A Bride for the Tsar

A Bride for the Tsar PDF Author: Russell E. Martin
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 1501756656
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
From 1505 to 1689, Russia's tsars chose their wives through an elaborate ritual: the bride-show. The realm's most beautiful young maidens—provided they hailed from the aristocracy—gathered in Moscow, where the tsar's trusted boyars reviewed their medical histories, evaluated their spiritual qualities, noted their physical appearances, and confirmed their virtue. Those who passed muster were presented to the tsar, who inspected the candidates one by one—usually without speaking to any of them—and chose one to be immediately escorted to the Kremlin to prepare for her wedding and new life as the tsar's consort. Alongside accounts of sordid boyar plots against brides, the multiple marriages of Ivan the Terrible, and the fascinating spectacle of the bride-show ritual, A Bride for the Tsar offers an analysis of the show's role in the complex politics of royal marriage in early modern Russia. Russell E. Martin argues that the nature of the rituals surrounding the selection of a bride for the tsar tells us much about the extent of his power, revealing it to be limited and collaborative, not autocratic. Extracting the bride-show from relative obscurity, Martin persuasively establishes it as an essential element of the tsarist political system.

A Bride for the Tsar

A Bride for the Tsar PDF Author: Russell E. Martin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1609090594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
From 1505 to 1689, Russia's tsars chose their wives through an elaborate ritual: the bride-show. The realm's most beautiful young maidens—provided they hailed from the aristocracy—gathered in Moscow, where the tsar's trusted boyars reviewed their medical histories, evaluated their spiritual qualities, noted their physical appearances, and confirmed their virtue. Those who passed muster were presented to the tsar, who inspected the candidates one by one—usually without speaking to any of them—and chose one to be immediately escorted to the Kremlin to prepare for her wedding and new life as the tsar's consort. Alongside accounts of sordid boyar plots against brides, the multiple marriages of Ivan the Terrible, and the fascinating spectacle of the bride-show ritual, A Bride for the Tsar offers an analysis of the show's role in the complex politics of royal marriage in early modern Russia. Russell E. Martin argues that the nature of the rituals surrounding the selection of a bride for the tsar tells us much about the extent of his power, revealing it to be limited and collaborative, not autocratic. Extracting the bride-show from relative obscurity, Martin persuasively establishes it as an essential element of the tsarist political system.

A Bride for the Tsar

A Bride for the Tsar PDF Author: Russell E. Martin
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 1501756656
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
From 1505 to 1689, Russia's tsars chose their wives through an elaborate ritual: the bride-show. The realm's most beautiful young maidens—provided they hailed from the aristocracy—gathered in Moscow, where the tsar's trusted boyars reviewed their medical histories, evaluated their spiritual qualities, noted their physical appearances, and confirmed their virtue. Those who passed muster were presented to the tsar, who inspected the candidates one by one—usually without speaking to any of them—and chose one to be immediately escorted to the Kremlin to prepare for her wedding and new life as the tsar's consort. Alongside accounts of sordid boyar plots against brides, the multiple marriages of Ivan the Terrible, and the fascinating spectacle of the bride-show ritual, A Bride for the Tsar offers an analysis of the show's role in the complex politics of royal marriage in early modern Russia. Russell E. Martin argues that the nature of the rituals surrounding the selection of a bride for the tsar tells us much about the extent of his power, revealing it to be limited and collaborative, not autocratic. Extracting the bride-show from relative obscurity, Martin persuasively establishes it as an essential element of the tsarist political system.

The Complete Russian Folktale: v. 4: Russian Wondertales 2 - Tales of Magic and the Supernatural

The Complete Russian Folktale: v. 4: Russian Wondertales 2 - Tales of Magic and the Supernatural PDF Author: Jack V. Haney
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317457765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
These stories of heroism and magic, and of terrifying encounters with Baba Yaga, Zmei the serpent and Koschchei the Immortal, represent at least one example of every wondertale type known in Russia.

The Tsar's Happy Occasion

The Tsar's Happy Occasion PDF Author: Russell E. Martin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501754858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The Tsar's Happy Occasion shows how the vast, ornate affairs that were royal weddings in early modern Russia were choreographed to broadcast powerful images of monarchy and dynasty. Processions and speeches emphasized dynastic continuity and legitimacy. Fertility rites blended Christian and pre-Christian symbols to assure the birth of heirs. Gift exchanges created and affirmed social solidarity among the elite. The bride performed rituals that integrated herself and her family into the inner circle of the court. Using an array of archival sources, Russell E. Martin demonstrates how royal weddings reflected and shaped court politics during a time of dramatic cultural and dynastic change. As Martin shows, the rites of passage in these ceremonies were dazzling displays of monarchical power unlike any other ritual at the Muscovite court. And as dynasties came and went and the political culture evolved, so too did wedding rituals. Martin relates how Peter the Great first mocked, then remade wedding rituals to symbolize and empower his efforts to westernize Russia. After Peter, the two branches of the Romanov dynasty used weddings to solidify their claims to the throne. The Tsar's Happy Occasion offers a sweeping, yet penetrating cultural history of the power of rituals and the rituals of power in early modern Russia.

Succession to the Throne in Early Modern Russia

Succession to the Throne in Early Modern Russia PDF Author: Paul Bushkovitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108479340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This revisionist history explores how the tsar's power was transferred in Russia over three centuries, as cultural practices and customs evolved.

Vasilisa the Fair

Vasilisa the Fair PDF Author: Alla Lander
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573629518
Category : Princes
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
"He shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth he didn’t care where. He didn’t want to do it but his father made him. When the Tsar of all Russia tells you to shoot an arrow and marry the closest young thing to wherever it lands, that’s what you do. Even if it lands in a swamp by a frog. So Prince Ivan agrees to marry his green quarry, who is actually a charmed princess. Wonderful Russian folk characters – including a fire-breathing bear, a wicked wizard, and the witch Baba Yaga – enrich this wonderful tale for children of all ages. Play, with music. "--Publisher.

Bewitching Russian Opera

Bewitching Russian Opera PDF Author: Inna Naroditskaya
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190931868
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
In Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage, author Inna Naroditskaya investigates the musical lives of four female monarchs who ruled Russia for most of the eighteenth century: Catherine I, Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great. Engaging with ethnomusicological, historical, and philological approaches, her study traces the tsarinas' deeply invested interest in musical drama, as each built theaters, established drama schools, commissioned operas and ballets, and themselves wrote and produced musical plays. Naroditskaya examines the creative output of the tsarinas across the contexts in which they worked and lived, revealing significant connections between their personal creative aspirations and contemporary musical-theatrical practices, and the political and state affairs conducted during their reigns. Through contemporary performance theory, she demonstrates how the opportunity for role-playing and costume-changing in performative spaces allowed individuals to cross otherwise rigid boundaries of class and gender. A close look at a series of operas and musical theater productions--from Catherine the Great's fairy tale operas to Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame--illuminates the transition of these royal women from powerful political and cultural figures during their own reigns, to a marginalized and unreal Other under the patriarchal dominance of the subsequent period. These tsarinas successfully fostered the concept of a modern nation and collective national identity, only to then have their power and influence undone in Russian cultural consciousness through the fairy-tales operas of the 19th century that positioned tsarinas as "magical" and dangerous figures rightfully displaced and conquered--by triumphant heroes on the stage, and by the new patriarchal rulers in the state. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that the theater served as an experimental space for these imperial women, in which they rehearsed, probed, and formulated gender and class roles, and performed on the musical stage political ambitions and international conquests which they would later enact on the world stage itself.

Portraits of Old Russia

Portraits of Old Russia PDF Author: Donald Ostrowski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317462378
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This book introduces readers to a little-known place and time in world history – early modern Russia, from its beginnings as Muscovy, in the fourteenth century, through the reign of Peter I (1689-1725) – by portraying the lives of representative individuals from the major levels of the society of that era. The portraits, written by professional historians, are imaginative reconstructions or composites of individual lives, rather than biographies. The portraits are arranged into socio-political categories, and include members of ruling families, government servitors, clerks, military personnel, church prelates, monks, provincial landowners, townspeople and artisans, Siberian explorers and traders, free peasants, serfs, slaves and holy fools. Using these portraits, the book brings old Russian society to life in an interesting way.

The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev, Volume III

The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev, Volume III PDF Author: Jack V. Haney
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496832000
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Up to now, there has been no complete English-language version of the Russian folktales of A. N. Afanas’ev. This translation is based on L. G. Barag and N. V. Novikov’s edition, widely regarded as the authoritative Russian-language edition. The present edition includes commentaries to each tale as well as its international classification number. This third volume contains 305 tales, those numbered 319–579, as well as forty-five additional tales from among those denied publication by the Russian censors. The folktales of A. N. Afanas’ev represent the largest single collection of folktales in any European language and perhaps in the world. Widely regarded as the Russian Grimm, Afanas’ev collected folktales from throughout the Russian Empire in what are now regarded as the three East Slavic languages, Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian. In his lifetime, Afanas’ev published more than 575 tales in his most popular and best-known work, Narodnye russkie skazki. In addition to this basic collection, he prepared a volume of Russian legends, many on religious themes; a collection of mildly obscene tales, Russkie zavetnye skazki; and voluminous writings on Slavic folklife and mythology. His works were subject to the strict censorship of ecclesiastical and state authorities that lasted until the demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Overwhelmingly, his particular emendations were stylistic, while those of the censors mostly concerned content.

The Russian Story Book

The Russian Story Book PDF Author: Mallilnckrodt Research Professor of Physics Richard Wilson, MD MS
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Dive into the rich tapestry of Russian folklore with "The Russian Story Book" by Mallilnckrodt Research Professor of Physics Richard Wilson, MD MS; Richard Wilson. Embark on an enchanting journey through the heart of Russia as Richard Wilson brings to life a collection of timeless tales steeped in tradition and magic. From whimsical folktales to gripping legends, each story captivates with its vivid imagery and enduring themes. Discover the intricate plot points woven through these age-old stories, where heroes and heroines embark on epic quests, encounter fantastical creatures, and navigate the complexities of the human spirit. Wilson's masterful storytelling transports readers to a world where anything is possible and the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur. Uncover the themes and motifs that define Russian folklore, from the triumph of good over evil to the enduring power of love and loyalty. Through Wilson's expert retelling, readers gain insight into the cultural heritage and collective imagination of the Russian people, illuminating the universal truths that resonate across time and space. Delve into character analysis as Wilson brings to life a colorful cast of characters, from noble princes and cunning witches to humble peasants and wise babushkas. Each character is a testament to the resilience, ingenuity, and indomitable spirit of the Russian people, inspiring readers with their courage and determination. Experience the overall tone and mood of "The Russian Story Book," which evokes a sense of wonder, awe, and nostalgia. Wilson's lyrical prose and evocative imagery transport readers to a world where magic and reality intertwine, inviting them to embark on an unforgettable literary adventure. Explore the critical reception of "The Russian Story Book," which has garnered acclaim for its faithful retellings, rich cultural context, and timeless appeal. Wilson's collection has become a beloved classic, cherished by readers of all ages for its enchanting tales and enduring wisdom. Designed for both newcomers to Russian folklore and seasoned enthusiasts alike, "The Russian Story Book" offers a treasure trove of storytelling delights. Wilson's accessible prose and insightful commentary make this collection accessible to readers of all backgrounds, ensuring that these timeless tales continue to enchant and inspire for generations to come. Set against the backdrop of Russia's vast and diverse landscape, "The Russian Story Book" celebrates the rich tapestry of Russian culture and tradition. Wilson's collection serves as a gateway to the soul of Russia, inviting readers to explore its myths, legends, and timeless wisdom. Reflect on the personal resonance of "The Russian Story Book" as Wilson's masterful storytelling transports readers to a world of wonder and imagination. Whether you're drawn to tales of adventure, romance, or magic, this collection offers something for everyone, reminding us of the enduring power of storytelling to illuminate, inspire, and enchant. Don't miss your chance to experience the magic of Russian folklore. Let "The Russian Story Book" by Richard Wilson be your guide as you embark on a journey through the heart of a timeless tradition. Grab your copy now and immerse yourself in a world where legends come to life and dreams take flight.