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Preprint
The Public Face of Private Life: the Family-Presentation Ritual in Muscovite Russia
Iowa Research Online
University of Iowa
2008
DOI: 10.17077/pp.005138
Abstract
This essay concerns a common rite of conviviality among the seventeenth-century Muscovite elite — the presentation of dependent female family members (wives, married daughters, servants) to guests during banquets.1 This ritual stands at the nexus of private and public life in Muscovy, for while it occurred within the confines of the home it was designed to offer strangers an idealized representation of domestic relations. The first section below points out that indigenous Muscovite sources for private life, banquets, and the family-presentation ritual are problematic, and then goes on to argue that foreign accounts provide good (though neglected) information on these topics. The second section continues this line of argument by substantiating the credibility of the foreign descriptions of the family-presentation ritual. The third section surveys the descriptions themselves and variations among them. The final section offers an interpretation of the symbolism of the family-presentation ritual and its meaning for the Muscovite elite.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Public Face of Private Life: the Family-Presentation Ritual in Muscovite Russia
- Creators
- Marshall Poe - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Preprint
- Publication Details
- Iowa Research Online
- Publisher
- University of Iowa; Iowa City, Iowa, USA
- DOI
- 10.17077/pp.005138
- eISSN
- 2476-1680
- Number of pages
- 16 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright © Marshall Poe, 2008. Posted by permission.
- Comment
- Published in: Kaiser, Daniel H, Gary Marker, Marshall Poe, and Susan Rupp. Everyday Life in Russian History: Quotidian Studies in Honor of Daniel Kaiser. Bloomington, Ind: Slavica, 2010. pp.5-22. ISBN: 9780893573782
- Language
- English
- Date copyrighted
- 2008
- Date posted
- 06/12/2009
- Academic Unit
- History
- Record Identifier
- 9983557599602771
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