The Empire of Charlemagne in Lecture courses and Research of Medievalists in Ukrainian Lands of Russian empire (XIX — early XX centuries)

Abstract

The article demonstrates that the rule of Charlemagne and the history of empire created by him were treated by medievalists of Ukraine as decisive events of Middle Ages. With due consideration of this factor they generally constructed periodization of their lecture courses in medieval history. At the same time the medievalists of Ukraine mostly treated many steps of Charlemagne as insufficient and contradictory and admitted that decay of his empire was quite substantiated. The interest to those items was demonstrated to some extent already in annual opening lectures in the first third of XIX century. Their authors (C. V. Rommel, A. A. Degurov, G. S. Gordeenkov) showed the attempts of Charlemagne to gain success in separate areas, such as education and legislation. Further on various aspects in history of creation and decay of Carolingian Empire became subjects of lectures of medievalists in universities of Ukrainian lands (M. M. Lunin, V. K. Nadler, F. Y. Fortinskiy and others), respective sections in textbooks (V. Y. Shul’gin, M. N. petrov) and, at last, of a fundamental monograph by A. S. Vyazigin “The Ideals of Kingdom of God And the Monarchy of Charlemagne”.