For Whom the Platter Tolls

Abstract

This paper deals with memory in medieval Rus. Previous scholarship has focused on organised liturgical commemoration (memoria), which relied on complex canonised texts and sophisticated church rituals. This article concerns less formal types of medieval remembrance, like commemorative graffiti, colophons, and simple commemorative rituals. Such memorial devices can be called paraliturgical because they either facilitated liturgical commemoration or derived from liturgical texts and ceremonies, but technically were not part of the liturgy. Paraliturgical remembrance offered a peculiar version of the past. It combined short family memory, which went back to one or two generations, and the mythologised past, which was based on Scripture and inspirational legends, like that about Riurik. Paraliturgical memory was future orientated as it carried information required for salvation, including records of charity and donations. This type of memory also conveyed emotions, genealogical knowledge, and royal mythology. Paraliturgical remembrance crossed institutional and regional boundaries, creating communities of rememberers.