The Origins Of The Slavic Nations

Book Review: The Origins of the Slavic Nations Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Plokhy, S. (2006). The origins of the Slavic nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Cambridge University Press. In The Origins of the Slavic Nations, author and historian Plokhy documents the identity building process of East Slavs beginning with the formation of Kyiv Rus’ to the creation of the existing countries of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Throughout his exposition, the author demonstrates a good mastery of both written records and historiography of East Slavs such as letters, memoirs, chronicles, treaties, saint’s lives, and chronicles. He appears to have seen the interpretations, both Ukrainian, English, and Russian languages. Moreover, his reviews of the historiographies at every chapter is a special ingredient to future researchers who would wish to explore the same topic. Most importantly, the author provides an innovative reinterpretation of the major controversies in identity building of East Slaves. While concluding the introduction, Prokhy gives a promise of suggesting “a new outline of the development of East Slavic identities and thus prepare the ground for a reconceptualization of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus” (p.9). Going through the book, it is evident that he has kept his word. It is evident that Plokhy presents a modernist sensibility in his quest by treating national identities as a creation of elites and also from his objective to “deconstruct the existing nation-based’ narrative of East Slavic history” (p.9). In the school of John Armstrong and Anthony Smith which recognizes that nations can only be built based on historical ethnicities, Plokhy is considered to be a “revisionist.” However, Plokhy draws more evidence of unreconstructed modernism from Benedict Anderson than Smith and Armstrong. In outlining identity building process of Slavic nations, the author looks at “imagined communities” without pointing out to the direction that the nations shared some values such as history, culture, origin myths or language. His evidence demonstrates that identities were in a constant recreation by new elite groups to fit new circumstances as a result of church and state influences. He “interprets the growth of East Slavic identities as a succession of identity-building projects. Such projects served as blueprints for the construction of new identities, which in turn are prerequisites for the existence of self-conscious communities” (p. 354-355). This is a new thought from Armstrong and Anderson’s views on modernism. Moreover, Plokhy does not provide any evidence demonstrating the existence of any East Slavic ethnicity. Therefore, saying that Kyiv Rus’ was an invention which was used by subsequent elites is not the same as the idea that it was formed but continued to evolve with time. Chapters Chapter 1: The origins of Rus In this chapter, the author attempts to dismiss the view that Kyiv Rus’ educated elites shared a common identity. After scrutiny o...