Medievalism and Slavic Popular Culture

Anna Czarnowus, Laurel Ryan

• Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781802703146
• Subtopic: Museum Studies
• Index: History

Although scholars are increasingly engaged with medievalism as a global phenomenon, its manifestations in the popular cultures of East and Central Europe are relatively unexamined. In a period of regional unrest, invocations of the medieval in Slavic regions are often political. Politicians use the past for nationalistic reasons. Popular renderings, such as animated films, can also appeal to nationalist sentiment. Yet, although medievalist appeals have been fundamental to official myths of nation-formation, they are also integral to countercultural ideologies. Medieval fantasy literature has traditionally provided one such nexus. More recently, medievalism has emerged in carnivalesque elements of pop punk music. Medievalisms also exist in the play spaces of reenactments of medieval life and combat. Yet even in play, these acts are never neutral: controlling the story of the past always has consequences in the now. 

Table of contents

• COVER
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The Wolin Village in Poland as a Site of Politicized Living History
• 2. Modern Knights
• 3. Mieszko and the Piasts in Polish Law and Justice (PiS) Political Discourse
• 4. Creativity and Interpretation
• 5. Medieval Figures of Reversal in Texts of Polish Alternative Music
• 6. Satirizing Political Culture in the Animated Ilya of Murom and Nightingale the Robber
• Index