Ebook: The Origin of Rus'. Vol. 1. Old Scandinavian Sources Other Than the Sagas

Who were the Rus, where did they come from, how was the Kievan state founded? To answer these centuries-old questions, the author analyzes Old Icelandic, Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Slavic, Turkic, and Chinese sources and presents a brilliant synthesis that will revolutionize our understanding of the problem.

In this volume Professor Pritsak offers an exposition of the entire work and a description of the cultural setting in the early medieval East and West. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the Scandinavian phase of the problem, including six aspects of Old Scandinavian intellectual creativity — Eddaic poetry, the poetry of the Skalds, Runic inscriptions, legal literature, geographic literature, and chronicles. Special attention is devoted to the methodological problem of using poetry and myth as a historical source. Four appendices and a comprehensive bibliography of all the relevant primary and secondary literature as well as an exhaustive general index are included.

Since this work reexamines anew one of the most controversial problems in historical literature, the author begins with the study of all pertinent source material in the original language, while considering the historiographic background and provenance of each individual information.