In search of Varangians: hypotheses, interpretations, fictions

A collection of essays devoted to the study of assumptions and hypotheses based on false interpretations of sources or on managed fictions.

was it called in the geographical works of the late XVI century. Ryugen Island right Rus? Where did the Mecklenburg Genealogy come from Rurik? Was the Odoacr "Russian prince"? What kind of "Rutins" lived in Flanders in the early Middle Ages? Did the artist Ermenev have observed the assault on the Bastille? Was there a “owner of the widened daes” of Izenbek by the Turkmen Bey, and the famous antinormanist Saveliev is a descendant of the Bulgarian kings? In which Jupiter did the heretic Emin de la Foss believe? Was the Kiev governor Adam Kisel as a descendant of the Kyiv governor Sveneld?..

the first part, the “Varangian suffering” is polemically directed against the active reactionization of the ideas of “antinormanism”. The author is not trying to solve the “Varangian problem” on the merits, but dwells on the popular privileges of historiographic or source -history nature, in some cases using the analysis of the biographical details of the heroes of his essays.

mainly biographical content has the second part of the book “Personal Pages”. It contains articles generated by the author’s curiosity regarding the peripheral topics of its main direction of research (“XIII class of Sulakazhev: source history”. Appeals to the primary sources.

The book is based on a rich source base and can be interesting to both a wide reader and specialists-historians.