliable information about the beliefs of the Judaizers. Even the Prosvetitel' , written probably after, and not before the Council of 1504, as has been generally accepted, does little more than reiterate the accusations raised originally against the Novgorod heretics condemned in 1488 and 1490. The evidence of the accusers between 1490 and 1504 thus provides little information on the case presented against the heretics condemned by the Council of 1504. Such information has also been sought in the so-called 'literature of the Judaizers', works written by, or associated with, the men labelled by the accusers as 'judaizing' heretics. Chapter IV examines such works, most of which are associated with the Moscow Judaizers. Several survive in MSS. of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and it is clear that most were not considered heretical at the time. On the contrary, they belonged to the category of instructive Orthodox literature. Chapter V draws some conclusions from the evidence of the sources. If it is accepted that a heretic is someone whom the established Church…
(Continuedfrom front flap) AARON GUREVICH is professor at the Institute of General History, Russi... more (Continuedfrom front flap) AARON GUREVICH is professor at the Institute of General History, Russian (formerly USSR) Academy of Sciences, Moscow. For information on books of related interest or for a catalog of new publica-tions, please write: Marketing Department The ...
In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Musc... more In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Muscovites and Novgorodians accused of heresy. The Council found the men guilty and they were burnt at the stake in public executions in Novgorod and Moscow. The 1504 trial and execution was the last of three trials of a group of men accused of a 'judaizing' heresy and known to historians as the Zhidovstvuyushchie , or Judaizers. The first trial of the heretics had taken place in 1486 and the second in 1490. The evidence compiled for these trials by Archb'shop Gennady of Novgorod, who claimed to have discovered the heresy, the chronicle accounts for 1486 and 1490, the documents produced by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and the Prosvetitel' of Iosif of Volokolamsk, a polemical work against the heresy of the 'Novogorod heretics who philosophize judaistically' provide much material for a study of the first documented heresy in the Russian Church. Many historians have be...
assemblies and elections (the mechanisms for which are described in a little too much detail), we... more assemblies and elections (the mechanisms for which are described in a little too much detail), were involved in setting up schools for their children and in charity for poorer gentry, and had a social life in which hunting played a prominent part. They identifi ed with the state and national issues, such as the Crimean War, however, rather than asserting their local interests. The book is well researched and includes a wealth of detail from the provincial archive. This is placed in the context of the wider literature on the subject, drawing on older Russian studies such as Korf’s, and more recent English-language scholarship, in particular Emmons’ important monograph on the Tver’ gentry and emancipation. Good use is made of the works of writers such as Saltykov-Shchedrin and foreign visitors, in particular Haxthausen, in adding colour. In places, however, the picture presented seemed a little general, and more could have been done to identify what was particular about the Tver’ gentry in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century, or to explain why they had so much in common with provincial gentry across a wider geographical area and longer time period. Perhaps a comparison with Sergei Aksakov’s chronicle of gentry life in far-off Ufa province could have shed light on these issues. Although the main subject of the book is the gentry, there is more secondary literature on serfdom that could have been cited. A signifi cant omission is the work of Rodney Bohac on the Gagarin estate of Manuilovskoe in Tver’ province in this very period. In spite of these reservations, the Russian nobility has not received the attention it perhaps deserves from historians, so this provincial case study in the neglected period prior to the 1860s is a useful contribution to the literature.
Paper presented at a colloquium on Early Protestantism in Eastern Europe initially conceived by A... more Paper presented at a colloquium on Early Protestantism in Eastern Europe initially conceived by Anne Pennington for the Medieval Study Group.
some useful patristic mentions of the word judaiser from Migne' Patristica, showing the context ... more some useful patristic mentions of the word judaiser from Migne' Patristica, showing the context in which it was used. With thanks to Liubov Osinikina
The tragedy experienced by women poets of the World War 1 period makes Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem of... more The tragedy experienced by women poets of the World War 1 period makes Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem of March 1915 seem prophetic. Tsvetaeva herself was to live through emigration and exile, the death of one child in infancy and the arrest of another for espionage. Her husband, whom she had had to support through years of exile in France, persuaded her to return with him to Russia, only to fall a victim to Stalin’s purges. A few year after his execution in 1941, Tsvetaeva committed suicide, unable to go on.
The first stab of this study is aimed at the long-established glamorous image of the duel in Russ... more The first stab of this study is aimed at the long-established glamorous image of the duel in Russian culture as exemplifying heroic behaviour representative of the national character. It is made plain that Russian duels, in fact if not in fiction, were more often than not irregular affairs and occasions for a ’ritualized violence’ amounting to vicious brawling. How is this paradox, the contrast between sordid reality and radiant image, to be explained? The author’s argument is that the key to the hallowed status of the duel in Russian cultural memory is a collective understanding of it as an affirmation of the individual’s right to defend his personal space and resist any encroachment on his physical inviolability by his social superiors or, symbolically, by the state. It is on this semiotic aspect of the duel that attention is centred in the examination of the numerous duels in Russian
In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Musc... more In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Muscovites and Novgorodians accused of heresy. The Council found the men guilty and they were burnt at the stake in public executions in Novgorod and Moscow. The 1504 trial and execution was the last of three trials of a group of men accused of a 'judaizing' heresy and known to historians as the Zhidovstvuyushchie , or Judaizers. The first trial of the heretics had taken place in 1486 and the second in 1490. The evidence compiled for these trials by Archb'shop Gennady of Novgorod, who claimed to have discovered the heresy, the chronicle accounts for 1486 and 1490, the documents produced by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and the Prosvetitel' of Iosif of Volokolamsk, a polemical work against the heresy of the 'Novogorod heretics who philosophize judaistically' provide much material for a study of the first documented heresy in the Russian Church. Many historians have been attracted to such a study for, as a review of the historical background and historiography of the heresy in Chapter I shows, the involvement of many of the alleged Judaizers in the affairs of the Church and State during a period of important changes affecting both the Church and the State and the relationship between them, makes an understanding of the heresy important to our view of Russia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. But the many studies of the heresy of the Judaizers undertaken by historians from the nineteenth century to the present day have failed to yield agreement on the origin and nature of the heresy. It is seen variously as the result of Jewish propaganda in the Russian Church, of the influence of Western Renaissance and Reformation ideas in Russia or, and this is the view which has dominated recent Soviet historiography, as a symptom of an indigenous Reformation (or proto-Reformation) movement affecting the whole of Russian society in the late fifteenth-early sixteenth centuries. The present work is an attempt to resolve the questions posed by studies of the heresy on the basis of a re-examination of primary published and manuscript sources. These fall into two categories: sources presenting the evidence against the Judaizers (evidence of the accusers), and sources associated with the heretics themselves. Chapter II examines the evidence of the accusers in connection with the trials of 1488 and 1490 (the so-called Novgorod stage of the heresy). Most of this evidence comes from the pen of Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod - consideration of the pre-1490 writings of Iosif of Volokolamsk shows that these do not have a direct bearing upon the subject of this study. Gennady's evidence has not received the attention it deserves, for it provides valuable information not only about the heresy he discovered in Novgorod, but also about the procedures accepted in the Russian Church in this period for discovering and identifying any heresy. His evidence explains his choice of the 'judaizing' label and shows that heretical acts had been committed in Novgorod, though not necessarily by the men condemned in 1488 and 1490. Gennady's letters are complemented by the official documents issued by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and it is clear that the heretics were tried according to properly accepted procedure and that evidence and condemnation was obtained by Gennady with the full co-operation of the grand prince. Gennady remained Archbishop of Novgorod until 1503, but a study of the works produced at his court after 1490 (in Chapter III) provides little evidence of a continuation of his campaign against the heresy. For evidence against the heretics tried in 1504, historians have had to rely on the writings of losif of Volokolamsk, but an examination of his polemical tracts (later incorporated in the Prosvetitel' ) and letters written before 1504 yields little reliable information about the beliefs of the Judaizers. Even the Prosvetitel' , written probably after, and not before the Council of 1504, as has been generally accepted, does little more than reiterate the accusations raised originally against the Novgorod heretics condemned in 1488 and 1490. The evidence of the accusers between 1490 and 1504 thus provides little information on the case presented against the heretics condemned by the Council of 1504. Such information has also been sought in the so-called 'literature of the Judaizers', works written by, or associated with, the men labelled by the accusers as 'judaizing' heretics. Chapter IV examines such works, most of which are associated with the Moscow Judaizers. Several survive in MSS. of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and it is clear that most were not considered heretical at the time. On the contrary, they belonged to the category of instructive Orthodox literature. Chapter V draws some conclusions from the evidence of the sources. If it is accepted that a heretic is someone whom the established Church…
(Continuedfrom front flap) AARON GUREVICH is professor at the Institute of General History, Russi... more (Continuedfrom front flap) AARON GUREVICH is professor at the Institute of General History, Russian (formerly USSR) Academy of Sciences, Moscow. For information on books of related interest or for a catalog of new publica-tions, please write: Marketing Department The ...
In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Musc... more In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Muscovites and Novgorodians accused of heresy. The Council found the men guilty and they were burnt at the stake in public executions in Novgorod and Moscow. The 1504 trial and execution was the last of three trials of a group of men accused of a 'judaizing' heresy and known to historians as the Zhidovstvuyushchie , or Judaizers. The first trial of the heretics had taken place in 1486 and the second in 1490. The evidence compiled for these trials by Archb'shop Gennady of Novgorod, who claimed to have discovered the heresy, the chronicle accounts for 1486 and 1490, the documents produced by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and the Prosvetitel' of Iosif of Volokolamsk, a polemical work against the heresy of the 'Novogorod heretics who philosophize judaistically' provide much material for a study of the first documented heresy in the Russian Church. Many historians have be...
assemblies and elections (the mechanisms for which are described in a little too much detail), we... more assemblies and elections (the mechanisms for which are described in a little too much detail), were involved in setting up schools for their children and in charity for poorer gentry, and had a social life in which hunting played a prominent part. They identifi ed with the state and national issues, such as the Crimean War, however, rather than asserting their local interests. The book is well researched and includes a wealth of detail from the provincial archive. This is placed in the context of the wider literature on the subject, drawing on older Russian studies such as Korf’s, and more recent English-language scholarship, in particular Emmons’ important monograph on the Tver’ gentry and emancipation. Good use is made of the works of writers such as Saltykov-Shchedrin and foreign visitors, in particular Haxthausen, in adding colour. In places, however, the picture presented seemed a little general, and more could have been done to identify what was particular about the Tver’ gentry in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century, or to explain why they had so much in common with provincial gentry across a wider geographical area and longer time period. Perhaps a comparison with Sergei Aksakov’s chronicle of gentry life in far-off Ufa province could have shed light on these issues. Although the main subject of the book is the gentry, there is more secondary literature on serfdom that could have been cited. A signifi cant omission is the work of Rodney Bohac on the Gagarin estate of Manuilovskoe in Tver’ province in this very period. In spite of these reservations, the Russian nobility has not received the attention it perhaps deserves from historians, so this provincial case study in the neglected period prior to the 1860s is a useful contribution to the literature.
Paper presented at a colloquium on Early Protestantism in Eastern Europe initially conceived by A... more Paper presented at a colloquium on Early Protestantism in Eastern Europe initially conceived by Anne Pennington for the Medieval Study Group.
some useful patristic mentions of the word judaiser from Migne' Patristica, showing the context ... more some useful patristic mentions of the word judaiser from Migne' Patristica, showing the context in which it was used. With thanks to Liubov Osinikina
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’
Early Slavic Thematic Ses... more Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’ Early Slavic Thematic Session at the BASEES Annual Conference Cambridge, Fitzwilliam College, Walker Room 21, 4th April 2016 http://basees2016.org/ 09:00-10:30 SESSION 7 7.1. Literature/Cultures: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’ 1 Chair: Simon Franklin (University of Cambridge) Papers: Katie Sykes (University of Cambridge) ‘What is a pagan? The usage of the term поганыи in the chronicles of early Rus’ Alexandra Vukovich (University of Cambridge) ‘Mixed Cultural References in Early Rus': the case of promissory rituals’ Jana Howlett (University of Cambridge) ‘The Role of Heresy in Shaping Orthodoxy in Early Muscovy’
11:00-12:45 SESSION 8 8.1. Literature/Cultures: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’ 2 Chair: Jana Howlett (University of Cambridge) Papers: Nicholas Mayhew (University of Cambridge) ‘Problematising ‘Orthodoxy’: Paired Saint Culture in Kievan and Muscovite Rus’ Ágnes Kriza (University of Cambridge) ‘The Iconography of Medieval Russian Sanctuary: A Visualized Concept of Orthodoxy’ Olenka Z. Pevny (University of Cambridge) ‘The Visual Rhetoric of Orthodoxy in 17th-century Kyiv: Petro Mohyla’s restoration of the Church of the Savior at Berestovo’
This is the draft autobiography of my friend and old colleague Rudolf Pikhoia, founder of the Ura... more This is the draft autobiography of my friend and old colleague Rudolf Pikhoia, founder of the Ural Federal University Department of Archaeographic Research and later Chief Archivist in the Yeltsin government, and now at Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I AM NOT THE AUTHOR BUT HAVE READ IT
The Heresy of the Judaisers and the Problem of the Russian Reformeation
This is a study of the heresy of the Judaisers which I am reworking into a book to be called Here... more This is a study of the heresy of the Judaisers which I am reworking into a book to be called Heresy and Treason in Early Modern Russia
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Papers by Jana Howlett
Early Slavic Thematic Session at the BASEES Annual Conference
Cambridge, Fitzwilliam College, Walker Room 21, 4th April 2016
http://basees2016.org/
09:00-10:30 SESSION 7
7.1. Literature/Cultures: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’ 1
Chair: Simon Franklin (University of Cambridge)
Papers:
Katie Sykes (University of Cambridge) ‘What is a pagan? The usage of the term поганыи in the chronicles of early Rus’
Alexandra Vukovich (University of Cambridge) ‘Mixed Cultural References in Early Rus': the case of promissory rituals’
Jana Howlett (University of Cambridge) ‘The Role of Heresy in Shaping Orthodoxy in Early Muscovy’
11:00-12:45 SESSION 8
8.1. Literature/Cultures: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy – Shaping Religious Identity in Medieval Rus’ 2
Chair: Jana Howlett (University of Cambridge)
Papers:
Nicholas Mayhew (University of Cambridge) ‘Problematising ‘Orthodoxy’: Paired Saint Culture in Kievan and Muscovite Rus’
Ágnes Kriza (University of Cambridge) ‘The Iconography of Medieval Russian Sanctuary: A Visualized Concept of Orthodoxy’
Olenka Z. Pevny (University of Cambridge) ‘The Visual Rhetoric of Orthodoxy in 17th-century Kyiv: Petro Mohyla’s restoration of the Church of the Savior at Berestovo’