Charles J Halperin
Biographic Data
| ID | 383074 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles J Halperin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles J |
| FAMILY NAME | Halperin |
| SIGNATURE | HALPERIN C J |
| AFFILIATIONS | 1Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6667-0555 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 85 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 85 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Two Sources of Social Cohesion in Muscovite Society under Ivan IV
This article examines two unstudied phenomena which fostered social cohesion, i. e. societal bonds across class lines, in Muscovy during the reign of Ivan IV. As attested by a data base of sixty-one charters, conflicts between members of the same or different classes could be settled ‘peacefully’ or ‘in a friendly charter’. Such transactions most often concerned the identification of boundary lines between properties or the partition of propertie…
Medieval Rus’ and Early Modern Russia: Texts and Contexts, by Susana Torres Prieto, and Andrei Franklin, eds
Ivan the Terrible’s Character and His Literary Style
The notion that Ivan the Terrible’s volatile character and behavior are accurately reflected in his volatile literary style is widespread. Two rarely-cited published sources suggest that this conclusion might require modification. In a 1572 speech to the Lithuanian envoy F. Voropai in which Ivan nominated himself to be the next King of Poland, Ivan admitted that many people considered him cruel, but, he insisted, he was only cruel to those who we…
A Note on Recent Research on the Term the ‘Tatar Yoke’ (Tatarskoe igo)
Research objectives: This essay analyzes and critiques recent research on the genealogy of the expression “Tatar Yoke” (Tatarskoe igo), the standard term for the period of Mongol rule of Rus’, in both Slavic and Latin. Research materials: This essay is based upon publications from 1984 to the present by Halperin, Ostrowski, Keenan, Rudakov, and Seleznev. Results and novelty of research: In 1984, Halperin identified the discovery of the earliest a…
The Sins of the Father: The Image of Ivan IV in Russia during the Reign of Tsar Fedor Ivanovich
Two texts, usually dated to the 1590s during the reign of Ivan IV ’s son Tsar Fedor Ivanovich, appear remarkable for their critique of Ivan the Terrible. The Vypis’ o vtorom brake (Excerpt on the Second Marriage) of Vasilii III declares that if Vasilii III commits adultery by sending his wife Solomoniia to a convent in order to marry a woman who will give him a male heir, that heir will destroy the realm. The second text, the vita of Metropolitan…
Obedience Charters during the Reign of Ivan IV
Obedience charters, variously called poslushnye gramoty, vvoznye gramoty , or otdel’nye gramoty , informed peasants that the land on which they lived had been reassigned to a different owner (of patrimonial land) or holder (of conditional land), to whom they owed obedience and dues. This article is the first attempt to analyze not only who issued them and to whom they were issued during the reign of Ivan IV , but what they reveal about Muscovite …
Tainaia tainykh and Ivan the Terrible in the light of recent scholarship
The Ruling Families of Rus: Clan, Family and Kingdom, by Christian Raffensperger and Donald Ostrowski
Russian Emigres in Volynia during the Reign of Ivan IV”
In this superb monograph, based upon monumental archival and manuscript research, Konstantin Erusalimskii explores the lives and cultural contributions of Muscovite emigres during the reign of Ivan IV to Volynia, part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then the Kingdom of Poland. Through case studies of the most prominent emigres, above all Prince Andrei Kurbskii, Erusalimskii examines their social consciousness and cultural contributions, both …
A new theory of medieval Rus’ terminology for Muslim Tatars: Batunskii’s Russia and Islam
Research Objectives: To examine Mark Batunskii’s theory, articulated in Volume 1 of his history of Russia and Islam, that by calling the Tatars “Pechenegs” and “Polovtsy” the Rus’/Russian sources “Islamized” both the Tatars and their Kyivan predecessors. Research Materials: This article is based upon narrative sources, including chronicles, tales, epics, and saints’ lives, which refer to the Tatars from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. …
The Family Business: Relatives and Property in Muscovy during the Reign of Ivan IV
Historians studying the concept of family in sixteenth-century Muscovy have usually relied upon memorial donations as evidence and contrasted two-generation nuclear versus three-generation extended families. This study examines documentary evidence of relatives jointly engaged in primarily entrepreneurial transactions involving property. The concept of “family” in such evidence is only implicit. The data base contains 397 instances of “family par…
The Illustrated Ivan: Ivan IV in the Illustrated Chronicle Compilation
The surviving segments of the incomplete Illustrated Chronicle Compilation ( LLS ),1 in both text and miniatures, present a consistently positive image of Ivan IV as pious, just and competent, although the portrayal of individual events could vary. Nevertheless they also sometimes portray him as not in control of his elite, his subjects or events. If Ivan had to restore order by punishing those who had acted unjustly without his permission, then …
Josephians and the History of the Grand Prince of Moscow Revisited
The History of the Grand Prince of Moscow traditionally attributed to Prince Andrei Kurbskii presents the “Josephians” ( Iosifliane ) in a very negative light. Donald Ostrowski contends that the History did not describe the Josephians as a Church “party.” However, the History did describe the Josephians as monks who pursued material wealth, supported Ivan the Terrible’s tyranny, and persecuted opponents of monastic possessions, a Church party eve…
German Pamphlets, Russian Chronicles, and Ivan the Terrible”: 2Nd Contribution to the Forum: Ivan the Terrible and the Campaign against Novgorod in 1570
Many historians have questioned the accuracy of the “Tale of Ivan IV’s Campaign against Novgorod in 1570.” Cornelia Soldat now expands that critical approach to the “Tale” by arguing that it derives from German pamphlets published a century earlier. She relies upon the congruence of macro- and micro-structures to demonstrate textual influence without textual borrowing. Given the absence of Muscovite manuscripts of the “Tale” between 1570 and the …
Ivan IV and the Tatars
Research objectives: To provide a comprehensive overview of Muscovite interaction with Tatars during Ivan IV’s reign, both with each successor state of the Jochid ulus and with Tatars who moved to Muscovy and entered Ivan IV’s service. Research materials: This study is based upon Russian sources from the reign of Ivan IV concerning the Tatars, including narratives such as chronicles and documentary evidence such as diplomatic reports. Results and…
Josephans and Non-Possessors (Trans-Volga Elders) during the Reign of Ivan IV
In Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward and Free to Punish I contradicted myself in discussing the possible existence of church parties in Muscovy. After accepting Ostrowski’s argument that Iosif Volotskii and Nil Sorskii did not belong to antagonistic “parties,” I followed Goldfrank’s earlier publications that there were Josephan and Non-Possessor “parties” after the deaths of their “founders.” I proposed that the Josephans were an old-boy network …
Ivan the Terrible and Russian Feudalism in the Works of Hungarian and Russian Historians of the Soviet Era
In his book An Attempt at Microhistoriography (Rus. Опыт микроисториографии), Gyula Szvák, an outstanding Hungarian specialist in Russian history, republishes seven of his earlier articles and presents a previously unpublished eighth article on the Soviet historiography of the key issues of 16th-century Russian history. The articles consider Ivan Peresvetov’s works, reforms and oprichnina between the middle and second half of the sixteenth centur…
The Absent Rus' Land and Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi
After the Mongol conquest of the 13th century, the Kyivan myth of the “Rus' Land” played a less important role in the east Slavic lands that came under the control of Poland or Lithuania than in the northeastern territory that came to constitute Muscovy. Galicia, which belonged to Poland, became known administratively as the Rus' Land. The Belarusian-Lithuanian Chronicles revived the concept in the Ruthenian lands incorporated into the Grand Duch…
A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Ivan the Terrible
Nine of the ten articles in this Forum critique and/or expand upon themes, conclusions, or interpretations in Charles J. Halperin’s Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward and Free to Punish (2019), albeit in greatly varying proportion. The tenth addresses how to teach from the book. The quality of the articles speaks for itself. The range of the themes addressed speaks to the scope of Ivan’s reign. All the contributions to the Forum constitute valuabl…
On Recent Studies of Rus’ Relations with the Tatars of the Jochid Ulus
Research objectives: The goal of this article is to examine recent Englishlanguage publications about Rus' relations with the Tatars of the Jochid ulus in order to correct factual errors and analyze dubious conclusions
Neighbors Are Not Always Friendly: Conflicts between Muscovite Monasteries and Their Neighbors during the Reign of Ivan IV
On the basis of a data base of 137 instances of conflict between Muscovite monasteries and their neighbors during the reign of Ivan IV (1533–1584), this article concludes that such conflicts occurred during the entire course of Ivan IV ’s reign, that they occurred with members of all Muscovite social classes, including other monks, and that they occurred in many regions of Muscovy. These data do not permit concluding whether all monasteries engag…
Do Not Curse Me for My Copying Errors: Sixteenth-Century Russian Manuscript Books”
On the basis of 734 dated colophons in sixteenth-century Russian manuscript books, Sergei Usachev examines where the books were written, who copied them, and who ordered them. He concludes that the books were produced in all regions of Russia and that members of all social classes ordered them and copied them, although in different proportions: the former had a higher social profile than the latter. His publication of the full texts of the coloph…
Gosudarev dvor russkogo gosudarstva v dooprichnyi period (1550–1565), by Aleksandr Leonidovich Korzinin
Cherie Kartchner Woodworth’s Research and Publications
Cherie Woodworth’s impressive publications included articles, review articles, and book reviews; her unpublished research consisted of numerous conference papers and oral presentations. Cherie’s dissertation and articles concerned fifteenth-century Muscovite history, especially princely clans. Her book reviews encompassed a wide variety of fields and disciplines. Her final research project addressed the interaction of steppe pastoral nomads with …
Scratch a Russian, Find a Turk”
In this first-rate monograph, Cornelia Soldat confirms earlier impressionistic assertions that the portrayal of Ivan iv as a tyrant and the Muscovites as barbarians in German-language pamphlets (Flugschriften) written as propaganda during the Livonian War (1558–1582), are simply projections onto the Muscovite discourse of the motifs of the anti-Ottoman discourse that originated in the fifteenth century after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Th…
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
Preface Acknowledgments I The Medieval Ethno-Religious Frontier II Kievan Rus' and the Steppe III The Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde IV The Mongol Administration of Russia V The Mongol Role in Russian Politics VI The Russian Theory of Mongol Rule VII Economic and Demographic Consequences VIII The Mongols and the Muscovite Autocracy IX The Mongols and Russian Society X Cultural Life XI Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
George Vernadsky, Eurasianism, the Mongols, and Russia
Eurasianism, the theory that Russia was neither Europe nor Asia but a world unto itself, Eurasia, runs through much, if not all, of George Vernadsky's enormous scholarly output. Eurasianism was the fuel of his impressive productivity, the central, unifying theme of his varied investigations of Russian, Byzantine, and Inner Asian history. Despite the high esteem in which Vernadsky came to be held, there have been few examinations of his contributi…
The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600-1725
Muscovite Political Institutions in the 14th Century
Muscovite Political Institutions in the 14th Century Charles J. Halperin 303 East 8th Street, Apt. 16 Bloomington, IN 47408-3572 USA [email protected] The role of the Mongols in the rise of Moscow to a position of political preeminence in 14th-century Russia remains a sensitive and controversial topic in Russian historiography. Those scholars who have concluded that the Mongols did contribute to Moscow's ascension point to two primary areas of…
Russia in The Mongol Empire in Comparative Perspective
The Kipchak connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks and Ayn Jalut
In 1260 an army of Egyptian Mamluks, led by Sultan Qutuz, defeated a Mongol army from the Ilkhanate led by Ketbugha, at the battle of Ayn Jalut (Ain Jalut), 'Goliath's Well', in Palestine. Because this campaign marked the furthest advance of the Mongols in the Middle East, scholars have paid considerable attention to its military and political significance. However, one potential aspect of Ilkhanid-Mamluk relations has only been mentioned casuall…
Simeon Bekbulatovich and Mongol Influence on Ivan IV’s Muscovy
Donald Ostrowski’s article “Simeon Bekbulatovich’s Remarkable Career as Tatar Khan, Grand Prince of Rus’, and Monastic Elder” is a masterful summary of the sources and scholarly works which discuss Simeon’s career. However, Ostrowski does not consistently apply the principles of source criticism to his sources, mention sources which we would expect to refer to Simeon but do not, discuss popular views of Simeon, or put scholarly theories of Ivan’s…
The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier
Historians have long debated the importance of religion as a determining factor in relations between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages. On the one hand, each side consigned adherents of the enemy's religion to eternal damnation. Religious animosity provided the casus belli of crusade and jihad; Christian and Muslim met each other on the field of battle with great frequency. On the other hand, Christian-Muslim relations also included p…
Medieval Myopia and the Mongol Period of Russian History
Stepennaia kniga on the Reign of Ivan IV: Omissions from Degree 17
The theory that the compiler of the 'Book of Degrees', a thematic history of the Rus' dynasty from St Vladimir to Ivan IV compiled 1560―6 3 , terminated his main narrative in Degree 17 about Ivan IV in 1560 because of his increasing tyranny is based upon an outdated conception of the division of Ivan's reign into 'good' and 'bad' halves and hindsight about events after 15 6 3 . The editorial principles employed to present a positive image of Ivan…
Muscovy as a Hypertrophic State: A Critique
The theory of Muscovy as a "hypertrophic state" — one in which the state dominated society, rather than the reverse — originated in the middle of the 19th century among adherents of the State School of Russian legal historians. It has survived in a variety of incarnations since then, including the "tyranny" or "despotism" of the early modern European ethnographers, 1 Max Weber's "patrimonial state," Karl Wittfogel's "Oriental Despotism," 2 and "t…
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
Prince Andrej Bogoljubskij: The Man and the Myth
Soviet Historiography on Russia and the Mongols
Soviet historiography has always exercised a particular fascination for Western specialists in Russian history. In part this is because more is written on Russian history in the Soviet Union than anywhere else, but at least as important is interest in understanding the evolution of the Soviet Union itself: historiographic investigation provides illuminating insights into the interplay between scholarship and the Soviet political system. While ear…
The Concept of the Ruskaia Zemlia and Medieval National Consciousness from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Centuries
Any society sufficiently cohesive to evolve even the most rudimentary political structure will also, as a matter of course, develop a set of shared concepts about the nature of that society and a justification of its political structure. Scholars usually ascribe the word “Ideology” only to a set of values which is highly abstract, rational, and articulated in the form of theoretical treatises, so that in the modern period liberalism or Marxism is…
A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon Law
"Now you see them, now you don't": A Note on the First Appearance of the Rhos (Rus') in Byzantium
A Chingissid Saint ofRussianOrthodox Church: "TheLifeofPeter, Tsarevich of the Horde"
Judaizers and the Image of the Jew in Medieval Russia: A Polemic Revisited and a Question Posed
Sixteenth-Century Foreign Travel Accounts to Muscovy: A Methodological Excursus
The Concept of the Russian Land from the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries
The history of Old Russian Literature, Academician Dmitrii Sergeevich Likhachev has observed, is the history of the Russian Land (russkaia zem Ya)
A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon Law
Tverian political thought in the fifteenth century
Charles J. Halperin, Tverian political thought in the fifteenth century. The pokhval'noe slovo (word of praise) to Grand Prince Boris Aleksandrovich of Tver' attributed to the monk Foma has not been correctly interpreted as an expression of Tverian political thought in the fifteenth century. First, although it does discuss the Council of Florence, it never accuses the Greeks of apostasy, and therefore its use of Byzantine Imperial epithets and ti…
The Epistle of Patriarch Antonius I to Grand Prince Vasilii I: A New Reading
Medieval Myopia and the Mongol Period of Russian History
Kiev and Moscow: An Aspect of Early Muscovite Thought
The Concept of the Ruskaia Zemlia and Medieval National Consciousness from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Centuries
Any society sufficiently cohesive to evolve even the most rudimentary political structure will also, as a matter of course, develop a set of shared concepts about the nature of that society and a justification of its political structure. Scholars usually ascribe the word “Ideology” only to a set of values which is highly abstract, rational, and articulated in the form of theoretical treatises, so that in the modern period liberalism or Marxism is…
Russkie liudi v Zolotoi orde
Prince Andrej Bogoljubskij: The Man and the Myth
George Vernadsky, Eurasianism, the Mongols, and Russia
Eurasianism, the theory that Russia was neither Europe nor Asia but a world unto itself, Eurasia, runs through much, if not all, of George Vernadsky's enormous scholarly output. Eurasianism was the fuel of his impressive productivity, the central, unifying theme of his varied investigations of Russian, Byzantine, and Inner Asian history. Despite the high esteem in which Vernadsky came to be held, there have been few examinations of his contributi…
Comparative History in Theory and Practice: A Discussion
Soviet Historiography on Russia and the Mongols
Soviet historiography has always exercised a particular fascination for Western specialists in Russian history. In part this is because more is written on Russian history in the Soviet Union than anywhere else, but at least as important is interest in understanding the evolution of the Soviet Union itself: historiographic investigation provides illuminating insights into the interplay between scholarship and the Soviet political system. While ear…
The Defeat and Death of Batu
Women in Medieva l Russia
Problemy srednevekovoi narodnoi kul'tury . Aron Iakovlevich Gurevich
Russia in The Mongol Empire in Comparative Perspective
The Six-Hundredth Anniversar Y of the Battle of Kulikovo Field, 1380-1980, in Soviet Historiography
The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier
Historians have long debated the importance of religion as a determining factor in relations between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages. On the one hand, each side consigned adherents of the enemy's religion to eternal damnation. Religious animosity provided the casus belli of crusade and jihad; Christian and Muslim met each other on the field of battle with great frequency. On the other hand, Christian-Muslim relations also included p…
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
Preface Acknowledgments I The Medieval Ethno-Religious Frontier II Kievan Rus' and the Steppe III The Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde IV The Mongol Administration of Russia V The Mongol Role in Russian Politics VI The Russian Theory of Mongol Rule VII Economic and Demographic Consequences VIII The Mongols and the Muscovite Autocracy IX The Mongols and Russian Society X Cultural Life XI Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
In the Eye of the Beholder: Two Views of Seventeenth-Century Muscovy
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