Westminster College History Professor to Lecture at Harvard University

Dr. Russell E. Martin, assistant professor of history at Westminster College, will lecture Friday, Oct. 13 at the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University.

As part of the Early Slavicist Symposium, Martin will speak on "Bride Shows in Muscovy." During the 16th and 17th centuries, the tsar of Russia choose his bride from the young maidens that were paraded before him. Martin will argue that this tradition is of Greek origin, and closely aligns Russia with the Christian West rather than the Mongol East, as most historians would suggest.

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

At Harvard, Martin earned a pair of Distinction in Teaching Awards, and has published numerous articles on Russian and European history. He has also lectured internationally, and was an expert witness in a Canadian civil trial about the Russian royal family.

Martin is the co-founder of the Muscovite Biographical Database, a Russian-American computerized register based in Moscow of early modern Russian notables, and was featured as an expert on the 1997 A&E Biography on Ivan the Terrible. The Neville Island, Pa. native is fluent in Russian, and also reads Old Church Slavonic/Russian, French, German, Latin, and Polish

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