Ties of Kinship: Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus’ (webinar)

Interested in Royal Roots or curious about Medieval Ukraine? Learn about the dynastic marriages between the ruling family of Rus’, and the other ruling families of Europe.

This is an online lecture: you can participate from anywhere in the world!

Christian Raffensperger is professor of history at Wittenberg University. He obtained his B.A. from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His first book, “Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World, 988–1146”, deals with the relationship of Rus’ (the medieval kingdom that will become Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) to the rest of Europe. It specifically focuses on the dynastic marriages made between the ruling family of Rus’, the Volodimerovichi, and the other ruling families of Europe. These marriages formed a web of connections that tied Rus’ firmly into the fabric of Europe during this period.  Those marital connections are the subject of his second book entitled, “Ties of Kinship: Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus'”, which also provides a complete genealogy for the Volodimerovichi through the mid–twelfth century (this project has a parallel online digital humanities component). This project has generated recent interest, due to the political situation in modern Ukraine and Ties of Kinship was part of Dr. Raffensperger's editorial at the Washington Post, as well as the subject of an article by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Currently he is at work on a new project focusing on intra–familial conflicts in medieval central and eastern Europe, and how those families manage those conflicts through the creation of "situational kinship networks," as a way to mitigate the effects of the conflicts.

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