Bogatyrev, Sergei; (2023) Sofiia Vitovtovna's Dance: The Wedding of Vasilii II in Russian Cultural Memory. In: Torres Prieto, Susana and Franklin, Andrei, (eds.) Medieval Rus' and Early Modern Russia: Texts and Contexts. Routledge: London, UK.

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Abstract

This article examines the representation of the 1433 wedding of Vasilii II in Russian cultural memory from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. The wedding took place against the backdrop of the succession struggle among the descendants of Dmitrii Donskoi of Moscow. Russian cultural memory associates the wedding with the golden belt legend. According to this legend, Vasilii II’s cousin and rival Vasilii Kosoi attended the banquet wearing a golden belt, which was allegedly stolen from the groom’s grandfather Dmitrii Donskoi. Vasilii II’s mother, the dowager Grand Princess Sofiia Vitovtovna publicly stripped Kosoi of the belt, sparking a vicious inter-princely war. The legend appeared as a propagandistic tool during the war, but it received a new interpretation in the historicized narrative of the rise of Moscow as the political center of Russia. Through this narrative, the golden belt episode entered the debates on national identity, imperial and Marxist historiography, the aesthetics of realism, education, and gender. The concept of cultural memory challenges the boundaries between professional knowledge and creative arts. Various interpretations of the legend confirm this approach. Artists, critics, and writers diligently read contemporary historians, while historians have never been averse to speculative psychologising.

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