Ancient Rus and Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Early Medieval States

The complex questions of the emergence of states in Ancient Rus and Medieval Europe were at the forefront of a conference in 2012. The Papers have now been published

Ancient Rus and Medieval Europe: the emergence of states
Ed by Tatiana Jackson
Series: The most ancient states of Eastern Europe 2014
Dmitry Pozharsky University Publishing House 2016
ISBN 978-5-91244-147-9

The Yearbook: The most ancient states of Eastern Europe 2014, is  dedicated to the problem of the origin and formation of the medieval states. It includes presentations given at the International Conference “Ancient Rus and Medieval Europe: the emergence of states” (IVI RAN, 2012). The main objectives of the volume – to present general theoretical state of current research of early states and highlight the history of specific public entities in Europe, including ancient Rus.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction. Elena Melnikova

State beginnings in the light of political anthropology

• The Early State: A Structural Approach (translated by N.N. Kradin, edited by E.A. Melnikova). By Henry J.M. Claessen.
• Political anthropology on state origins. By Nikolay N. Kradin

The origin and formation of medieval European states

• Migrations and state formation in the early middle ages: A view from the West. By Heinrich Härke.
• Mound-building and state-building: A poetic discourse. By Martin Carver.
• Revisiting the English state, AD c. 700–1100. By Grenville and G. Astill
• Norðvegr – Norway: From Sea Kings to Land Kings. By Dagfinn Skre.
• Bulgar polities in the fourth–ninth centuries: from chiefdom to the early state. By Tsvetelin Stepanov.
• The origins of East-Slavic polity. By P.P. Tolochko.
• The origin of Rus’ and the question of Balto-Finnic role in this process. By Marika Mägi.
• Gnezdovo as the early urban center in the age of formation of the early Russian state: Some problems of its interpretation. By N.V. Eniosova and T.A. Pushkina.
• Discussing the formation of the posadnik system in Rus’. By A.A. Gorsky
• Stages of formation of the state in Western Pomerania. By B.N. Florya.

Rus’ and Western Europe

• History as propaganda, proto-foundation myth and “tract for the times” in the long eleventh century (c. 1000 – c. 1130) By Jonathan Shepard.
• Western Missionaries in Eastern Europe, 962–1009. By Ian Wood.
• The Ottonians and the Kievan Rus’. Was Kiev the object of Ottonian policy in Eastern Europe? By Andrzej Poppe.
• Matrimonial alliance of Henry I, King of France, and Anne, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince of Kiev: reasons, background, consequences. By Alexander Musin.

Byzantine Cherson

• Imperial administration of Cherson: from archontia to katepanate (the evidence of seals) By Nicholas Alekseenko.
• From the Thema of Klimata to the Thema of Cherson: characteristics of Byzantine military and administrative model in Taurica in the mid-ninth – early tenth centuries. By V.E. Naumenko.

Reviews

• The new edition of the earliest Smolensk diplomas of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (on the publication by A. Ivanov and A. Kuznetsov). By Ljubov Stoljarova. 507
• Bibliographical materials (2006–2014)
• Abbreviations
• Notes on contributors