Mapping the Golden Age of Kyivan Rus': Creating an Interactive Digital Atlas
Date and Time
Location
A talk by Susana Torres Prieto, Associate Professor in the Humanities, School of Humanities, IE University (Madrid) & Research Associate at HURI
Featuring an introduction to the MAPA: Digital Atlas of Ukraine program and a live demonstration of its interactive web mapping capabilities by Kostyantyn Bondarenko, MAPA Project Manager
Chaired by Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard
This event is organized by HURI as part of the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies public event series and the MAPA program.
About the Seminar
After five years of research, the project on the history and culture of Kyivan Rus' is ready to be fully launched. This seminar will explain in detail all the features of this new MAPA module that underlines the many cultural and artistic achievements of pre-Mongol Rus' as well as the political and economic framework in which such Golden Age could take place. The talk will focus on the multicultural traits and economic buoyancy specific to Rus' culture that made it unique in the wider Slavic and Byzantine contexts of the time.
About the Speakers
Dr. Susana Torres Prieto has developed her academic and research career in the areas of Slavic and Medieval Studies. She has specialized in the literature and culture of Eastern Europe from the Middle Ages, with particular attention to translation of Classic and apocryphal literature, as well as in the means and context of transmission of knowledge. She has published more than fifty articles and book chapters on medieval Slavic culture, mostly on Early Rus'. She has taught in several universities in Spain and abroad and, after having been member of several international research groups and directing her own, is a Research Associate at Harvard University as Scientific Director of a digital humanities research project on Kyivan Rus’. She is also a member of several scientific societies worldwide. Her latest monographs are The Early Slavs (Routledge, 2025) and The Alexander Romance in the Orthodox Slavic World: The Transmission of a Classic Text (Cambridge University Press, 2027).
Kostyantyn Bondarenko is IT Professional at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University and Project Manager for the MAPA: Digital Atlas of Ukraine program. Since 2001, he has worked at the Institute to improve and expand its IT services by designing and developing websites, databases, and creating GIS maps and web applications. As the Project Manager for the MAPA: Digital Atlas of Ukraine program, Kostyantyn manages all technical and organizational aspects of the MAPA. He has worked on all modules of the MAPA program, presented MAPA projects at several conferences and is currently working on joint GIS projects between the Ukrainian Research Institute and its partners in the US and abroad.