History Professor is Published in Journal

The Winter 2008 issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies includes the article "Gifts for the Bride: Dowries, Diplomacy, and Marriage Politics in Muscovy" written by Dr. Russell Martin, Westminster College associate professor of history.

The article is an analysis of three previously unstudied, and largely unknown, dowry inventories for three weddings in the Muscovite dynasty between 1495 and 1506: one, a traditional alliance with a foreign dynasty; the second, with a converted Tatar Chinghisid residing in Muscovy; and the third, a domestic match between two Muscovite dynasts. The study looks comparatively at the role of dynastic marriage both in terms of foreign policy and domestic/court politics.

"In it, I argue that the religious and financial costs and complications of foreign matches were so exorbitantly high that Muscovites demurred from them for the next century and a half," Martin said. "The marriage in 1495, especially, of Grand Princess Elena (daughter of Ivan III the Great) with Alexander, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, was so expensive and such a political failure that Muscovites devised the bride show-a parade before the ruler of young virgins from across the realm-as a way of avoiding complicated foreign matches while, at the same time, finding a bride from outside the inner circle of the court. This also allowed the Muscovites to avoid intermarriages with non-Orthodox dynasties, which proved to be overly complicated and nearly impossible to negotiate."

"This study emerged from a Faculty Forum I delivered here at Westminster in October 2006," he continued. "That presentation gave me an opportunity to take some of my ideas 'out for a spin,' so to speak, and to get feedback from my colleagues. And I have to say that it helped tremendously. Questions from [faculty members] were particularly insightful and got me thinking about issues that ended up in the final version of the article."

"This is why I'm so grateful to [Dr.] Sandra Webster [Westminster College professor of psychology and faculty development officer], who has transformed Forum into a real outlet for faculty research. I remain enormously grateful to, and enormously respectful of, my faculty colleagues on this campus."

Martin, who has been with Westminster since 1996, earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Martin appeared on A&E Biography in a broadcast on Ivan the Terrible as an expert on the controversial ruler. He is the co-founder of the Muscovite Biographical Database, a Russian-American computerized register based in Moscow of early modern Russian notables. The Neville Island, Pa., native is not only fluent in Russian, but also reads Old Church Slavonic/Russian, French, German, Latin, and Polish. 

Martin continues to translate from Russian to English the official Webpage of Her Imperial Highness, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, the legitimate heiress to the vacant Russian throne. Translations are available at www.imperialhouse.ru.

Contact Martin at (724) 946-6254 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu for additional information. 

Dr. Russell Martin