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Conference: «Remembering a pre-modern past in a modern world: Medieval saints and heroes as realms of memory in 19th and 20th Century Central, Eastern and Northern Europe»
October 18-19, 2021
(University of Greifswald and St. Petersburg State University)
When the Empires expanded and nations were born during the modern period, various groups and societies in the Middle Ages found historical figures — rulers, saints and heroes — as role models important for the formation of their identities. These medieval men and women became realms of memory (lieux de mémoire), symbolic reference figures in which fundamentally important images of local, ethnocultural and later national discourse were embodied, thanks to which the emergence of an ‘imagined community’ became possible. After the Second World War, many of the integrated figures of 19th century national romanticism lost their significance or became re-invented by religious or ethnic minorities, as symbols for rebellious groups or sub-cultures.
In the framework of this conference, we are interested in relevance (irrelevance) of medieval historical figures (saints, heroes, rulers etc.) and events (battles, political acts) for the 19th and early 20th century European societies and what impact the medieval individuals and events had on the formation of modern group identities.
The conference is organised by the project «Saints and Heroes from Christianization to Nationalism: Symbol, Image, Memory (Nord-West Russia, Baltic and Nordic countries)» of University of Greifswald and St. Petersburg State University https://ej.uz/SaintsHeroes
October 18
8:45 (all times in CET) Welcome address and introduction by Professor Cordelia Heß (University of Greifswald), Dr. Gustavs Strenga (University of Greifswald) and Professor Alexander Filyushkin (St. Petersburg State University)
09:00-10:00
Session 1: Eastern European saints between the Middle Ages and modernity Moderator: Cordelia Heß
Alexander Filyushkin: Spiritual and and secular «places of memory» as symbols of the historical policy of the Russian Empire: Poland, the Baltic States, Novgorod, Pskov and St. Petersburg: a comparative analysis
11:30-12:30
Session 3: Remembering medieval battles and heroes in imperial and totalitarian settings Moderator: Gustavs Strenga
Dmitry Weber (St. Petersburg State University): From hero to event: Heinrich von Plauen and the battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg in German memory from the end of the 19th to the early 20 th century
Roman Sokolov, Irina Smirnova (St. Petersburg State University): Film «Alexander Nevsky» by Sergei Eisenstein: «the birth of a hero» or «the film that was wanted to be banned»?
14:45-15:45
Session 5: Between Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism: Finnish and Karelian medieval saints Moderator: Anti Selart (University of Tartu)
Kati Parppei (University of Southern Finland): «The holy educators of the Karelian tribe» — The integration of Russian medieval saintly cults into Finnish Orthodox «mythscape», 1896-1940
October 19
09:00-10:00 (CET) Young scholars session 1
Viktor Koronevsky (St. Petersburg State University): «The idea of retrieval» as an ideological component of the celebration of the transfer of the relics of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk from Kiev to Polotsk in 1910
Tatyana Medvedeva (St. Petersburg State University): The image of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia in the 19th and 20th centuries: veneration and reflection in culture
10:10-10:50 Young scholars session 2
Svetlana Abuzina (St. Petersburg State University): How Ivan the Great Became Ivan the Terrible: On the Issue of Writing and Publishing of the 9th Volume of «History of the Russian State» by N. M. Karamzin
11:00-12:00
Session 7: Medieval heroic pasts in the modern Baltic
Gustavs Strenga: Livonian founding bishops and medieval indigenous ’heroes’ during the age of nationalism
13:00-13:30
Session 8: Finding place for medieval saints in the modern Empires and national states
Marianna Shakhnovich (St. Petersburg State University): Memorialization of natural loci and veneration of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga in the North-West of Russia (19th - early 21st centuries)