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Philip D. Podberezkin

Yakub Kolas Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus

WHY DID RUSSIAN ARMOR “SHINE”? AN EXPERIMENT IN THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF A SINGLE “WANDERING” IMAGE OF THE 13th CENTURY

This article attempts to elucidate the meaning of the “shining armor” imagery – a feature of the weaponry of Russian warriors – as it appears in independent 13th-century sources: the German poem “Ortnit”, the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, and the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle. The significance of the image is determined based on the symbolic norms of each text. In “Ortnit”, it signifies the Russian warriors’ belonging to knighthood. The chronicler of Danylo Romanovich used “light” and “shine” to demonstrate superiority over the “German lands”. The “gilded” armor in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle represents a negative image. Influenced by the ideas of St. Bernard, the Teutonic Order’s statutes forbade “worldly” attributes of “light” in the appearance of its brothers. Therefore, in the chronicle, only pagans and “schismatics” are adorned with “gold” and “silver”.

Keywords: Ortnit, Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, shining armor, Russian warriors, St. Bernard

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