Saints and Heroes from Christianization to Nationalism: Symbol, Image, Memory (North-West Russia, Baltic and Nordic Countries)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Cordelia Heß
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 445187042

Cults of saints were used for the formation of Christian identities directly after the Christianization of the northern and eastern regions of the Baltic Sea. After the Middle Ages, in the early modern period and also in the modern period, further mythologization of the cults of local saints took place and additionally, heroes were found in the past. Heroes were historical figures associated with a particular event, important for the formation of the image of a group’s identity. In the era of national romanticism, some of these rulers, military leaders or scholars were upheaved to a status as national heroes. Saints and heroes turned out to be symbolic figures in which fundamentally important images of local, ethnocultural and later national discourse were embodied, thanks to which the emergence of an ‘imagined community’ became possible.The project proposes the study of the evolution of images of medieval saints and heroes based in the Baltic Sea region from the Middle Ages to the early modern and modern period, thereby filling a gap of research on heroes which has been primarily focused on Western Europe. All Christian confessions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodoxy) are represented here, paganism remained influential for a long time. The initial diversity of identities makes this region particularly interesting for comparative research, as well as the obvious differences in the preferences of chosen heroes: male or female, individuals or collectives, military or intellectual. The aim of this project is a comparative analysis of key figures of national and local identity in the Baltic Sea region – basically, what qualified a person to become a hero for later periods. In some cases, this will mean the actual cult of personalities; in others, certain persons only lend their names to places of significance to a specific population. The comparison of these phenomena will gain deeper insights into the patterns of development of national and nationalistic cultures around the Baltic Sea and thus help explain differences in contemporary political culture. Have certain countries and regions had a specific taste for warrior kings? How is the distribution of male and female identification figures? How did they start? How did they transform in history? Through what images and symbols were these models presented? The geographical scope of the study is Northern Germany, Scandinavia, Southern Finland and Karelia, the Northwestern lands of Russia, former Livonia (modern-day Estonia and Latvia), the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (modern-day Lithuania and Belarus), and parts of the Kingdom of Poland (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Estonia, Finland, Russia
• Partner Organisation: Russian Science Foundation
• Cooperation Partners: Svetlana Sergeevna Abuzina; Professor Dr. Aleksander Iljich Filyushkin; Professor Dr. Christian Krötzl; Tatyana Dmitrievna Medvedeva; Dr. Katie Parppei; Professor Dr. Anti Selart; Professorin Dr. Marianna Mikhailovna Shakhnovich; Irina Nikolaevna Smirnova; Professor Dr. Roman Aleksandrovich Sokolov; Dmitry Ivanovich Weber, Ph.D.