Medievalism and Slavic Popular Culture

Although scholars are increasingly engaged with medievalism as a global phenomenon, its manifestations in the popular cultures of East and Central Europe are relatively unexamined. In a period of regional unrest, invocations of the medieval in Slavic regions are often political. Politicians use the past for nationalistic reasons. Popular renderings, such as animated films, can also appeal to nationalist sentiment. Yet, although medievalist appeals have been fundamental to official myths of nation-formation, they are also integral to countercultural ideologies. Medieval fantasy literature has traditionally provided one such nexus. More recently, medievalism has emerged in carnivalesque elements of pop punk music. Medievalisms also exist in the play spaces of reenactments of medieval life and combat. Yet even in play, these acts are never neutral: controlling the story of the past always has consequences in the now. 

Anna Czarnowus is Associate Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice. She is the co-editor of volumes on national medievalisms.

Laurel Ryan is Associate Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She specializes in nineteenth-century Canadian medievalisms.