Year of Russia in France
As part of the Year of Russia in France, the Louvre is presenting an exceptional exhibition devoted to the history of Christian Russia. It evokes the emergence of the "Russians" in Latin and Byzantine history, the rivalries and struggles for influence among the Latins, Vikings, Byzantines and Circassians, and the first conversions in the late 10th century. It offers an explanation for the Christianization of Russia, after the ecclesiastical model of Constantinople. It also offers an account of the blossoming of Christian art in the successive and rival principalities of Kiev, Vladimir and Novgorod from the late 10th century to the early 13th century. After the Mongol invasion and domination in the 13th century, Christian art was reborn in all of its splendor under the impetus of the monasteries. The 16th century saw the definitive rise of Moscow, which proclaimed itself the "Third Rome" and the "New Jerusalem," and the dawn of a new age in Russian Christian art under the reigns of Basil III and Ivan the Terrible. The conflicts and revivals that took place in the 17th century under the first Romanovs heralded the radical political and esthetic changes imposed by Peter the Great.
