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Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus in the Medieval World, 9881146 (Harvard Historical Studies) by Christian Raffensperger is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus in the Medieval World, 9881146 (Harvard Historical Studies) about?

An overriding assumption has long directed scholarship in both European and Slavic history: that Kievan Rus' in the tenth through twelfth centuries was part of a Byzantine commonwealth separate from Europe. Christian Raffensperger refutes this conception and offers a new frame for two hundred years of history, one in which Rus' is understood as part of medieval Europe and East is not so neatly divided from West. With the aid of Latin sources, the author brings to light the considerable political, religious, marital, and economic ties among European kingdoms, including Rus', restoring a historical record rendered blank by Russian monastic chroniclers as well as modern scholars ideologically motivated to build barriers between East and West. Further, Raffensperger revises the concept of a Byzantine commonwealth that stood in opposition to Europe-and under which Rus' was subsumed-toward that of a Byzantine Ideal esteemed and emulated by all the states of Europe. In this new context, appropriation of Byzantine customs, law, coinage, art, and architecture in both Rus' and Europe can be understood as an attempt to gain legitimacy and prestige by association with the surviving remnant of

Author

Christian Raffensperger

Publisher

Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies

Published

2012

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674063846

Subjects

History, Christian, Humanities