Imagining the Mother of God in Rus'/Russia

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear colleagues,

Recently I have come across Miri Rubin's interesting new book MOTHER  
OF GOD: A HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN MARY (Yale Univ. Press, 2009).   
Although it is a large book about a large topic, Russian and Rusian  
variants of this Christian devotion and theological theme are hardly  
mentioned.  The book bristles with insights, however, and one of them  
reminds me of our previous thread about Derzhavnaia Bogoroditsa.   
Rubin has much to say about the Jewish background of Mary, and about  
attitudes toward Jews amongst those who have venerated the Mother of  
God down the centuries.  I am wondering if research in this area has  
been done specifically for the East Slavic variants of Mother of God  
devotion and theology.  For example, would there not be some cognitive  
dissonance involved in accepting a Jewish Derzhavnaia Bogoroditsa as  
the figure reigning over Christian Russia after Nikolai II abdicated?

On a related topic, I note that Vera Shevzov translates "Derzhavnaia"  
as "She Who Reigneth" in her excellent book RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY ON THE  
EVE OF REVOLUTION (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004, 252).

With regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

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