The Early Slavs: Eastern Europe from the Initial Settlement to the Kievan Rus

by Pavel M. Dolukhanov, Pavel M. Dodlukhanov

Book by Dolukhanov, Pavel M.

Genres: History, Russia

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 24, 1996

Reviews

[Ferdinand · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent overview and, for me, an entry point into Eastern European history. It is good to see a brief description of Russian historiography and its peculiarities included. While the geological and archaeological parts largely went over my head due to not being my area of expertise, especially during the first half of the book, the historical and linguistic analysis in the latter half seemed thorough enough and drew adequate conclusions that still hold up in my view. The region currently referred to as "Eastern Europe" and the history of the so-called "Slavs" are presented as being influenced by external factors from the beginning, from the introduction of subsistence agriculture to the establishment of the Byzantine Christian Church. The "Slavs" also play an integral role in the history of Europe, shaping it in significant ways.

The conclusions should be contrasted with the reviews written by Peter Bogucki in the Slavic Review and Malcolm Todd in the The Slavonic and East European Review both in 1997 of this now around 30 year old book (even though this edition seems to have been published 2014) or more recent complete history works.