Dr. Talia Zajac Discusses “Noble Ladies: Between East and West” on CEU Podcast

Dr. Talia Zajac, assistant professor of religious studies at Niagara University, presented her research on "Noble Ladies: Between East and West," as a guest on a recent podcast produced by Central European University. The podcast is part of a series of interviews covering central Europe in the medieval period for the Medieval Central Europe Research Network and CEU Medieval Studies.

Dr. Zajac's research focuses on her exploration of mixed Eastern Orthodox-Catholic marriages, which resulted when noble ladies from medieval Rus (modern Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia) married into Central European noble families, and their counterparts in Central Europe married into the Rus nobility. In the podcast, she offered explanations of why these religious exchanges gradually came to an end in the 13th century, and highlights her study of one specific lady, the 13th-century Duchess Gremislava, a Rus princess who married into the Polish nobility.

"The lives of Eastern Christian royal women like Queen Anna Yaroslavna, who left Kyiv and travelled across Europe to become the wife of King Henry I of France in 1051 fascinate me," Dr. Zajac said. "Examining the experiences of royal brides in interconfessional marriages contributes to a greater understanding of women's agency in history, their political power, religious patronage, and ability to facilitate cross-cultural and religious exchanges across eastern and western Christian traditions."