B. Dundulis. Normanai ir baltu krastai (IX-XI a.). Vilnius. 1982. 99 p. The book by Professor B. I. Dundulis of Vilnius University 1 fills an important gap in the study of the relations between Eastern Europe and Scandinavia in the early Middle Ages. In fact, this is the first generalization in Soviet historiography of the vast material accumulated by science over almost a century about the relations between the peoples of the Eastern Baltic States and Scandinavia, and the coverage of the fundamental problems of the formation of feudal relations in this region naturally led the author to polemics with supporters of the so-called Norman theory of the development of the Eastern Baltic States. A compact historiographic review of the problem shows a change in ideas about Baltic-Scandinavian relations due to the evolution of historians ' views on the level of development of the Baltic peoples and the formation of their class society. The Norman theory, which prevailed in pre-war bourgeois historiography and was openly propagandistic (especially in the works of German historians and archaeologists of the 1930s and 1940s), is still used by bourgeois historians in assessing the Eastern Baltic-Scandinavian relations. Due to the lack of generalizing works on Scandinavian antiquities in the Baltic States, almost the main ones are still the works of Swedish archaeologists.- 1 B. J. Dundulis is the author of six monographs on the history of Lithuania in the 15th and early 19th centuries. For a bibliography of his works, see: Dundulis B. Bibliografija. Vilnius. 1979. page 130 go archaeologist B. Nerman 2, a proponent of the Norman theory, greatly exaggerated the role of the Scandinavians in the development of the Baltic peoples. Therefore, the development of the problem from a Marxist perspective was and remains relevant. The author used both written sources (Old Norse sagas, runic inscriptions, Latin-language chronicles, Old English "Orosius" of King Alfred, etc.), as well as ma ... Read more