The End of the “Khazar Yoke,” Cambridge Postgraduate Workshop in Medieval and Early Modern Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge, February 12, 2016, 11:00–3:00

The Cambridge Postgraduate Workshop in Medieval and Early Modern Slavonic Studies is presented by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, a programme of the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Led by Dr Oleksiy Tolochko, Director of the Center for Kyivan Rus’ Studies at the Institute of Ukrainian History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the workshop will explore the fundamental premise of medieval Slavonic Studies that the Kyivan polity emerged and initially developed in competition and in confrontation with the Khazar Khanate. Only one source supports this thesis –the Primary Chronicle; no other source documents any significant contact between the Rus’ of Kyiv and the Khazars. Using contemporaneous sources, the workshop will deliberate the nature of the Rus’-Khazar relationship and the root of the historiographical myth of Khazar domination of the Rus’ put forth in the Primary Chronicle.

Dr Oleksiy  Tolochko is a leading scholar of Medieval and Early Modern Eastern European history and one of Ukraine’s foremost medievalists, who has taught at such institutions as the National University of “Kyiv Mohyla Academy,” the Central European University, Harvard University, and Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.  

The workshop will be led in English and all interested postgraduate students and scholars in medieval history and culture are welcome to apply.

For accepted workshop participants, costs for domestic economy train/coach travel to and from Cambridge will be reimbursed, and coffee and lunch provided.