Elite Culture of Old Rus’: New Publications and Discussions (a Review of IHMC RAS Studies in 2015–2016)
Volume 24 (2017), pp. 123–130
Pub. online: 15 September 2017
Type: Article
Open Access
Received
17 July 2017
17 July 2017
Revised
24 August 2017
24 August 2017
Accepted
15 September 2017
15 September 2017
Published
15 September 2017
15 September 2017
Abstract
Old Rus’ culture has long been perceived as a given fact, beyond dispute. Its successive connection with authentically Slavic cultures dating back to 700-1000 AD could be clearly traced retrospectively. But archaeological data accumulated over recent decades shows that material from Initial Rus’ (ninth to eleventh centuries) looks more like a heterogeneous conglomerate of different traditions and cultural elements than a stable structure. The key to understanding the process of innovations observed over this period, as well as their cultural and anthropological mechanisms, should be the study of the ‘elite’, a socially superior group of the population. Such a project is now being developed in the Department of Slavic-Finnish Archaeology at IHMC RAS. This review gives the most important results obtained to date, including a modern formulation of the problem in its various aspects, and the latest important publications.