hongrois.^3 It has to be said that, owing to its sheer abundance of grateful
melodic invention,Raymondadeserves to be much better known. It has
languished in comparative obscurity mainly because it is almost, but not
quite, Tchaikovsky–and in this respect, at least, its fate matches that of
the Briennes themselves pretty well.
Yet it is the details of the last act that really give us the clue as to what
we are dealing with here. The work plainly belongs in the context of the
Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, which eventually disintegrated amidst
the horrors of the First World War.^4 In an effort to cosy up to the
Western powers, and to the French in particular, it would have made
sense for the Russians to manifest an interest in crusading (which was, of
course, part of the generic theme of‘medievalism’that was all the rage at
the time).^5 The truth is, though, that the Russians could not really buy
into the crusading movement. For them, far and away the main‘cultural
memory’consisted of being its triumphant opponents: as the sons and
heirs of the great Alexander Nevsky, who had defended the Orthodox
Church and holy Mother Russia at the Battle on the Ice in 1242.^6
However, it would seem that the Russians did the best that they could,
linking themselves–and eastern Europe in general–to the Crusades
through the example of Hungary. In other words, there is good reason to
believe that Jean de Brienne was selected as the hero ofRaymonda
precisely because he had been the leading French warrior in the Fifth
Crusade, which also represented Hungary’s high point as a part of the
crusading movement.^7
What we are seeing here, then, is not so much an interest in the
Briennesper se, but in how their memory could be manipulated to serve
modern objectives. In fact, this is part of a wider theme, in which
medieval individuals, families and dynasties are primarily remembered
in a teleological way, particularly in proportion to their impact on
realms and other state structures. This is especially the case when we
are dealing with national‘crusader heroes’, such as Richard the Lion-
heart and St Louis.^8 The sad truth is that the Briennes are nowhere near
(^3) See esp.The Ballets of Alexander Glazunov:Scènes de Ballet,RaymondaandLes Saisons,
ed. R. I. Letellier (Newcastle, 2012).
(^4) For the effects of this alliance, seeThe Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols., ed.
J. Winter (Cambridge, 2014), i, 16–64.
(^5) See esp. D. Matthews,Medievalism: A Critical History(Cambridge, 2015).
(^6) For more on the battle and its uses, especially in forging an alliance against the Germans,
see D. Ostrowski,‘Alexander Nevskii’s“Battle on the Ice”: The Creation of a Legend’,
7 Russian History33 (2006), 289–312.
8 Building on my observations inJohn,9.
It is worth noting the attempts of various French historians to convert John of Brienne,
king of Jerusalem and Latin emperor of Constantinople, into precisely this kind of
Conclusion 185