The legend of foreigners about Russia

Just as the first works of Pushkin, Gogol or Tolstoy immediately made it possible to feel the scale of the talent of these writers, the candidate dissertation of Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky showed that a brilliant historian appeared in Russia. With this awarded gold medal, the glory of the scientist began - an encyclopedically educated person, a brilliant lecturer, a deep thinker. The dissertation of "Tales of foreigners" was called and was devoted to the analysis of Russia"s descriptions by European diplomats, merchants and travelers of the XV-XVII centuries.
The fact that Klyuchevsky began his classes by domestic history with the legends of foreigners, probably, was not accidental. The position of an outside observer often allows you to see much of what is not noticeable to the participant of events. “Big is seen at a distance” - this maxim is confirmed by the works of Sigismund Herberstein, Antonio Possevino, Peter Petrei, Adam Olearia and many others visited foreigners. Analyzing their books, Vasily Klyuchevsky was able to recreate his readers with a holistic and voluminous picture of the life of late medieval Russia.
magnificent style, thin wit, irrefutable logic - these and many other advantages of Vasily Klyuchevsky made his book not only the classic of scientific research, but also entertaining reading for many generations of history lovers