Introduction

Summary

APOPULAR WITTICISM claims that Russia is a country with an unpredictable past. Prompted by the repeated Soviet and post-Soviet rewriting of history, this joke does not mean that the past is insignificant; in contemporary Russia, the opposite is true. The country's 2023 “Miss Universe” contestant wore a bejewelled ensemble titled “The Crown of the Russian Empire” (complete with actual jewels from the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg). Every year, come May, widespread Victory Day celebrations betray the transformation of the Soviet Union's participation in World War II into a patriotic memory cult, dubbed pobedobesie (“victory frenzy”). Jingoist slogans such as “We can repeat [our victory in the war]!” weaponize this history and the actual suffering of millions in the Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly, even Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine opened with its leader, Vladimir Putin, delivering a nearly hour-long lecture on Ukraine's history. History helps to glorify the past and presents a convenient catalogue of grievances or a simplistic list of “naughty” and “nice” historical figures. It fills Russia's public sphere, summoned nearly daily to justify and legitimize any foreign or domestic policy.

Much of the history invoked by Russia's leaders is medieval. While frequent appeals to the Soviet past or even the times of the Russian Empire may seem more understandable, the interest in Russia's Middle Ages—indeed, the times before Russia itself—abounds. In 2021, passengers riding Moscow's underground could spot a train decorated with decals of medieval Prince Alexander Nevsky. Discussion about Russia's regional influence and the political role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) frequently claim that Moscow is the heir of Byzantine Constantinople, making it the “Third Rome.” Even the adoption of Christianity by Prince Volodimer (Volodymyr, Vladimir) the Great in the late tenth century has been interpreted as the origins of unique Russian civilization, with the medieval ruler increasingly exploited by Putin's regime as justification for its invasion of Ukraine. Putin's fascination with the premodern past seeps through even in kitschy, somewhat tongue-in-cheek depictions of him in medieval plate armour astride a ferocious brown bear at the 2017 SUPERPUTIN pop-art exhibit in Moscow.