Section 09: Legacy and Reception

The closing section, treating what Vladimir’s baptism founded and how his memory has been contested ever since. The baptism of 988 is the founding event of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian Christianity alike, and the section traces its long afterlife — the spiritual nativity of three peoples, the millennium of 1988 that marked a turning point for the Soviet Church — before turning, even-handedly, to the contested modern memory of Volodymyr/Vladimir, claimed as founder by Russia and Ukraine both, and to the scholarship that has reconstructed the conversion.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Equal-to-the-Apostles)

Contents

File Topic
The Baptism of Rus’ in Memory The founding of East Slavic Christianity; Vladimir’s baptism as the spiritual origin of three Christian nations; the place of 988 in the historical memory of Rus’; the millennium of 1988 as a turning point in Soviet church-state relations under Gorbachev; the enduring meaning of the founding event
The Contested Memory and Scholarship The modern Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian contest over Volodymyr/Vladimir, handled even-handedly per §4 — the shared founder and the divided name; the competing monuments (Kyiv 1853; Moscow 2016); the Crimea/Chersonesus rhetoric and its critics; the link to the 2018–2019 autocephaly dispute; and the scholarship (Franklin & Shepard; Poppe; Obolensky; the Primary Chronicle scholarship)

How to Use

  • Read The Baptism of Rus’ in Memory for the meaning of the founding event and the 1988 millennium.
  • Read The Contested Memory and Scholarship for the even-handed treatment of the modern national contest and the scholarly reconstruction of the conversion.

A Note on Sources

The contested-memory file is governed especially by methodology §4: every contested claim on the live Russia/Ukraine dispute carries sourcing from more than one side and a dated “as of” note, and polemical framing is avoided. The collection names the positions of Moscow and Kyiv without adjudicating between them, and dates its statements on the still-unfolding jurisdictional dispute.

Cross-References