The State Hermitage Museum: Information

Ugliche Pole in the 9th - 12th Centuries
S.V. Tomsinsky

This monograph by the senior researcher of the Department of theHistory of Russian Culture, Sergey Vladimirovich Tomsinsky, presents conclusions on lengthy work by the State Hermitage's Ancient Russia Expedition during the period 1989-2000 when it explored one of the earliest Russian cities of the Upper Volga region, an area which never formerly underwent serious archeological investigation.

The monograph deals with issues surrounding Uglich's appearance and early phase of development. It gives a detailed description of the materials found in excavations of the Uglich kremlin and area of settlement which confirm the evidence of written sources dating from the 18th century regarding the city’s appearance in the 10th century, a notion which historians till recently considered doubtful. Here there is also a description of the collection of discoveries which is now stored in the State Hermitage.

According to the author’s summary, the chief tasks of the research were: to put into scholarly circulation as completely as possible the materials uncovered by the excavations of the Uglich Archeological Expedition; to analyze the written sources on the early history of Uglich; to bring together the results of analysis of archeological and written sources and to reconstruct historical reality of the period of the early Middle Ages. These tasks have been set before Russian historians in their full scope for the first time.

The book includes numerous drawings and black-and-white photographs and has been written both for specialists and for anyone interested in Russian history. Foreign historians and archeologists, especially those from the countries of Central Europe and Scandinavia, will also be interested in acquainting themselves with the materials from the excavations in Uglich.

Ugliche Pole in the 9th - 12th Centuries
S. V. Tomsinsky