Russell Martin

Prince Semën Ivanovich Shakhovskoi has long been recognized as a significant figure in early seventeenth-century Russia, mostly for his writings in a range of genres (historical tales, letters, theological treatises, liturgical services, and prayers). He has not, however, attracted the level of attention from scholars that his works deserve. This study examines one subset of his corpus, his prayers, for traces of biography and individuality of this important author. It argues that Shakhovskoi's prayers are both modeled on Orthodox textual traditions and customized to reflect the events and hardships in his life. The study also shows that Shakhovskoi-a warrior and diplomat-was well-versed in biblical and Church sources, making him a rare figure in the intellectual history of Muscovy: a true secular intellectual.

On Friday, September 25, 2015, in Memorial Church at Harvard University, a memorial service was held to celebrate the life and career of Professor Edward L. Keenan Jr., Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History, Emeritus, who passed away on March 6, 2015. The memorial service gathered together hundreds – family members, former colleagues and students, and countless friends. The eight speakers at this memorial described Edward (Ned) Keenan’s influence on them, but also his inestimable impact on the field of Russian history; and his widow provided a window into his thinking about the many roles he played over the course of a diverse and significant career that spanned four decades. The memorial service marked a sad moment in the field of Russian studies, and the words offered at it are important for understanding how the field of Russian history in the United States grew and was transformed in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

This article examines the Law of Succession and the Statute on the Imperial Family, texts which were issued by Emperor Paul I on April 5, 1797, and which regulated the succession to the throne and the structure of the Romanov dynasty as a family down to the end of the empire in 1917. It also analyzes the revisions introduced in these texts by subsequent emperors, focusing particularly on the development of a requirement for equal marriage and for marrying Orthodox spouses. The article argues that changing circumstances in the dynasty—its rapid increase in numbers, its growing demands on the financial resources of the Imperial Household, its struggle to resist morganatic and interfaith marriages—forced changes to provisions in the Law and Statute, and that the Romanovs debated and reformed the structure of the Imperial Family in the context of the provisions of these laws. The article shows how these Imperial House laws served as a vitally important arena for reform and legal culture...

Русские правители на протяжении XVI–XVII веков выбирали жен с помощью сложного ритуала, известного как смотр невест. Самые красивые девицы Московии, принадлежавшие к слою провинциального дворянства, доставлялись в Москву, где доверенные лица царя — придворные и бояре — оценивали их физическое здоровье, духовные качества, внешность и добродетели. Претендентки, прошедшие предварительный отбор, затем представали перед царем, который и делал окончательный выбор. Как бояре подбирали «правильных» кандидаток в невесты и устраняли неугодных? Сколько на самом деле было жен у Ивана Грозного? Как смотр невест конструировал образ самодержавия и при этом служил механизмом, его ограничивающим? Отвечая на эти вопросы, книга американского историка Расселла Мартина повествует не только о боярских заговорах, но и о сложной коллективной природе монархической власти. Расселл Мартин — профессор и декан исторического факультета Вестминстерского колледжа (США).

Beem seeks to produce a 'trans-European' (p. 13) examination of queenship in the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, and hopes that his book will move us closer to a single conceptual model of queenship in early modern Europe. The book begins promisingly, with an introduction sporting useful definitions and a literature survey that assesses the status of queenship studies today in a way that is inviting and engaging. Indeed, the lucid writing throughout the book is one of its strengths. The next five chapters take on each of the case studies (with Russia being separated out from the Baltic kingdoms into its own chapter). Each chapter highlights one queen or empress (respectively Mary, Queen of Scots; Anne of Austria, queen of France; Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary and sovereign of the Habsburg lands; Bona Sforza, queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania; and Catherine II the Great, empress of Russia), but actually treats the entire early modern period (and more than just one queen). We learn that 'British queenship went through several distinct phases' (p. 78), with Mary I, Elizabeth I and perhaps Anne creating a template for regnant queens that was acknowledged and consulted well outside England for centuries; and Elizabeth of York, Catherine of Aragon and perhaps Mary of Modena perfecting in their own ways the early modern archetype of queens as consorts. In France, we see queens as dynastic figures who sometimes, as in the cases of Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria, could exercise vast powers as dowagers, though few had what Beem calls 'companionate' marriages with their royal husbands; while in Spain the traditional roles of motherhood, piety and beneficence became linked and identified with the formal affections of their spouses. The Habsburg and Polish queens dutifully followed the 'companionate marriage model' (p. 201), focusing on motherhood, religious observance and

This review article surveys and assesses the first 12 issues of the journal Rossiiskaia genealogiia. Nauchnyi al'manakh, published by Staraia Basmannaia press beginning in 2016. It surveys in detail the three regular sections of the journal-Articles and Notices (Stat'i i soobshcheniia), Source Publications (Publikatsii istochnikov), and Reference Materials (Spravochnye materialy)-and provides detailed descriptions and assessments of selected contents in each. The article calls attention to the high-quality publications that will be of interest not only to scholars working in genealogy, but also in a host of related themes in early modern and modern Russian history and culture, including questions of social identity, kinship awareness, demography, onomastics, and political alliances among the elite (among other themes), as well as methods for mining and publishing complex manuscript sources.