Northwest of Eastern Europe in Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions: Re-evaluated Data Cover Image

Северо-запад Восточной Европы в скандинавских рунических надписях: уточненные данные
Northwest of Eastern Europe in Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions: Re-evaluated Data

Author(s): Tatjana N. Jackson
Subject(s): History, Archaeology, Cultural history, Historical Geography, Middle Ages, 6th to 12th Centuries
Published by: Издательский дом Stratum, Университет «Высшая антропологическая школа»
Keywords: Northwest of Eastern Europe; 10th—11th cc.; runic inscriptions; memorial stelae; monuments of Old-Norse literacy; ethnogeography; toponymy

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to runic inscriptions on memorial stelae (late 10th — 11th centuries) mentioning Eastern Europe. In spite of a potentially high degree of reliability of this source, contemporaneous to the events described in it (military campaign, battle, trade trip), unintentional misrepresentation of a particular text is quite possible. The author of this paper refers to the study of Kristel Zilmer (applying the so-called “cautious interpretive strategy”, leaving questionable words without interpretation, but taking into account all the previously proposed alternatives), and on the basis of her findings re-evaluates the established in historiography “mental map” of Eastern Europe reflected in runic inscriptions, and its ethnogeographical nomenclature.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 5
  • Page Range: 225-231
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Russian