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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 504: Orality, Literacy, and Vernacular Religion in Northern and Eastern Europe, I: Oral Traditions and Rus' Narratives

Tuesday 14 July 2009, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Finnish Literature Society / Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies (NCMS), Helsinki
Organiser:Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen, Finnish Literature Society / Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies (NCMS), Helsinki
Moderator/Chair:Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen, Finnish Literature Society / Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies (NCMS), Helsinki
Paper 504-aThe Transformation of Old Russian and Old Norse Oral Traditions in Written Texts
(Language: English)
Elena Melnikova, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Paper 504-bThe Notion of Rus' in the Primary Chronicle
(Language: English)
Mari Isoaho, Department of Philosophy, History, Culture & Art Studies, University of Helsinki
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Slavic, Literacy and Orality, Theology
Paper 504-cOral Legends and the Russian Primary Chronicle
(Language: English)
Lauri Harvilahti, Finnish Literature Society / Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies (NCMS), Helsinki
Index terms: Folk Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Slavic, Literacy and Orality
Abstract

The four sessions on orality, literacy, and vernacular religion in Northern and Eastern Europe aim to study the variety of Christian traditions, linguistic registers and vernacular adaptations at the conjunction of orality and literacy. The focus is on oral legends and early written Rus' narratives, vernacular Christian myths in Scandinavia, Finland, and Karelia, the borderland between Western and Eastern Churches, medieval and early modern linguistic and poetic registers in the Baltic Sea region, and oral and textual performances and construction of power and the pagans as the significant other in the Northern world from Anglo-Saxon England to Baltic and Nordic countries.