College:
Fitzwilliam College
Contact details:
Research
I am currently researching the construction of female piety in Muscovy with reference to a group of five hagiographical narratives composed between the mid-16th and late 17th centuries known as the ‘Murom Cycle’.
Three of the five texts portray native female figures, which is unusual in the canon of East Slavonic hagiographical literature. Furthermore, all of these saintly figures are situated outside institutional ecclesiastical spaces. My research examines the way in which family roles and the engagement in domestic or non-ecclesiastical activities are presented in these texts as a means of exemplifying alternative modes of piety beyond the monastery, and explores how these modes are gendered.
In conjunction with other sources of the period, I am using this collection of texts as a case study for examining how perceptions of gender are informed by changing social and religious contexts, in this instance during the period of upheaval following the reign of Ivan IV.
Awards:
- Recipient of a CEELBAS PhD Studentship
Languages (in addition to English)
Russian, French, Old Slavonic
