International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Nazar Kozak
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ethnology Institute, Lviv, Ukraine; 
[e-mail]
Site-Specificity of Portraits in Kyivan Rus’
The portraits of the Rurikids created in Kyiv between the end of the tenth and the end of the 
twelfth centuries have been discussed in the art-historical scholarship as a rather disparate set of 
iconographically varied representations. Outwardly, they have little in common except that they 
originate from the same city and depict the members of the same dynasty. Drawing on Miwon 
Kwon’s theorization of site-specificity developed from the analysis of modern art practices, this 
paper reveals a substantial commonality of Kyivan portraits as political artworks.
A usual understanding of the site-specificity, which Kwon defines as ‘phenomenological’, applies 
to an artwork determined by the physical three-dimensional space around it. For isntance, Yaroslav’s 
family portrait in Saint Sophia of Kyiv is site-specific because its location on the upper level of the 
west part of the nave under the galleries directly referes to the place in the church reserved for the 
ruler and his family; or further, because this location enables the juxtaposition of the portrait with 
the scene of the Communion of the Apostles depicted in the apse. But since other Kyivan portraits 
were intended for different spatial settings and, for that reason, are ‘phenomenologicaly’ site-specific 
in different ways, the aproach from this engle reveals rather differences than commonalities.
Kwon, however, has also introduced the notion of another kind of site-specificity, which 
engages a ‘site’ not as a physical but as a discursive realm. This lens provides a common ground 
for each of the individual cases. Indeed, along with the dependence on the places of their display, 
the Kyivan portraits were firmly rooted in the discourse of power struggle around the throne, and 
prestige stemming from both the internal and foreign policies of the ruling family. This discourse 
informed the sociopolitical contexts of the portraits’ creations and even influenced the choices of 
iconographic schemes and details. The essential aspect of the ‘discursive’ site-specificity shared by 
all of the Kyivan portraits was the focus on the legitimization of the authority gained (or hoped to 
be gained) in an equivocal way. Thus, the portraits were not just reflecting but also constructing the 
concept of power in Rus’, along with militant actions, palace intrigues, ceremonies, sermons, and 
other political gestures.