A dispute about the Varangians. History of the confrontation and arguments of the parties

The book of the famous archaeologist L.S. Klein sets out a three -century history of the dispute about the ethnicity of the Varangians and their role in the history of Ancient Russia: they were Normans or not. The positions of the two main trends in domestic historiography - Normanists and anti -Normanists were formulated - and the arguments of both were systematized. Three public discussions that became milestones in this story (at about a hundred years) - Lomonosov with Miller, Kostomarov with Pogodin, Shaskolsky with Klein are described in detail. All these discussions took place in St. Petersburg Leningrad. L.S. Klen, whose opponents call him the leading Russian Normanist, almost half a century ago founded the Slavic and Varangian seminar at the University of Leningrad. In this informal scientific community, many large domestic researchers have grown. The author’s text, including both the book itself and the recording of L.S. Klein’s speech in the discussion of 1965 and several later articles that set out and argue his position in the dispute, is supplemented by a joint article by the author with his students - a review of archaeological material on the problem of discussion. The appendix gives the memoirs of the seminar about the pedagogical principles of L.S. Klein, as well as the memoirs of his former Moscow reservations and bibliography of the seminar on the Varangian theme.
The book written in a living language is addressed not only to specialists: historians and archaeologists, but a wide audience of readers interested in Russian history