Eugene Smelyansky – författare

Heresy and Citizenship examines the anti-heretical campaigns in late-medieval Augsburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Strasbourg, and other cities. By focusing on the unprecedented period of persecution between 1390 and 1404, this study demonstrates how heretical presence in cities was exploited in ecclesiastical, political, and social conflicts between the cities and their external rivals, and between urban elites.These anti-heretical campaigns targeted Waldensians who believed in lay preaching and simplified forms of Christian worship. Groups of individuals identified as Waldensians underwent public penance, execution, or expulsion. In each case, the course and outcome of inquisitions reveal tensions between institutions within each city, most often between city councils and local bishops or archbishops. In such cases, competing sides used the persecution of heresy to assert their authority over others. As a result, persecution of urban Waldensians acquired meaning beyond mere correction of religious error. By placing the anti-heretical campaigns of this period in their socio-political and religious context, Heresy and Citizenship also engages with studies of social and political conflict in late medieval towns. It examines the role the exclusion of religiously and socially deviant groups played in the development of urban governments, and the rise of ideologies of good citizenship and the common good. It will be of interest to scholars and students interested in medieval urban and religious history, and the history of heresy and its persecution.

Heresy and Citizenship examines the anti-heretical campaigns in late-medieval Augsburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Strasbourg, and other cities. By focusing on the unprecedented period of persecution between 1390 and 1404, this study demonstrates how heretical presence in cities was exploited in ecclesiastical, political, and social conflicts between the cities and their external rivals, and between urban elites.These anti-heretical campaigns targeted Waldensians who believed in lay preaching and simplified forms of Christian worship. Groups of individuals identified as Waldensians underwent public penance, execution, or expulsion. In each case, the course and outcome of inquisitions reveal tensions between institutions within each city, most often between city councils and local bishops or archbishops. In such cases, competing sides used the persecution of heresy to assert their authority over others. As a result, persecution of urban Waldensians acquired meaning beyond mere correction of religious error. By placing the anti-heretical campaigns of this period in their socio-political and religious context, Heresy and Citizenship also engages with studies of social and political conflict in late medieval towns. It examines the role the exclusion of religiously and socially deviant groups played in the development of urban governments, and the rise of ideologies of good citizenship and the common good. It will be of interest to scholars and students interested in medieval urban and religious history, and the history of heresy and its persecution.

In this collection of primary sources, Eugene Smelyansky highlights instances of persecution and violence, as well as those relatively rare but significant episodes of toleration, that impacted a broad spectrum of people who existed at the margins of medieval society: heretics, Jews and Muslims, the poor, the displaced and disabled, women, and those deemed sexually deviant. The volume also presents a more geographically diverse Middle Ages by including sources from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Mediterranean. Each document is preceded by a brief introduction and followed by questions for discussion, making The Intolerant Middle Ages an excellent entrance into the lives and struggles of medieval minorities.

This new monograph is devoted to a detailed exploration of the ways in which the medieval past has been wielded to propagandic effect in Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia.From politicians’ speeches to popular culture, from Orthodox Christianity to neo-paganism, the medieval Russian past remains crucial in constructing national identity, mobilizing society during times of crisis, and providing alternative models of communal belonging. Frequent appeals to a medieval Slavic past, its heroes and myths, have provided—and continue to provide—a particularly powerful tool for animating imperialist and populist sentiments.This study explores persuasive—and pervasive—recourse to tropes concerned with the Middle Ages in Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia, seeking to explain why an often romanticized medieval past remains potent in Russian politics, society, and culture today.