On Monday September 29th PhD Roman Voitehhovitš from the Department of Russian at the University of Tartu will give a talk called:
"EUROPEANS ABOUT RUSSIAN TRADITIONS: TO BEAT OR NOT TO BEAT"
The seminar will take place in the library of Skandinavistika (Ülikooli 17, 3rd floor, room 305) at 18.15.
Roman has sent us a short presentation of his lecture:
"The long-standing tradition of the Russian gentry to educate and bring up the vassals by beating is traced back in the report to the times of Vasili III (1479-1533) and is shown to extrapolate onto other categories of population, namely women and children. Paradoxically this "le knut" policy was often equated to the measure of husband's love in the family, the belief that even now is spelt out in Russian sayings. Rather curiously, too, some travelers from Europe also followed the trend and lapsed into beating their vassals and sweethearts often at the expense of their lives. Some cultural implications of this custom will be touched upon in the talk."
The Pre-modern seminar is an interdisciplinary and informal seminar at Tartu University organized by the Department of Scandinavian Studies and led by Professor Daniel Sävborg. It was founded in 2010 and has so far arranged 34 meetings with talks by scholars on different levels, both from Estonia and from abroad. The focus is on pre-1800 issues of all kinds.
Everybody is welcome!