This controversial and groundbreaking book revisits the origins of one of the most beloved works of East Slavic literature, Slovo o polku Igoreve (The Igorʹ Tale). Keenan argues that the text is not an authentic 12th-century document but rather was created by the Bohemian scholar Josef Dobrovský in the late 18th century.
‘The Voice of the People’ presents a series of essays on literary aspects of the European folk revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and focuses on two key practices of antiquarianism: the role that collecting and editing played in the formation of ethnological study in the European academy; and the business of publishing and editing, which produced many ‘folkloric’ texts of dubious authenticity. The volume also presents new readings of various genres, including the epic, song, tale and novel, and contributes to the study of several crucial European literary figures. Above all, it investigates the great anonymous authors of the European folk tradition – in narrative and lyric art – and their relation to the cultural movements and imagined identities of the peoples of the emerging nineteenth-century European nation.
The author of the present volume aims to investigate the relationships between Romanians and nomadic Turkic groups (Pechenegs, Uzes, Cumans) in the southern half of Moldavia, north of the Danube Delta, between the tenth century and the great Mongol invasion of 1241-1242. The Carpathian-Danubian area particularly favoured the development of sedentary life, throughout the millennia, but, at various times, nomadic pastoralists of the steppes also found this area favourable to their own way of life. Due to the basic features of its landscape, the above-mentioned area, which includes a vast plain, became the main political stage of the Romanian ethnic space, a stage on which local communities had to cope with the pressures of successive intrusions of nomadic Turks, attracted by the rich pastures north of the Lower Danube. Contacts of the Romanians and of the Turkic nomads with Byzantium, Kievan Rus’, Bulgaria and Hungary are also investigated. The conclusions of the volume are based on an analysis of both written sources (narrative, diplomatic, cartographic) and archaeological finds.
In search of specific national traditions nineteenth-century artists and scholars did not shy of manipulating texts and objects or even outright manufacturing them. The essays edited by János M. Bak, Patrick J. Geary and Gábor Klaniczay explore the various artifacts from outright forgeries to fruits of poetic phantasy, while also discussing the volatile notion of authenticity and the multiple claims for it in the age. Contributors include: Pavlína Rychterová, Péter Dávidházi, Pertti Anttonen, László Szörényi, János M. Bak, Nóra Berend, Benedek Láng, Igor P. Medvedev, Dan D.Y. Shapira, János György Szilágyi, Cristina La Rocca, Giedrė Mickūnaitė, Johan Hegardt and Sándor Radnóti.
This interdisciplinary handbook provides extensive information about research in medieval studies and its most important results over the last decades. The handbook is a reference work which enables the readers to quickly and purposely gain insight into the important research discussions and to inform themselves about the current status of research in the field. The handbook consists of four parts. The first, large section offers articles on all of the main disciplines and discussions of the field. The second section presents articles on the key concepts of modern medieval studies and the debates therein. The third section is a lexicon of the most important text genres of the Middle Ages. The fourth section provides an international bio-bibliographical lexicon of the most prominent medievalists in all disciplines. A comprehensive bibliography rounds off the compendium. The result is a reference work which exhaustively documents the current status of research in medieval studies and brings the disciplines and experts of the field together.
In The Slavic Dossier, Iurie Stamati’s objective is to understand the reasons for the emergence of two different discourses on the place of the Slavs on the territory of Moldova and their role in the genesis of Moldovans and their culture during the medieval period in the Soviet archaeology. His analysis goes beyond the utilitarian perception of Soviet archeology. To achieve this, Stamati not only questions the political contexts in which these discourses emerged, but also looks at the history of the Moldovan archaeological field, personal profiles of archaeologists, their theoretical and ideological attachment, relationships and interactions with each other inside and outside the archaeological field.
