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Events

“The Trojan War at the Court of Ivan the Terrible”
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Location:

Taylor Hall, Room 203

In this lecture, Yale University’s Reuben Post Halleck Professor of History, Paul Bushkovitch, challenges the assumption among historians of early modern Russia that, prior to Peter the Great, Russian culture was almost entirely religious. The 2010 publication of a sixteenth-century Russian translation of Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troiae (1287), included as part of the monumental sixteenth-century Illustrated Chronicle Compilation, makes clear that this generalization needs revision and demonstrates that the court culture of the Grand Dukes/Tsars included much more than devotional texts and images. This publication brings forward the question of what mid-sixteenth-century Russian culture was really like, further illuminating the fascinating story of the relationship between Russian and Western European cultures.

This event is sponsored by the Departments of Russian Studies, Greek and Roman Studies, Italian, History, and the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program with support from the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. This event is free and open to the public.

About Paul Bushkovitch

Paul is the author of Succession to the Throne in Russia 1450–1725: The Transfer of Power (Cambridge University Press, 2021), A Concise History of Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power 1671–1725 (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Religion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford University Press, 1992), and The Merchants of Moscow 1580–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1980). His books have been translated into multiple languages including Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish, Russian, and Estonian.
Headshot of Paul Bushkovitch.
Paul Bushkovitch, Reuben Post Halleck Professor of History, Yale University. Photo courtesy of the subject