Serge & Ella
Howard Tyson independent.academia.edu
The story of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elisabeth, older sister of Empress Alexandra.
Prince Abamelek-Lazarev's courtship of Maria Pavlovna was intense and brief. Maria Pavlovna was away in Finland visiting her grandmother, Aurora, Demidova Karamzine, when Prince Abamelek-Lazarev unexpectely arrived from St. Petersburg. Over the course of the week he visit daily and then proposed marriage that was accepted. Unfortunatley, the happy marriage would not last. Abamelek-Lazarev unexpectedly passed away a short number of years after the wedding and Maria Pavlovna would never marry again.

In the Viking world, stories of women inciting revenge reach back through the past into oral history. These legends were written down in the sagas of the Icelanders. Princess Olga’s story was recorded in the Russian Primary Chronicle. Though her heritage is uncertain, Olga ruled in Kievan Rus’ in the ninth and tenth centuries. Kievan Rus’ was governed by Vikings from Sweden known as Varangians. There are similarities between Olga’s story and the sagas. This study applies the research of scholars who pioneered the topic of gendering the Old Norse Icelandic literature, to compare her story to the gender norms and cultural values of the Scandinavians. The goal is to tie Olga’s heritage, to the greater Viking world. She was a female ruler, so this study also looks at her relationship with power to demonstrate her uniqueness in history and show that she ruled Kievan Rus’ as a Varangian Princess. It also seeks to add to the gendering of Kievan Rus’ which at present is very limited. Thesis...

This paper addresses the public Orthodox identity of the Muscovite ruling family during the late 15th century, by focusing on the case of Elena Ivanovna (1474/6–1513), daughter of Ivan III of Moscow and wife of Alexander Jagiellon of Lithuania. Through an analysis of the diplomatic correspondence between the grand prince of Moscow and his daughter, it discusses the implications Elena’s religious identity had both on an individual level and for the image of the Muscovite dynastic identity.

The book presents the biography of Maria, daughter of Christopher Lekapenos (the eldest son of emperor Romanos I). For about 35 years, she was the tsaritsa of the Bulgarians at the side of her husband, tsar Peter (927–969). Her character is but dimly visible in the sources; interestingly, the few sources that do mention her are almost exclusively of Byzantine provenance. Most scholars who have dealt with her life – usually, we may add, as a side note to their studies on Peter’s reign – saw in her a representative of the interests of Constantinople and a propagator of Byzantine culture. Some have gone so far as to call her a Byzantine agent at the Bulgarian court. Through their meticulous analysis of the primary sources and profound knowledge of the literature on the subject, the authors of the book – the first monograph on Maria ever to have been written – are able to construct a balanced narrative of the tsaritsa’s life and her role in 10th century Bulgaria, putting aside biases and negative emotions. The publication is supplemented by a translation of the fragments of the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle of the second redaction devoted to Maria and Peter.

Contributed to Rivista storica italiana’s English-language forum, “Figures and institutions of authority in Tsarist and Soviet Russia,” ed. by Alberto Masoero, this essay approaches the Romanov imperial dynasty under Alexander II (1855–81) and his son Alexander III (1881–94) as both a ruling institution and an increasingly unruly clan. The focus is on how specific dynastic controversies and scandals preconditioned the thorough revision, in the middle of the 1880s, of a pivotal piece of legislation – the Statute on the Imperial Family, a move that sought to define the ruling family’s core and thus enshrine the presumed charisma in a kind of sanctum within the clan. The role that, over the years, a shifting assemblage of royals, courtiers, and officials played in handling the dynasty’s sensitive affairs is explored through a variety of lenses. Overall, the essay contributes to conceptualizing the specifically Russian persistent conflation of the emperor’s personae as monarchical ruler and head of the family.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: &quot;Sissi&quot;: The Convergence of Memory and Myth Maura E. Hametz (Old Dominion University, USA) and Heidi Schlipphacke (University of Illinois Chicago, USA) I. Memory 2. Encounters: Ulrike Truger, Elisabeth - Zwang - Flucht - Freiheit, 1998/99 Christiane Hertel (Bryn Mawr College, USA) 3. The Remains of the Stay: The Corporeal Archive of Empress Elisabeth in the Hofburg Beth Ann Muellner (College of Wooster, USA) 4. Sisi Redux: The Empress Elisabeth and Her Cult in Post-Communist Hungary Judith Szapor (McGill University, Canada) and Andras Lenart (National Szechenyi Library, Hungary) 5. A Place for Sissi in Trieste Maura E. Hametz (Old Dominion University, USA) and Borut Klabjan (European University Institute in Florence, Italy) 6. Empress Elisabeth and the Painting of Modern Life Olivia Gruber Florek (Delaware County Community College, USA) 7. Karl Lagerfeld and the Elisabeth Myth Carolin Maikler (Independent Scholar, Swit...