Genezis i Struktura Feodal'nogo Obshchestva V Drevnei Rusi. by M. B. Sverdlov; I. P.Shaskol'skiiReview by: Daniel H. KaiserSlavic Review, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Summer, 1984), p. 293Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2497846 .

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Reviews 293

GENEZIS I STRUKTURA FEODAL'NOGO OBSHCHESTVA V DREVNEI RUSI. By M. B. Sverdlov. Edited by I. P Shaskol'skii. Leningrad: Nauka, 1983. 237 pp. 2 rubles.

There is no subtitle to this book, but it might well have been "How I. Ia. Froianov is Wrong About Everything" since nothing and no one figures so prominently in Sverdlov's book as this author of two volumes on Kievan Rus' published in 1974 and 1980. Recently Sverdlov has joined several other Soviet historians in attacking Froianov both on ideo- logical and historical grounds; indeed, Sverdlov has stooped so low as to complain that Froianov's diction depends too heavily on words of foreign origin (Istoriia SSSR, 1982, no. 5, p. 186).

Sverdlov seems to be a very learned man; his book indicates that he reads a wide range of languages, including Arabic, Latin, Greek, and most modern European lan- guages. He also shows himself very familiar with a historiography that is voluminous and often difficult to penetrate. But his conclusions rarely rest upon the sources or the his- toriography. As any historian of Rus' knows, the sources are laconic, ambiguous, and often contradictory; the historiography offers little help since there are nearly as many views on Rus' society as there are authors.

Sverdlov's book, however, points out "that the Marxist formation analysis is the single scientific basis of study" of the genesis and structure of early Rus' society. Much of what Sverdlov says, therefore, depends upon the astute observations of Engels and Marx who, unfortunately, knew very little about the history of Rus'. Regrettably, instead of con- fronting the fact that we cannot posit absolutely the characteristics of Rus' society, Sver- dlov chooses to express dogmatic conclusions. It does not help that his book is flooded with the weak qualifier "probably" because he concludes each section as though the propositions advanced above were proved. And in all of this, he shows himself to be most venomous toward Froianov, whose views regularly contradict Sverdlov's own interpreta- tions. Invariably Froianov's readings are "unproved," and his conclusions are "unsub- stantiated."

Sverdlov's own conclusions seem impervious to these flaws. They repeat what have now become established Soviet views on Rus': the princes headed a state structure that already in the tenth century organized class exploitation; the princes and the feudal elite owned various towns, villages, and lands even from the ninth and tenth centuries, and accordingly exploited a dependent population that was not primarily a slave population; the commune no longer depended upon kin ties but was organized on property principles; small families prevailed in peasant society; and the powerful administration of the princes brought state power to bear on behalf of the exploiting class by administering justice and exacting substantial financial obligations.

The importance of the book, consequently, lies not in what it says about the society of tenth-century Rus' but in what it says about twentieth-century Soviet historical schol- arship.

DANIEL H. KAISER

Grinnell College

PO SLEDAM DREVNIKH SLAVIANSKIKH PLEMEN. By P N. Tret'iakov. Edited by B. A. Rybakov and E. A. Symonovich. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982. 141 pp. 70 kopecks, paper.

NOVGORODSKII SBORNIK: 50 LET RASKOPOK NOVGORODA. Edited by B. A. Kolchin and V L. Ianin with the Akademiia nauk SSSR. Moscow: Nauka, 1982. 335 pp. Illustrations. 1.70 rubles.

In the first of these works, the well-known Leningrad archeologist P. N. Tret'iakov pre- sents his final and not quite completed version of East Slavic history before the formation

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