Aliaksandra Valodzina

October 2022 – July 2023

Gerda Henkel Stiftung Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow

New European College – Institute for Advanced Studies (Bucharest, Romania)

September 2021 – August 2022

Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow

University of Lausanne, Faculty of Arts (Switzerland)

December 2020 – July 2021

Postdoctoral Fellow University of Warsaw, Centre for East European Studies (Poland)

2018

PhD in History Belarusian State University (Minsk, Belarus)

Work on „The Waldensian movement in the late 12th - early 15th centuries”

2013

Master of Arts in History, Belarusian State University (Minsk, Belarus)

2009 – 2010

Laboratory assistant Belarusian State University, Faculty of History (Minsk, Belarus) Department of the History of the Ancient and Medieval World  Co-founder and editor of the electronic scientific journal "Scriptorium".  The president of the student research club.

Publications 

Valodzina, Aliaksandra; Voloshchuk, Myroslav [Валодзіна, Аляксандра; Волощук, Мирослав]. “Вальденський магістр Symon de Galicz de Ungaria.” [Waldensian magister Symon de Galicz de Ungaria] In Галич. Збірник наукових праць [Halych. Collection of scientific works] 8, edit by A. Stasiuk. Ivano-Frankivsk: Lilieja-NV, 2023: 105-128.

Anthologies

“The Waldensian concept of catholic saints: total rejection or hidden faith.” In Saints in the Slavic Christian World – Assessing power, religion and language in religious literature, edited by Emil Bjørn Hilton Saggau, Mihai Dragena and Wawrzyniec Kowalski. Peter Lang (forthcoming 2024).

“Labelling the Waldenses: othering a medieval religious movement.” In The New Europe College Yearbook - Gerda Henkel Program 2022-2023 (forthcoming 2024). ISSN 1584-0298

“Общины «paupers catholici» и «paupers reconciliati» в рамках религиозного подъёма второй половины ХІ – первой половины ХІІІ века.” [Communities of "paupers catholici" and "paupers reconciliati" during the period of religious revival from the second half of the 11th to first half of the 13th century] In Bractwa religijne w średniowieczu i w okresie nowożytnym (do końca XVIII wieku), edited by Dominika Burdzy, Beata Wojciechowska, 19–31. Kielce: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jana Kochanowskiego, 2014.

Talks

International Conference "The Church and Otherness", November 8-10, 2023, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia, Bulgaria), presentation “Not from a great man: real and fictional heresiarchs in the 11th and 12th century Catholic narratives”

International Conference "The Role of Historical Figures in History and Collective Memory", November 6-8, 2023, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Skopje, North Macedonia), presentation “The role of Valdes of Lyon in the formation of the self-identification memory of the medieval Waldenses: evolution from the real coeval to coequal with the apostles”

The 11th International Congress of Belarusian Studies, September 22-24, 2023 (Gdansk, Poland), presentation “They are to blame: the alienation of heretics and the legitimization of violence against them in Western Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries”

The 3d International Scientific-Practical Conference «ISSUES OF MODERN ORIENTAL STUDIES», Belarusian State University, June 29-30, 2023 (Minsk, Belarus), presentation “The Topoi of «Three Orients» and Translatio Studii in Waldensian Anti-Cathar Polemic”

New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study (Bucharest, Romania), May 31, 2023, seminar presentation “Heretics matter: the explicit and hidden purposes of the 11th and 12th century Catholic narratives”

International Conference «"Ours" vs "Theirs": Identity in Societies of the Ancient Times and the Middle Ages», October 27-28, 2022, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine), presentation “The Formation of Self-Identification in the Medieval Waldensian Religious Movement: Emergence of the Division into "Ours" (Waldenses) and "Theirs" (Catholics)”

“Histoire médiévale : séminaire de recherche 2021-2022”, University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland, May 23, 2022, presentation “The image of the East in medieval polemic anti-Waldensian texts”

“Saints in the Slavic Christian world (900-1400) Assessing culture, power, religion and language in Slavic hagiographies and religious literature”, Lund University, Ghent University and the Balkan History Association (Online seminar), November 9, 2021, presentation “The Waldensian concept of catholic saints: total rejection or hidden faith”

International conference «Unjust Borderlands: Injustice and Cultural Bordering», Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, May 3-5, 2017 (Greifswald, Germany), presentation “Borderlands as a Waldenses’ native region”

International scientific conference “Belarus and Cultural Legacy of Ancient World and Middle Ages”, History Department of Belarusian State University (Minsk), April 15, 2021

2011, 2012, 2014 Scholarships of the Belarusian State University for Students of Bachelor's and Master's Programs

The problem of heretical movements in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) is not very well studied, mainly due to the lack of sources. The second obstacle is a political connotation of the problem of Christianisation as a perception of the foreign influence.1 The current research project deals with a third question: different usage of the term “heretic” in the 14-15th century sources. It analyses the image of a heretic not only as a heterodox believer, but also as a political opponent, a pagan, and a representor of a different Christian confession, in the narrative of the Teutonic Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The investigation make an emphasis on the influence of the Baltic region, such as the Hanseatic League and Teutonic Order, on the process of understanding of the “norm” and “dissent” in the GDL.