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Mr. Kaiser delivered a Department of History Colloquium on “Discovering Individualism among the Deceased: Gravestones in Early Modern Russia” November 4, 1999. Contrary to current conceptions of early modern Russia as a time when autocracy and the imposition of serfdom made the development of individualism impossible, Mr. Kaiser argues that individualism steadily developed from the later fifteenth century to the eighteenth. Evidence for increasing individualism comes from inscriptions on sarcophagus covers and grave markers. Mr. Kaiser outlined the development of increasingly individualistic identification of the person whose remains lay buried.

Up to the fifteenth century, sarcophagi were decorated but carried no indication of who lay within. From the late fifteenth century, the name of the individual began to appear, squeezed into the spaces left open by ornamentation. Over time, the date of death, and finally the exact hour of death began to be recorded, along with the social rank of the deceased. By the late seventeenth century, the information provided a “basic biography.” Dates of birth as well as death communicate the “unique dimensions of an individual’s life.” Sometimes the circumstances of the individual’s death were included as well. While these trends began among the clergy and elite, they eventually permeated Russian society. Townsfolk, artisans, peasants, even slaves were remembered as unique individuals in early modern Russia. - Marci Sortor