RUS' EXPRESSIONS OF ROMANITAS BETWEEN THE TENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

Two Romes have fallen and the third still remains: this idea—contrasting the decline of Rome (476) and Constantinople (1453) as capitals of the Roman Empire with the endurance of Moscow—surfaced in a sixteenth-century letter written by the monk Philoteus (Filofei) of Pskov to Grand Prince Vasili III of Moscow. On the basis of textual, architectural, and artistic evidence from the tenth to fifteenth centuries, this thesis argues that the Kievan Rus’ developed a Romanized identity and expressed it in their faith, myths, and art. It further asserts that the “Moscow as the Third Rome” doctrine is an extension of this Romanized identity and continues to be relevant today.