Co-sponsored by the Medieval & Renaissance Center (MARC) and the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia.
Join us to hear Michael Flier of Harvard University speak on "End in Sight: Apocalypse, Architecture, and Ritual in the Reign of Ivan the Terrible".
When the English first encountered the Muscovy of young tsar Ivan IV in 1553, they naturally attempted to understand it within the framework of their own society and culture. In the course of relating impressions of the customs and mores of the people, the diplomats among them took special care to describe the elaborate rituals and their context, especially those performed in or around the Moscow Kremlin, the fortress located in the heart of the city. As valuable as their narratives undoubtedly are, they reveal a fundamental level of misunderstanding about the meaning and function of the sacred spaces established within the Kremlin and the roles of the primary participants in the rites performed there, namely, of the metropolitan and the tsar. They did not appreciate the evolution of Moscow into a golden center, with churches, palaces, and royal chambers each defined by its own structure and style, all contributing to the bold notion advanced some six decades earlier in the reign of Ivan III, the young Ivan’s grandfather, the idea of Moscow as the New Jerusalem. This firm belief in Moscow’s salvific fate at the end of time reached a high point with the defeat of the Muslim Tatars of Kazan’, only a year before the British arrival. This paper will analyze the architectural context for realizing Jerusalemic thematics and show how they influenced the built environment and royal iconography as well.
To RSVP or for more information, please call 212.998.8698.
