Pre-Modern Seminar No 5: Fjodor Uspenskij

On Tuesday March 1st at 18.15 at the library of Skandinavistika Fjodor Uspenskij will give a guest lecture especially for the Interdisciplinary network for pre-modern studies at Tartu University called:

"The Baptism of the Bones in Medieval Rus’ and Scandinavia"

He has sent us the following abstract of his lecture:

"The Russians and Scandinavians understood baptism as an event appealing not only to the future but partially to the past as well, to the pre-Christian history of their peoples. In 1044 Yaroslav the Wise exhumed the remains of two princes, Oleg and Yaropolk. According to the chronicle, the remains were carried to the church and reburied there. Yaroslav’s action undoubtedly shows the family character of the princely power in Rus’, the baptism of the remains of Yaropolk and Oleg and their burial in the church are directly connected with the cult of the family, i.e., of the clan. The theme of family or clan prestige is key to another event, one which presents the closest parallel for Yaroslav’s actions. About 80 years before Yaroslav, a similar procedure was performed by Harald the Bluetooth († 985-987). As the possibility of the deliberate burial of a pagan inside the church is excluded, it is natural to assume that Harald administered some ritual procedure with the remains of his parents, corresponding to the function that Yaroslav administered with the bones of his uncles. The Christian prince Yaroslav the Wise baptized the bones of his uncles, thereby completing the move they had already undertaken to join the Christian Church, and by this he extended the Christian history of his family. His deeds have direct correlation with the practice of reburial of remains accepted among the Scandinavians during the first decades after conversion of their countries."

The seminar will take place in the library of Skandinavistika (Ülikooli 17) at 18.15.
 

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