Uladzimir Kananovich

Uladzimir Kananovich is a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe. He holds a PhD in history from the Institute of History of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences and an MA in medieval studies from Central European University. He has taught in higher education establishments in Belarus, as well as in the USA (Trinity College, Hartford). He has been a research associate at various institutions in Europe, including EHESS, where this year he is giving a research seminar entitled "Mémoire sociale et espace mémoriel au Moyen Âge" ("Social memory and memory space in the Middle Ages").

His research focuses on war and chivalry, as well as the history of memory and emotion. His first book was on "The Knight at the Battlefield". He has also worked on a monograph in English entitled "Remaking Local Heroes. Memories at Clash in the Late Medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania".

The project

Title: Revenge in Europe. A case study. The case of Duke Michel Glinski (1508).

"The history of violence is, especially today, one of the most important topics in the social sciences. This research project fits into this field via vengeance, which was the corollary of violence in the Middle Ages. Thanks to the work of Claude Gauvard and his colleagues, the issues surrounding vengeance are of great interest to historians, dealing with different aspects of this phenomenon across medieval Europe, from Spain to Iceland, from the British Isles to the Apennines. This project presents a case of revenge that has not yet been adequately interpreted according to the grid for reading sources applicable to recent issues of violence. The case takes place in medieval Lithuania. More concretely, the project focuses on a particular story of revenge that took place in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, on February 2, 1508, in the vicinity of Grodno, a fortified town on the banks of the Niemen River and on the royal road from Wilno-Vilnius to Krakow. Thanks to the testimonies (or rumors?) of the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, Baron Sigismund de Herberstein (1486-1566), this story has become well known in Europe."

Hosting institution: École des Hautes Études et Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

Selective Bibliography

• Kniaź Michal Glinski: Rytsar na poli bitvy. Kletsk, žniveń 1506. Historyka- Antrapalahichnaje Dasledavanne [Duke Michael Glinski: Knight at the Battlefield. Kletsk, August 1506. Historical and Anthrological Inquiry] (Smalensk: Inbelkult, 2017).
• Heroes and Villains: Politics and Historical Memory in Medieval East Europe: The Case Study of the Land of Navahrudak, Russian History, vol. 43, no.1 (2016): 22- 67.
• Doctor Francis Skaryna and the Heavens: Astrology and Printmaking in Early Renaissance East-Central Europe, dans: Journal of Belarusian Studies, vol.8, no.2 (2017):47-68.
• A Foreigner n the Early Sixteenth-century Muscovy: The Western Refugee Duke Michal Glinski at the Muscovite Court, Foreign Communities in the Early Modern Muscovite Cities, Dreher, Simon (eds.) (London-New York : Routledge, 2022): 167-187.