With a multidisciplinary approach by archaeologists, historians and related sciences by leading scholars from England, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, USA and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, this anthology examines the cross cultural ties between the Baltic and the Black Sea Area from Late Antiquity through the Viking Age to the Middle Ages. With articles ranging from the lively exchange between Southern Scandinavia and the Goths in the Pontic Area in Late Antiquity, to the famous Varangian Guard consisting of Scandinavians at the Royal Court in Byzantine in the Late Viking Age, the book provides an overview of important sources and new research into the significance of long range relations and cross cultural interaction between Scandinavia, the Slavic lands and the Black Sea Region.

Both the work and the life of Leo S. Klejn, Russia’s foremost archaeological theorist, remain generally unrecognized by Western scholars. Until now. In this biography and summary of his work, Stephen Leach outlines Klejn’s wide-ranging theoretical contributions on the place and nature of archaeology. The book details-Klejn’s diverse work on ethnogenesis, migration, Homeric studies, pagan Slavic religion, homosexuality, and the history of archaeology;-his life challenges as a Russian Jewish scholar, jailed for homosexuality by the KGB and for his challenges to Marxist dogma;-his key contributions to theoretical archaeology and, in particular, Klejn’s comparisons between archaeologists and forensic scientists.

In Identity Formation and Diversity in the Early Medieval Baltic and Beyond, the Viking World in the East is made more heterogeneous. Baltic Finnic groups, Balts and Sami are integrated into the history dominated by Scandinavians and Slavs. Interaction in the region between Eastern Middle Sweden, Finland, Estonia and North Western Russia is set against varied cultural expressions of identities. Ten scholars approach the topic from different angles, with case studies on the roots of diversity, burials with horses, Staraya Ladoga as a nodal point of long-distance routes, Rus’ warrior identities, early Eastern Christianity, interaction between the Baltic Finns and the Svear, the first phases of ar-Rus dominion, the distribution of Carolingian swords, and Dirhams in the Baltic region. Contributors are Johan Callmer, Ingrid Gustin, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Valter Lang, John Howard Lind, Marika Mägi, Mats Roslund, Søren Sindbaek, Anne Stalsberg, and Tuukka Talvio.

This volume addresses the history of saints and sainthood in the Middle Ages in the Baltic Region, with a special focus on the cult of saints in Russia, Prussia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia (Livonia). Essays explore such topics as the introduction of foreign (and "old") saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the role of the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, and the potential role of saints in times of war.

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume II explores the structures and workings of social networks within the elites of medieval Scandinavia to reveal the intricate relationship between power and status. Section one of this volume categorizes basic types of personal bonds, both vertical and horizontal, while section two charts patterns of local, regional and transnational elite networks from wide-scope, longitudinal perspectives. Finally, the third section turns to case-studies of networks in action, analyzing strategies and transactions implied by uses of social resources in specific micro-political settings. A concluding chapter discusses how social power in the North compared to wider European experiences. A wide range of sources and methodologies is applied to reveal how networks were established, maintained, and put to use – and how they transformed in processes of centralizing power and formalizing hierarchies. The engagement with and analysis of intriguing primary source material has produced a key teaching tool for instructors and essential reading for students interested in the workings of medieval Scandinavia, elite class structures, and Social and Political History more generally.

The year 922 saw a series of remarkable face-to-face encounters in the steppes between Bukhara and the Middle Volga. Ibn Fadlan was an intrepid member of a diplomatic and religious mission from the distant caliphate in Baghdad to the ruler of the Volga Bulgars. His account gives a vivid eyewitness description of the peoples he came upon (whose appearance, rituals and filthy habits both fascinate and appal) and a famous depiction of a Viking Rus ship burial. It is unique testimony to burgeoning exchanges between several different cultures, and to the emergence of new political structures on the steppes. Yet the account survives only as part of a later composite work, raising questions of meaning and historical interpretation. This pioneering interdisciplinary study of Ibn Fadlan's text and the world he surveyed draws on a variety of specialists to give readers both 'the bigger picture' of cultural and economic change in Eurasia, Byzantium and the Muslim world, and hard facts, in the form of archaeological and numismatic data.

This monograph by Anti Selart is the first comprehensive study available in English on the relations between northern crusaders and Rus'. Selart re-examines the central issues of this crucial period of establishing the medieval relations of the Catholic and Orthodox worlds like the Battle on the Ice (1242) and the role of Alexander Nevsky using the relevant source material of both “sides”. He also considers the wide context of the history of crusading and the whole Eastern and Northern Europe from Hungary and Poland to Denmark, Finland, and Sweden in 1180-1330. This monograph contests the existence of the constitutive religious conflict and extensive aggressive strategies in the region – the ideas which had played a central role in modern historiography and ideology.