Medievalism in Finland and Russia: Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Aspects

Description

Since the end of the Cold War, the Middle Ages has returned to debates about history, culture, and politics in Northern and Eastern Europe. This volume explores political medievalism in two language areas that are crucial to understanding global medievalism but are, due to language barriers, often inaccessible to the majority of Western scholars and students. The importance of Russian medievalism has been acknowledged, but little analysed until now. Medievalism in Finland and Russia offers a selection of chapters by Russian, Finnish and American scholars covering historiography, presidential speeches, participatory online discussions and the neo-pagan revival in Russia. Finland is currently even more poorly understood than Russia in the discussions about global medievalism. It is usually mentioned only as of the birthplace of the Soldiers of Odin. The street patrol is, however, a marginal phenomenon in Finnish medievalism as this volume demonstrates. Instead of merely adopting the medievalist interpretation of the international alt-right, even the right-wing populists in Finland refer more to the nationalistic medievalist tradition, where crusades do not mark a Western Christian victory over the Muslim East, but a Swedish occupation of Finnish lands. In addition to presenting particular cases of medievalism, the chapters here on Finland challenge and diversify today’s prevailing interpretation of shared online medievalism of European and American right-wing populists. This book reveals that while medievalisms in Finland and Russia share many features with the contemporary Anglo-American medievalist imaginations, they also display many original characteristics due to particular political situations and indigenous medievalist traditions. They have their own meta-medievalisms, cumulative core ideas and interpretations about the medieval past that are thoroughly examined here in English for the very first time. Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of illustrations Figures Maps Tables Contributors The background and mission of the volume The shared history of Finland and Russia Outline of the book Preface: Medievalism in Finland and Russia and why it matters The background and mission of the volume The shared history of Finland and Russia Outline of the book Acknowledgements Note on bibliography Introduction: Who owns the Middle Ages? Metamedievalism and structural exclusion Introduction Medievalism and the Christchurch shootings Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Victorians Caravans of Gold Historical authority Web 2.0 and techno-utopianism The online subaltern Conclusion Chapter 1: The Middle Ages on the ‘map of memory’ of Russian society Introduction Methodology, terminology and the sources of memory The Middle Ages as the ‘Periphery’ of national memory and Ivan the Terrible as the ‘Name’ of the Russian Middle Ages Heroes of the Russian Middle Ages and the ‘war’ over memory Conclusion Chapter 2: ‘A thousand years of history’: References to the past in the addresses to the Federal Assembly by the president of Russia, 2000–19 Introduction Patriotism: ‘Cultural traditions and common historic memory’ Unity as protection against threats: ‘A unique community of peoples’ Justification: ‘Invaluable civilizational and even sacral importance for Russia’ Concluding words Chapter 3: Mapping the pseudohistorical knowledge space in the Russian World Wide Web Introduction Pseudocontents in the network of web medievalism Hyperlinks to the past and from the future Conclusion Chapter 4: A lens most obscured: Western perceptions of contemporary Russian medievalisms Introduction New modes of distribution Access and authority Unintentional coherence: Vikings and Oleg the wise Chapter 5: Memorializing the Finnish medieval past Memory, memorials, collective identity Medieval sites and the Club War remembered in Ostrobothnia Medieval memorials as expressions of militaristic patriotism Memorials in the south of Finland: Porvoo, Naantali, Köyliö Discussion Concluding remarks Chapter 6: The missing Finnish runestones Introduction: Few runes in Finland Authority crisis in Vörå Matts Dreijer, Sund and Birka The vanished runestones of Kökar Jukka Nieminen: Runes as the writing of the ancient Finnish kingdom Other purported runic finds Runes used to write Finnish? Conclusion Chapter 7: Masculine online medievalism in twenty-first-century Finland Introduction Studying masculinity: The manosphere Finnish kings and swords Swedishness and sexuality Conclusion Chapter 8: Particularizing the universal: Medievalist constructions of cultural and religious difference in Crusader Kings II Introduction Digital games and representations of cultures and religions Particularizing cultures and cultural change Representing religions Conclusion Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Notes Preface Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Appendix 2 Bibliography Index