Сидорова В. В. Средневековье глазами российской интернет-аудитории [Электронный ресурс] // Vox medii aevi. 2019. Vol. 2(5). С. 209–246. URL: https://voxmediiaevi.com/2019-2-sidorova
DOI: 10.24411/2587-6619-2019-00022
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Vasilina Sidorova
Research Fellow at Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Science, and Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Science
http://iitp.ru/ru/users/4603.htm
https://iitp-ru.academia.edu/VasilinaSidorova
The Middle Ages through the Eyes of Russian Internet Users
The article presents the results of a sociological study conducted in May 2012 on the Internet in order to find out what image of the Middle Ages exists among people interested in history and compare it with representations of medievalists and other historians. For the first time, the results were presented at the conference “The Sixth Middle Ages” (organized by M. Boytsov, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow, May 25, 2012). The survey involved 664 people who showed significant interest in the history of the Middle Ages and demonstrated at least basic knowledge of this period.
The study showed significant differences between the images of the Middle Ages that share people of different professions. Most medievalists see the medieval period in bright colors and tend to ignore any unsightly aspects of the Middle Ages. The image shared by historians and graduates in humanities is more neutral. For specialists in social, natural and technical sciences and everyone else, the Middle Ages were gloomy and “dirty”. Engineers see this historical period in black color more than others. The more systematically one could learn medieval history at the university, the less are the Middle Ages painted in dark colors for him. However, few people perceive the Middle Ages as a time of stagnation and decline.
Key words: image of the Middle Ages; medievalism; opinion survey.