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Name Unknown: The Life of a Rusian Queen
Name The Life of a Rusian Queen offers an example of an eastern European queen as a corrective to the western European focus of medieval queenship studies.
Through a chronological approach, this book looks beyond the popular biographies of royal women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Berengaria of Castile and gathers material from sources throughout Europe. It engages with modern queenship studies literature to create a collective biography of a Rusian queen through the various cycles of her life from the marriage of eight-year-old Verkhuslava to the death of the ruler of Minsk whose generosity is recorded, but not her name. For medievalists interested in women and queens, Name The Life of a Rusian Queen provides an entry point to an area of Europe rarely studied in that literature. For Slavists, it presents a way of looking at medieval Rusian women that has not yet appeared in this scholarly tradition. Ultimately, this biography integrates Rus, and eastern Europe, into the medieval world and acts as an important reminder that women are essential to our history and thus to our overall understanding of the past.
This book is of great use to students and scholars interested in the history of women, queenship, and medieval Europe.
Through a chronological approach, this book looks beyond the popular biographies of royal women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Berengaria of Castile and gathers material from sources throughout Europe. It engages with modern queenship studies literature to create a collective biography of a Rusian queen through the various cycles of her life from the marriage of eight-year-old Verkhuslava to the death of the ruler of Minsk whose generosity is recorded, but not her name. For medievalists interested in women and queens, Name The Life of a Rusian Queen provides an entry point to an area of Europe rarely studied in that literature. For Slavists, it presents a way of looking at medieval Rusian women that has not yet appeared in this scholarly tradition. Ultimately, this biography integrates Rus, and eastern Europe, into the medieval world and acts as an important reminder that women are essential to our history and thus to our overall understanding of the past.
This book is of great use to students and scholars interested in the history of women, queenship, and medieval Europe.
180 pages, Hardcover
Published June 3, 2024
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July 24, 2024
There have been many women in history who have remained nameless. The Kingdom of Rus has its first share of Queens without a name. Kyivan Rus' found its centre in Kyiv and could be found in Eastern Europe from the 9th century until the 13th century.
Name Unknown: The Life of a Rusian Queen by Christian Raffensperger follows the lives of these unnamed Queens through the various stages of their lives. We get tantalising close to these women as sources reveal their generosity, charitable acts, the children they had, and the men they married, while the sources never reveal their names.
The book is easy to read despite hardly any of the women having names. It is certainly an interesting way to look at these women, and they might have otherwise remained overlooked for many more years.
Name Unknown: The Life of a Rusian Queen by Christian Raffensperger follows the lives of these unnamed Queens through the various stages of their lives. We get tantalising close to these women as sources reveal their generosity, charitable acts, the children they had, and the men they married, while the sources never reveal their names.
The book is easy to read despite hardly any of the women having names. It is certainly an interesting way to look at these women, and they might have otherwise remained overlooked for many more years.
Displaying 1 of 1 review