Exploring Images and Perceptions of Rulers and Religious Ideals in Muscovy

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel will offer new insights on conceptions of rule and belief in Muscovy by examining ideal representations of tsars and religion and their opposites in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Maria Salomon Arel’s paper will explore Protestant perceptions of Russia’s potential role in advancing the anti-Catholic agenda in the 1620s-30s, both militarily and ideologically, by envisaging Muscovy in Protestant utopian terms. Kain Kevin’s paper will consider the conception and reception Boris Godunov’s efforts to construct a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Moscow Kremlin within the broader Muscovite notion of Moscow as New Jerusalem. Charles Halperin’s paper will address Ivan IV’s images in Muscovy, beginning during his lifetime through the end of the seventeenth century, problematizing representations of the tsar as a muchitel’ or tormentor.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Cornelia Soldat, U of Cologne (Germany)

Papers

• On the Fringes, but Not: Protestant Perceptions of Muscovy in the Thirty Years’ War Era…the English View - Maria Salomon Arel, Marianopolis College (Canada)

• The Conception and Reception Boris Godunov’s Image of a New Jerusalem in Moscow - Kevin Michael Kain, U of Wisconsin-Green Bay

• Not a Muchitel’?: Ivan the Terrible’s Image in Muscovy - Charles J. Halperin, Independent Scholar

Discussant

• Daniel B. Rowland, U of Kentucky