Dr Vlasto reviews the early history of the various Slav peoples (from about AD 500 onwards) and traces their gradual emergence as Christian states within the framework of either West or East European culture. Special attention is paid to the political and cultural rivalry between East and West for the allegiance of certain Slav peoples, and to the degree of cultural exchange within the Slav world, associated in particular with the use of the Slav liturgical language. His examination of all the Slav peoples and extensive use of original source material in many different languages enables Dr Vlasto to give a particularly comprehensive study of the subject.

This publication in three volumes originated in papers delivered at two conferences held in May 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, DC. Like many other conferences organized that year in the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union, they were convened to commemorate the millennium of the acceptance of Christianity in Rus'. This collection of essays throws light on the enormous, truly unique role that the Christian tradition has played throughout the centuries in shaping the nations that spring from Kievan Rus'—the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. Although these volumes devote greater attention to Russian culture, the investigation of the issue in the history of Christianity in Ukrainian and Belorussian cultures occupies an important and integral part of the project. Volume ISlavic Cultures in the Middle AgesEdited by Boris Gasparov and Olga Raevsky-Hughes Volume IIRussian Culture in Modern TimesEdited by Robert P. Hughes and Irina Paperno Volume IIIRussian Literature in Modern TimesEdited by Boris Gasparov, Robert P. Hughes, Irina Paperno, and Olga Raevsky-Hughes This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

The final chapter sets the early medieval developments into the perspective of the history and culture of modern Europe. A series of specially compiled maps chart the main cultural changes taking place over six centuries in this relatively unknown part of Europe."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume contains selected papers from an international conference held in 2009 in Varna, Bulgaria. The papers represent major trends and developments in current research on the medieval Slavonic biblical tradition, primarily in comparison with Greek and Hebrew texts. The volume covers the translation of the canonical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books of the Old and New Testaments and its development over the ninth to sixteenth centuries. Another focus is on issues relating to Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the first Slavonic alphabet in the ninth century and the first translators of biblical books into Slavonic. The analytical approach in the volume is interdisciplinary, applying methodologies from textual criticism, philology, cultural and political history, and theology. It should be of value to Slavists, Hebraists and Byzantinists.

The History of the Church through its Buildings takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories become embedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity. This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establish relationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith. Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where the worshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it is possible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focus...

Ten chapters examine aspects of medieval Czech literature, with particular emphasis on women readers and subjects and the influence of the church. Individual manuscripts examined include The Dalimil Chronicle , The Ointment Seller , The Legend of Saint Procopius , The Life of St Catherine , The New Council and The Weaver, The Wycliffite Woman and The Dispute between Prague and Kutná Hora .

The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome is the first book-length study of the medieval legend that Church Father and biblical translator St. Jerome was a Slav who invented the Slavic (Glagolitic) alphabet and Roman Slavonic rite. Julia Verkholantsev locates the roots of this belief among the Latin clergy in Dalmatia in the 13th century and describes in fascinating detail how Slavic leaders subsequently appropriated it to further their own political agendas. The Slavic language, written in Jerome's alphabet and endorsed by his authority, gained the unique privilege in the Western Church of being the only language other than Latin, Greek, and Hebrew acceptable for use in the liturgy. Such privilege, confirmed repeatedly by the popes, resulted in the creation of narratives about the distinguished historical mission of the Slavs and became a possible means for bridging the divide between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in the Slavic-speaking lands. In the fourteenth century the legend spread from Dalmatia to Bohemia and Poland, where Glagolitic monasteries were established to honor the Apostle of the Slavs Jerome and the rite and letters he created. The myth of Jerome's apostolate among the Slavs gained many supporters among the learned and spread far and wide, reaching Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and England. Grounded in extensive archival research, Verkholantsev examines the sources and trajectory of the legend of Jerome's Slavic fellowship within a wider context of European historical and theological thought. This unique volume will appeal to medievalists, Slavicists, scholars of religion, those interested in saints' cults, and specialists of philology.

The book chronicles the evolution of the church's political power throughout Poland's unique history. Beginning in the tenth century, the study first details how Catholicism overcame early challenges in Poland, from converting the early polytheists to pushing back the Protestant Reformation half a millennium later. It continues into the dawn of the modern age—including the division of Poland between Prussia, Russia, and Austria between 1772 and 1795, the interwar years, the National Socialist occupation of World War Two, and the communist and post-war communist eras—during which The Church only half-correctly presented itself as a steadfast protector of Poles, with clergy members who either stood up to foreign authorities or collaborated with those same Nazi and Communist leaders. This study ends with a consideration of how the Church has taken advantage of the fall of communism to push its own social agenda, at times against the wishes of most Poles.

Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. A History of Russian Literature provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife with the creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life. The volume proceeds chronologically in five parts, extending from Kievan Rus' in the 11th century to the present day.The coverage strikes a balance between extensive overview and in-depth thematic focus. Parts are organized thematically in chapters, which a number of keywords that are important literary concepts that can serve as connecting motifs and 'case studies', in-depth discussions of writers, institutions, and texts that take the reader up close and. Visual material also underscores the interrelation of the word and image at a number of points, particularly significant in the medieval period and twentieth century. The History addresses major continuities and discontinuities in the history of Russian literature across all periods, and in particular bring out trans-historical features that contribute to the notion of a national literature. The volume's time-range has the merit of identifying from the early modern period a vital set of national stereotypes and popular folklore about boundaries, space, Holy Russia, and the charismatic king that offers culturally relevant material to later writers. This volume delivers a fresh view on a series of key questions about Russia's literary history, by providing new mappings of literary history and a narrative that pursues key concepts (rather more than individual authorial careers). This holistic narrative underscores the ways in which context and text are densely woven in Russian literature, and demonstrates that the most exciting way to understand the canon and the development of tradition is through a discussion of the interrelation of major and minor figures, historical events and literary politics, literary theory and literary innovation.

In this major work, two world religion and mission experts present a new relational model for Christians interacting with people of other faiths.