
Supervisors: Dr Sergei Bogatyrev and Dr Haki Antonsson
Email: kristina.batorshyna.16@ucl.ac.uk
Present status: MPhil candidate
Working title of thesis: Christian Perspesctives on Pre-Christian Worship in Kyivan Rus' and
England: a Comparative Study
Research: How differently was “paganism” regarded by Christians on the peripheries of
European Christianity and how these approaches shaped the culture and religious thought
of the regions?
My dissertation will revisit the reasons and circumstances in which the processes of
conversion took place in England and Rus’. The main part of my dissertation will be a
study of how “paganism” was portrayed in Christian sources and therefore how it was
regarded by Christians. I will be looking at how Christians saw “pagans”, how “pagan”
elements may have survived in Christianity and what that may imply. This part of my
dissertation will concern the fact that mostly all “pagan” sources have survived in their
Christian versions. I will be doing an analysis and comparison of the major works of the
period in regards of the “pagan” elements, references and texts surviving in them.
Through this analysis I am going to show how the “pagan” elements interact with Christian
ones and how they are used and accommodated in Christian works.
The final section will concern the idea of 'different' versions of Christianity. I am going to
argue here that different elements present in Christianity, especially in Kyivan Rus', may
bear not Christian origin, but “pagan” one or at least reflect the views and understandings
of the local previously “pagan” people of Christianity. I am going to conduct this research
through an analysis of English and Eastern European holidays, oral traditions and cultural
elements.