Voices on Birchbark

Everyday Communication in Medieval Russia

Jos Schaeken

$339.95 $272.02

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Brill
15 November 2018

Palaeography (history of writing); Social & cultural history; Social interaction

Series: Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest. Birchbark literacy was crucial to the organization of Novgorodian society; it was integrated into a huge variety of activities and had a broad social basis; it was used extensively by the laity, by women as well as men, by villagers as well as landlords.

Voices on Birchbark

is the first book-length study of this unique corpus in English. By examining a representative selection of birchbark texts, Jos Schaeken presents fascinating vignettes of daily medieval life and a holistic picture of the pragmatics of communication in pre-modern societies.

By: Jos Schaeken
Imprint: Brill
Edition: approx. xxviii, 212 pp.
Volume: 43
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 497g
ISBN: 9789004389403
ISBN 10: 9004389407
Series: Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics
Pages: 230
Publication Date: 15 November 2018
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jos Schaeken, PhD (1962), Leiden University, is Professor of Slavic and Baltic languages and cultural history at that university. He has published several monographs and many articles in the field of Slavic philology, including Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian.

Reviews for Voices on Birchbark: Everyday Communication in Medieval Russia

Jos Schaeken has produced a subtle, impressively thorough (despite its brevity) and up-to-date guide to an important, intriguing and deceptively complex set of sources. His book is a very welcome addition to the lamentably limited English-language bibliography of the subject. -Simon Franklin, Clare College, University of Cambridge in Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 2019 Le livre de J. Schaeken est une belle et multifacette representation de tout le corpus des documents sur ecorce de bouleau. -Timofey V. Guimon in Cahiers de civilisation Medievale, 2019