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Periodization and Terminology of the History of Eastern Slavs: Observations and Analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Stephan M . Horak
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Slavic Review , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1972 , pp. 853 - 862
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1972

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References

1. The name of the state and the people remains a subject of controversy among historians. Following the native idioms, and to avoid confusion resulting from transliteration as well as translation, the names Belorus' and Belorusinians are used rather than Belorussians, Beloruthenians, White Russians, or Kryvichans. For the origin of the Belorusinians and questions of terminology see Vakar, Nicholas P., Belorussia: The Making of a Nation, A Case Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For additional literature see Vakar's, Bibliographical Guide to Belorussia (Cambridge, Mass., 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Sbornik statei po slavianovedeniiu, Imp. akademiia nauk (St. Petersburg, 1904), vol. 1. The article was published in English in Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States (1952). Hrushevsky's scheme is extensively discussed by Doroshenko, Dmytro in “A Survey of Ukrainian Historiography,” Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States, 5, no. 4 (1957): 264–66.Google Scholar

3. On the linguistic aspect of the Russo-Ukrainian confrontation see Oleksa Shakhmatov and Kryms'kyi, Ahatanhel, Narysy z istorii ukrains'koi movy ta khrestomatiia z pamiatnykiv pys'mennoi staro-ukrainshchyny XI-XVII vv.. (Kiev, 1922)Google Scholar; Kolessa, Oleksander, Pohliad na istoriiu ukrains'koi movy (Prague, 1924)Google Scholar; Smal-Stockyi, Stepan, Rozvytok pohliadiv pro semiu slovians'kykh mov i ikh vzaimne sporidnennia, 2nd ed. (Prague, 1927)Google Scholar; Shakhmatov, A., “K voprosu ob obrazovanii russkikh narechei i russkikh narodnostei,” Russkii filologicheskii vestnik (St. Petersburg, 1894)Google Scholar. For an ethnogenic approach see Chubatyi, Mykola [Nicholas Chubaty], Kniazha Rus'-Ukraina ta vynyknennia triokh skhidno-slovians'kykh natsii (New York, 1964).Google Scholar

4. This aspect is well presented in the introduction by Presniakov, A. E. in his Formation of the Great Russian State: A Study of Russian History in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries, trans. Moorhouse, A. E. (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

5. In fact, changes in the Orthodox Church proceeded differently in the two areas; for example, the Union with Rome in 1596 did not affect Muscovy. On the history of the Ukrainian church see Winter, Eduard, Byzanss und Rom im Kampf um die Ukraine, 955- 1939 (Leipzig, 1942)Google Scholar; Chubatyi, Mykola [Nicholas Chubaty], Istoriia Khrystyianstva na Rusy-Ukraini, vol. 1: Vid pochatku do 1353 r. (Rome and New York, 1965).Google Scholar

6. According to Vernadsky, Russia is to be considered a Eurasian empire; hence the whole foundation of Russian civilization is different from the Ukrainian and Belorusinian foundations. See Vernadsky, George, The Tsardom of Moscow, 1547-1682, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1969).Google Scholar

7. An extensive bibliography on the early history of the Eastern Slavs is to be found in a useful study by Tret'iakov, P. N., Vostochnoslavianskie plemena (Moscow, 1953)Google Scholar; Chubatyi, Kniazha Rus'-Ukraina; Iaroslav Pasternak, “Problemy etnohenezy ukrains'koho narodu v svitli arkheolohichnykh doslidzhen,” Ukrains'kyi istoryk, 4, no. 4 (1970): 5-29, as well as his Arkheolohiia Ukrainy (Toronto, 1961). In Western literature on the early history of the Eastern Slavs see the recently (poorly) translated English version of Portal, Roger, The Slavs: A Cultural and Historical Survey of the Slavonic Peoples, trans. Evans, Patrick (New York, 1970)Google Scholar. Portal follows essentially the Russian historiography, but he admits that “there began in the twelfth century a process of linguistic differentiation which gradually centred itself round three dialects, the Great Russian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian” (p. 37). Another well-known Slav historian, Francis Dvornik, in his Slavs in European History and Civilization (New Brunswick, 1962), follows the Russian scheme exclusively. Oscar Halecki in all his works, including Borderlands of Western Civilisation: A History of East Central Europe (New York, 1952) and From Florence to Brest, 1439-1596 (New York, 1958), clearly distinguishes all three nations in all historical stages. He considers Kievan Rus' as a part of Ukrainian-Belorusinian history, with the Russians being only an offspring but not an heir. Soviet historiography in the last decade produced, in addition to Boris Grekov's works, a number of studies dealing exclusively with Kievan Rus', including foreign relations. See, for example, Pashuto, V. T., Vneshniaia politika drevnei Rusi (Moscow, 1968)Google Scholar, and Shekera, I. M., Mizhnarodni zviasky Kyivs'koi Rusi: Z istorii zovnishnoi polityky Rusi v period utvorennia i zmitsnennia drevnorus'koi derzhavy v VII-X st. (Kiev, 1963).Google Scholar

8. American East European historiography originated and, to a significant degree, remains under the domination of Russian national historians who came to the United States after World War I. Among the most influential, in addition to Anatole Mazour and A. Lobanov-Rostovsky, should be mentioned Michael Karpovich, George Vernadsky (author of five volumes of A History of Russia, New Haven, 1943-69), and Michael Florinsky, who produced a whole generation of American historians reflecting the historical school of their teachers. The prolonged absence of any confrontation contributed to the identification of American historiography with the Russian interpretation. Only in the 1950s did the first challenges take place. But they were usually overshadowed by emotionalism and labeling—a natural reaction accompanying any challenge to the status quo. The impact of Russian historiography on Western historians can be measured by the fact that in the first respectable world history (The Historians' History of the World, ed. Henry Smith Williams, 25 vols., New York, 1905) the history of Russia, written by a French scholar, A. S. Rappoport, is based chiefly on the works of Russian historians. However, Rappoport was well aware of the national issues involved, pointing out that “their [Russians and Ukrainians] history is no less diversified than their nature; the first have their centre at Moscow, the second at Kiev” (17: 91).

9. With the notable exception of Ellison, Herbert J., A History of Russia (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, who is more aware of the complexity of the issues involved, including terminological difficulties.

10. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., A History of Russia, 2nd ed. (New York, 1969), pp. 97–98 Google Scholar.

11. Klyuchevsky, Vasili, The Rise of the Romanovs, trans, and ed. Archibald, Liliana (London, 1970), p. 116.Google Scholar

12. Chyzhevs'kyi, Dmytro Tschižewskij, Čiževsky, Istoriia ukrains'koi literatury (New York, 1956), p. 22.Google Scholar

13. Slovians'ka hramatyka, napysana Ivanom Ushevychem … v Paryshi roku 1643. For details see O. Shevchenko's report in Literaturna Ukraine (Kiev), Oct. 24, 1969.

14. For the Soviet contribution see Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut istorii, Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR: Dooktiabrskii period, bibliografiia (Moscow, 1965); Marchenko, M. I., Ukrains'ka istoriohrafiia z davnikh chasiv do seredyny XIX st. (Kiev, 1959).Google Scholar

15. Rhode, Gotthold, “Die Ostgrenze Polens im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 2, no. 1 (1953): 15–65 Google Scholar. Also, one of the most outstanding German scholars, Eduard Winter, considers Kievan Rus' first of all as part of Ukrainian history in his Bysanz und Rom.

16. Linguistic formation and division into three main groups began before 1130 and continued into the thirteenth century. Trautman, Reinhold, Die slavischen Völker und die Sprachen: Eine Einführung in die Slavistik (Göttingen, 1947), pp. 128–72.Google Scholar

17. Herberstein, , Reise zu den Moskoivitern, ed. Seifert, Traudl (Munich, 1966).Google Scholar

18. On the linguistic borders of Belorusinian see Karsky, E. F., Etnograficheskaia karta belorusskogo plemeni (Petrograd, 1917)Google Scholar and Dialektologicheskaia karta russkogo iazyka (Petrograd, 1914). See also Vakar, Nicholas P., “The Name ‘White Russia, ’” American Slavic and East European Review, 8, no. 3 (1949): 201 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. For pertinent analyses regarding this aspect of Soviet historiography see Mehnert, Klaus, Weltrevolution durch Weltgeschichte: Die Geschichtslehre des Stalinismus (Stuttgart, 1953)Google Scholar. Although Pokrovsky began his Russkaia istoriia s drevneishikh vremen (1933-34) with the early history of the Eastern Slavs from the sixth century (he continuously uses the name Kiev Rus), the most recent Istoriia SSSR s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei, 8 vols., Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut istorii (Moscow, 1966-67), goes as far back as the Paleolithic Age, with references to the Shelskian man living in the basin of the Black Sea, an area conquered by Russia in the last quarter of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century. Events which took place in three thousand B.C. become an integral part of the history of the USSR. Thus the USSR is endowed with the oldest uninterrupted history of any state or nation.

20. Black, C. E., ed., Rewriting Russian History: Soviet Interpretations of Riusia's Past (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, especially chapter 2 by Leo Yaresh, “The Problem of Periodizatioa”

21. American historiography at least has one excellent study dealing with this—so far—rarely considered aspect of Soviet historiography: Tillett, Lowell, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill, 1969)Google Scholar.

22. Skrypnyk, M. O., “Aktualni zavdannia ukrains'koho literaturoznavstva,” Krytyka (Kharkiv), 1929, no. 6, p. 5.Google Scholar