Guest: Christian Raffensperger is the Kenneth E. Wray Chair in the Humanities and professor of history at Wittenberg University. He has published several books on the history of Kyivan Rus’ and medieval Eastern Europe, including Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World, 988–1146 (2012), Ties of Kinship: Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus’ (2016), The Kingdom of Rus’ (2017), and Conflict, Bargaining, and Kinship Networks in Medieval Eastern Europe (2018). Raffensperger’s studies present the Rus’ state not as a principality or a collection of principalities but as one of the realms of medieval Europe. Check out his Rusian Genealogical Database which presents a new genealogy of the Rusian royal family, the Riurikids, and their connections with other royal families throughout Europe.