Book excerpt: A stimulating and provocative collection, these essays challenge received notions about the culture and history of medieval Russia and offer fresh approaches to problems of textual interpretation, the theory of the medieval text, and the analysis of alternative, nonverbal texts. The contributors, international specialists from many disciplines, investigate issues ranging over history, cultural anthropology, art history, and ritual. They have produced a worthy companion to the first volume of Medieval Russian Culture, published in 1984. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.