Responsibilities
Publishing studies, attending international conferences and giving occasional lectures.
Competences
Mihai's areas of research include the medieval Baltic, focusing on conversion, missionary strategy, missionary Christian identity, hagiography, canon law, forced conversion, crusading, Christian kingship, otherness, and the religious beliefs and ritual practices of the Wends.
CV
Date of birth: April 26, 1988
Nationality: Romanian
Degrees:
2018: PhD in Medieval Studies (EQF level 8), “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History, Bucharest, Romanian Academy
2013: Interdisciplinary MA in Medieval studies (EQF level 7), Faculty of History; Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
2011: BA in History (EQF level 6), Faculty of History, University of Bucharest
Research experience:
Oct. 2019, Feb. 2020: Short-term postdoctoral scholarship at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. The scholarship was supported by the EU funded project "Research Infrastructure on Religious Studies - ReIReS" (Scholarships for Transnational Access), grant agreement ID: 730895. Titles of the projects: Linguistic Interactions Between Germans and Wends in the Second Half of the Tenth Century; Crusade and Colonization in the Wendish Territory during the Twelfth Century
2018-2019: Short-term postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of History and Archeology (University of Tartu), funded by the Romanian Cultural Institute - 'Lucian Blaga' Fellowship, no.7177 / 29.05.2018. Title of the project: How to Justify a Crusade. The Conquest of the Region East of the Elbe and New Crusade Rhetoric in the Twelfth Century
2015: Short-term research mobility for PhD at the Institute of Medieval Studies from the School of History, University of Leeds (UK)
2014-2015: Scholarship for Doctoral studies "MINERVA - Cooperare pentru carieră de elită în cercetarea doctorală și postdoctorală", contract: POSDRU/159/1.5/S/137832, "Nicolae Iorga" Institute of History, Bucharest, Romanian Academy
Membership in academic and professional bodies:
2019-present: Member of the Editorial Board of the Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, published by the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies
2019-present: Member of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East
2018-present: Member of the Editorial Advisory Board (History), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK
2016-present: Member of the Romanian Association of Slavic Studies
Publications
Selected publications
Books
The Wendish Crusade, 1147: The Development of Crusading Ideology in the Twelfth Century (London: Routledge, 2019)
Misiune și cruciadă în teritoriul venzilor (sec al XII-lea) ("Mission and Crusade in the Wendish Territory, 12th Century") (Bucharest: Etnologică, 2019)
Studies in edited volumes
"Mental Geographies and Cultural Identities in the Baltic Region in the Eleventh Century: the Anglo-Saxon Cotton World Map", in Dumitru-Cătălin Rogojanu, Gherghina Boda (eds.), Istorie, Cultură și Cercetare ("History, Culture, Research)", Vol. III (Targoviste: Cetatea de Scaun, 2019): 13-28
"Otto din Bamberg: Reformă Monastică și Misiune Apostolică" ("Otto of Bamberg: Monastic Reform and Apostolic Mission"), in Ileana Căzan, Bogdan Mateescu (eds.), Timp, Societate and Identify Culturală. "Miniaturi" istorice ("Time, Society and Cultural Identity. Historical "Miniatures") (Cluj-Napoca: Academia Română-Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2015): 25-48
"Podoabă și veșmânt în Țările Române, sec. XVII-XVIII" ("Ornament and Garment in the Romanian Principalities, 17th-18th Centuries"), in Marian Petcu (ed.), Sociologia luxului ("The Sociology of Luxury") (Bucharest: Tritonic, 2015): 157-194
Scholarly journal articles
“Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Between Germans and Wends in the Second Half of the Tenth Century”, Journal of the Institute of Latvian History, 2/110 (2019): 5-33
"The Saxon expeditions against the Wends and the foundation of Magdeburg during Otto I's reign", The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, 11/2 (2019): 7-34
"Divine Vengeance and Human Justice in the Wendish Crusade of 1147", Collegium Medievale, 29 (2016): 49-82
"Mitologia slava e greco-romana. Uno studio comparativo", Romanoslavica, 51/4 (2015): 194-214
"Imaginea cneaghinei Olga în Cronica lui Nestor" ("The Image of the Princess Olga of Kiev in Nestor’s Chronicle"), Romanoslavica, 51/1 (2015): 45-54