Voyages en Russie et définition des marges du monde scandinave dans les fornaldarsögur

Abstract

Recurring theme of medieval Scandinavian literature, travel in Russia seems to evolve according to time and genres. The Russian geography appears in fact as a literary construction far from the physical and historical realities, which results from a syncretism between different types of sources. This is even more striking with the genre of fornaldarsögur which introduces a real change where the regions of Medieval Russia are physically described for the first time, and where the geography gives way to a mental conception of geography and borders based on the definition of otherness and the awareness of a Scandinavian cultural unity.

Keywords

• legendary saga
• Old Rus’
• Viking world
• otherness
• borders
• margin