DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2026-6(1)-104-112
Uncertainty as a resource: Novgorod narratives about Rurik and Martha the Mayoress
Aleksei Blandov
Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0003-1473-0314
Elvira Gepting
Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0001-7210-6726
ABSTRACT
The article is devoted to the investigation of the mechanisms of mythmaking that have been taking place over the past two centuries around two key figures of Novgorod history – the legendary Prince Rurik and the oppositionist Martha the Mayoress. Based on the field data, local history literature and other publications, the authors reconstruct the processes of “secondary semioticisation” of several significant objects in the Novgorod, Leningrad, and Tver regions. The authors show how historical uncertainty and scarcity of sources generate compensatory narrativisation: the phantom graves of Rurik and Martha become “memory spaces” that allow local communities to place their homeland in the context of “large history”. Special attention is paid to the cases of the Grave of Oleg, Shum-Gora, and the village of Mlyovo, where mythological narratives that originated in academic and journalistic circles were adapted by the folk tradition.
KEYWORDS: site of memory, Rurik, Martha the Mayoress, myth making, Veliky Novgorod, Staraya Ladoga, Shum-gora, Mlyovo.
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Information about the authors
Aleksei А. Blandov
Cand. Sci. (Historical Sciences),
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History
of Karelian Research Centre
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
11, Pushkinskaya St., Petrozavodsk,
185910, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-1473-0314
e-mail: [email protected]
Elvira L. Gepting
Cand. Sci. (Philology),
Leading Research Fellow
of the Cultural Studies Department
Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University
41, Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya St.,
Veliky Novgorod, 173003, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0001-7210-6726
e-mail: [email protected]
For citation:
Blandov, A. A., & Gepting, E. L. (2026). Uncertainty as a resource: Novgorod narratives about Rurik and Martha the Mayoress. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and Semiotics of the City, 6(1), 104–112. https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2026-6(1)-104-112
