Westminster's Faculty Forum Investigates the Legitimacy of Russian Romanov Rule

Dr. Russell Martin, associate professor of history at Westminster College, will present "Power, Legitimacy and Remembering the Royal Dead in Muscovy" Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 11:45 a.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater in the McKelvey Campus Center.

 "My research explores the way official commemorations of royalty were manipulated by the new regime to suggest that the new dynasty, the Romanovs, were the legitimate heirs of the old dynasty," Martin said.  "I found new sources that demonstrate rather starkly how tenuous and uncertain Romanov rule was in its first decades, despite the later histories that would have us believe, falsely, it seems, that the Romanovs came to power by 'divine right.'"

Faculty forum, established in 1990, serves as a venue for the exchange of ideas and information among Westminster College faculty.  Speakers present their research, teaching ideas, lectures, performances, special programs, and uses of technology to keep faculty informed about the work of colleagues from many disciplines. 

Martin appeared on A&E Biography in a broadcast on Ivan the Terrible as an expert on the controversial ruler, and has been an expert witness in a Canadian civil trial about the Russian royal family.  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, 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.

For more information, contact Martin at (724) 946-6254 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu.

Dr. Russell Martin