Since 2025, the Center for Medieval Studies has become the working group “Medieval World and Old Rus’” of the project “Language, Literature and Culture in Historical and Social Perspective”, carried out within the framework of the Basic Research Programme at HSE University. We have tried to preserve all the best that we have done in previous years, and we continue to develop our projects such as the website, seminars, conferences, etc.
Our working group focuses on identifying the systemic and specific features of medieval culture as a result of interdisciplinary, diachronic and typological research and in comparison with other synchronous phenomena. In particular, we are working on creating a catalog of lists of Russian hierarchs before the 15th century; writing a new history of the relationship between the Church and princely power in pre-Mongol Russia in the field of public contacts; clarifying the mechanisms of performative-symbolic dialogue between princes and townspeople; reconstructing the mechanisms of legitimization and transfer of power in medieval society; reconstruction of the correlation of the confessional and cultural typological specifics of Catholic and Byzantine Orthodox traditions with the modalities of innovation in the religious sphere; preparing a database on the prosopography of pre-Mongol Rus’. The subject of our research continues the main themes of the work of its participants, carried out in previous years within the framework of the Center for Medieval Studies.
Medieval Russian History through the Eyes of American Historian
On June19,Valerie Kivelson, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, conducted an online workshop ‘How to Draw Hatred? The Litsevoi Letopisnyi Svod and Depictions of Religious Others’. It was organized by HSE Cenre for Medieval Studies within the series of discussions on medieval Russia.She spoke with HSE News Service about the seminar, her attitude to historical research, and having online discussions instead of live meetings.