Dimitri Obolensky after the Cold War: Reflections on Saint Vladimir and Orthodoxy

Abstract

The article is dedicated to Sir Dmitry Dmitrievich Obolensky, professor of Russian and Balkan history at Oxford University, known for his study of the "Byzantine Commonwealth" and its influence on the Eastern European Slavic peoples: Bulgarians, Serbs and Russians. As a well-known British scholarly historian and philologist, Obolensky remained in close intellectual contact with Russian science throughout the entire period of the Cold War, until his death in 2001.  Obolensky, as a deeply religious person, was interested not only in the processes of transformation of Russian society after the end of the Cold War, but also in the spiritual revival that took place in Russia after 1991. The article analyzes the changes in the academic and journalistic works by Obolensky in the context of both global processes - perestroika, the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the USSR, democratization, the growing influence of the Orthodox Church in Russia, and local issues - family drama, decline in study of both Russian language and history in universities in Britain. Obolensky’s spiritual and intellectual heritage, as well as the results of his philosophical arguments and forecasts of the development of Russian society, expressed, in my opinion, are of undoubted interest to the Russian reader.

Keywords:

Sir Dmitry Dmitrievich Obolensky, Slavic Studies, Russia Studies, St Vladimir, Orthodoxy, Oxford