Something interesting I found that pertains to the whole Normanist discussion I partook in...
The "Norman Problem" in Historiography:
Nationalism and the Origins of Russia
Michael Westrate
The article is interesting indeed, not as much as scientific document, but undoubtedly as an illustration of what's wrong in Western historiography as far as Russia is concerned. But, before I start to analyze this self-incriminating document, I have to make a disclaimer. I am not accusing Mr. Westrate personally of any wrongdoings. He appears to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student with true passion, if a bit unwilling to challenge established dogmas (it would be hypocritical to blame him for that, taking into account rules of the game in this particular area of academia, as demonstrated by subsequent analysis). My lance is pointing at his teachers.
I have to give Mr. Westrate credit for recognizing political nature of the debate in 2nd paragraph of his writing. He wrote
Proponents of the “Norman theory” have used their research to argue that Russia would never have developed “civilization” without influences from the West.
This is clear indication that both sides' arguments have to be taken with grain of salt and their political agendas have to be looked at as necessary part of analysis. I assumed that following text would be a calm analysis of both sides' arguments, but I was wrong. He's just repeating stale Normanist theories, sprinkling them with semi-literate and politically charged attacks on anti-Normanists (I mean this sorry "Lomonosov and Moscow university" part, which borders direct falsification).
Most glaring feature of Mr. Westrate's text is an extreme one-sidedness of sources he's working with. It is personified by one name, or, better say, glaring absence of it. Boris Rybakov. The man is an orca whale of anti-Normanist theories and (small coincidence) by far the most prominent archeologist who ever dug Kievan Rus sites. To write about Kievan Rus without knowing him is as unnatural as to write about Evolution theory without knowing Darwin. But Rybakov is completely absent from the list of sources used by Mr. Westrate (unlike radical Normanists Paszkiewicz and Swedish-sponsored Dusko). Well, the student didn't do his homework, you say? Wrong and unwarranted accusation against Mr. Westrate, I answer.
Try to look for Mr. Rybakov's name in google.
One WP page, declaring him most prominent anti-Normanist (which he was), replicated to 20 mirrors, that's it. Google Books knows nothing of his main works (here we can see a trend, there're several secondary articles by Rybakov on various dugs in Turkestan and Siberia, but none of his main works or results of his excavations in European Russia; however, Books is chock full of references to him as "prominent historian"), as well as openlibrary. Would you continue this investigation, you would be surprised that only French publisher ever published Mr. Rybakov's translations, and only in (naturally) French. Archeological data he obtained are either unknown to Anglophone reader or known through secondary and tretiary sources. I mean, one can disagree with Mr. Rybakov until end of times, but he has to be allowed to let his views be known, isn't he? More important, scientific community should not be shielded by his adversaries from the raw data he obtained through his work. It is even funnier for Boris Grekov, another well-known Soviet historian (who's known to Westrate through quote by his opponent Paszkiewicz), and his pupil Vladimir Pashuto. Google Books is chock-full of Western sources referring to their deep knowledge of the period, but none of their works are present.
Another interesting feature of Mr. Westrate's sources is sudden cut-off date imposed on anti-Normanist works by Western scientific community. I mean, Riazanovskys are fine and dandy, but they had been cut from Russian archives and archeological data since 1917, and Soviets probably moved as much dirt in 1950-1990 Novgorodian Rus digging various sites as they did in Moscow building a subway (well, this is over-estimate, but scale of excavations was truly enormous indeed). Does it look like free and unrestricted debate to you?
You are free to draw your conclusion, but to me it looks rather Orwellian and eerily familiar to Soviet pattern "I didn't read books by author XXX, but I condemn him". I wonder is there a border between "science" (which deals with facts and hypothesis) and "cult" (which shield it's adepts from any findings and opinions not consistent with cult's narrow-sighted worldview) in Normanist camp.
I have yet to see a convincing anti-Normanist book.
And, as I said above, there's very simple explanation to this. Learned Elders of this particular area of history are restricting your access to anti-Normanist work to the point that you have to learn Russian to familiarize yourself with dissident views.
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