Russell Zguta (born October 3, 1949) is a US historian, educator, and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. [1]
Zguta is a native of Ukraine. Born as Jaroslav Zguta, he was given the name "Russell" upon his enrollment in first grade; it was deemed more American.[ citation needed ]
He received his Bachelor of Arts in History from Saint Francis University in 1964, and his Masters (1965) and Ph.D. (1967) from Pennsylvania State University. [2]
Zguta's research has focused on Middle Age and early Modern Slavic and Russian culture.
In 1979, Choice magazine included his book Russian Minstrels: A History of the Skomorokhi (1978) in its Outstanding Academic Books list for that year. His other publications include "Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century Russia" in The American Historical Review (1977); "The One-Day Votive Church: A Religious Response to the Black Death in Early Russia" in Slavic Review (1981); and the "Monastic Medicine in Kievan Rus' and Early Muscovy" chapter in Medieval Russian Culture (1984). [2] [3]
While at the University of Missouri, Zguta chaired multiple departments: History (1989-1991 and 2010-2013), Economics (1991-1995), and Romance Literature (2005-2008). [2] In 1990, he received the Purple Chalk Award (where the winner is chosen by a student vote) "for exemplary teaching and advising". [4]
In October 2016, the Central Slavic Conference, a regional affiliate of ASEEES, presented Zguta with its Presidential Award for "his lifetime of support of the Central Slavic Conference and untiring promotion of Slavic studies". [5]
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity. An intensive period of witch-hunts occurring in Early Modern Europe and to a smaller extent Colonial America, took place about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.
Slavic or Slavonicstudies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was primarily a linguist or philologist researching Slavistics. Increasingly, historians, social scientists, and other humanists who study Slavic area cultures and societies have been included in this rubric.
German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German history, and German politics in addition to the language and literature component. Common German names for the field are Germanistik, Deutsche Philologie, and Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft und Literaturwissenschaft. In English, the terms Germanistics or Germanics are sometimes used, but the subject is more often referred to as German studies, German language and literature, or German philology.
A skomorokh was a medieval East Slavic harlequin, or actor, who could also sing, dance, play musical instruments and compose for oral/musical and dramatic performances.
Daniel C. Waugh is a historian based at the University of Washington. He did his undergraduate work at Yale University, and in 1963 graduated with a B.A. in Physics. In 1965, he finished his Master's on the Regional Studies of the Soviet Union at Harvard University, and seven years later he completed his Ph.D. at the same institution. The same year, 1972, he began his employment at the University of Washington, and has remained there ever since. He taught in three different departments, namely the departments of History, International Studies, and Slavic and East European Languages and Literature until 2006. His main academic interests are Central Asia and medieval and early modern Russia, although he once focused on Ottoman history. He is the director of the Silk Road Seattle project and editor of the annual journal of the Silkroad Foundation.
European witchcraft is a multifaceted historical and cultural phenomenon that unfolded over centuries, leaving a mark on the continent's social, religious, and legal landscapes. The roots of European witchcraft trace back to classical antiquity when concepts of magic and religion were closely related, and society closely integrated magic and supernatural beliefs. Ancient Rome, then a pagan society, had laws against harmful magic. In the Middle Ages, accusations of heresy and devil worship grew more prevalent. By the early modern period, major witch hunts began to take place, partly fueled by religious tensions, societal anxieties, and economic upheaval. Witches were often viewed as dangerous sorceresses or sorcerers in a pact with the Devil, capable of causing harm through black magic. A feminist interpretation of the witch trials is that misogynist views of women led to the association of women and malevolent witchcraft.
Natalie Kononenko is a professor of folklore currently with the University of Alberta. Kononenko is a major contributor to the study of Ukrainian Blind Minstrels as well as in the area of witchcraft in Slavic cultures. She currently holds the Peter and Doris Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography and is the head of the Slavic and East European section of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies. She attended Radcliffe College and Harvard University.
Edward Louis "Ned" Keenan Jr. was an American professor of history at Harvard University who specialized in medieval Russian history. He became a prominent and controversial figure after conducting various studies that analyzed and ultimately disproved the authenticity of major resources in East Slavic history. Two of his books argue that two texts were not medieval at all, but seventeenth- and eighteenth-century, respectively: The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-century Genesis of the "Correspondence" Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV (1971), and Joseph Dobrovsky and the Origins of the "Igor Tale" (2003) He eventually became one of the world's leading experts on medieval Russian history. He also wrote a number of seminal articles.
The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. According to its proponents, accused witches were actually followers of this alleged religion. They argue that the supposed 'witch cult' revolved around worshiping a Horned God of fertility and the underworld, whose Christian persecutors identified with the Devil, and whose followers held nocturnal rites at the witches' Sabbath.
Russell Scott Valentino is an American author, literary scholar, translator, and editor. Currently, he is a professor of Slavic and comparative literature, and serves as chair of the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington.
The early Slavs were an Indo-European peoples who lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the Early and High Middle Ages. The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars believe that it was in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.
Florin Curta is a Romanian-born American archaeologist and historian who is a professor of medieval history and archaeology at the University of Florida.
Maria Bucur is an American-Romanian historian of modern Eastern Europe and gender in the twentieth century. She has written on the history of eugenics in Eastern Europe, memory and war in twentieth-century Romania, gender and modernism, and gender and citizenship. She teaches history and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington, where she holds the John W. Hill Professorship. Between 2011 and 2014 she served as founding Associate Dean of the School of Global and International Studies and helped inaugurate the first SGIS graduating class in 2014.
Polish Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) is the oldest academic program in existence with the focus on the study and teaching of the Polish language, literature, and culture in the United States. Polish language instruction began in the fall semester of 1936 and has been offered at the University of Wisconsin–Madison ever since. The Polish program is offered by the UW–Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+. As a result, with the foundation of the Department of Polish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1936, the teaching of Slavic languages and literatures started.
Gábor Klaniczay is professor of Medieval Studies at the Department of Medieval Studies of the Central European University, Budapest/Vienna. He is also titulary professor at the Department of Medieval History at the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. He is corresponding fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
This is a select bibliography of post-World War II English-language books and journal articles about the Early Slavs and Rus' and its borderlands until the Mongol invasions beginning in 1223. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
This is a select bibliography of post World War II English language books and journal articles about the history of Russia and its borderlands from the Mongol invasions until 1613. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
This is a select bibliography of post-World War II English language books and journal articles about the history of Russia and its empire from 1613 until 1917. It specifically excludes topics related to the Russian Revolution. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
Andrei Bezobrazov, was a Russian official. His case attracted a lot of attention, and is known as the last of several large witch trials held in connection to the Czar's court in 17th-century Moscow, as well as the last high-profile witch trial in Russia.
Mikhail Kizilov. He works on the history of Crimea in the Late Middle Ages and Modern Times and on Jews, Khazars and Karaism in Eastern Europe, especially in Crimea, Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.