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Document Details :

Title: Iranians and Greeks after 90 Years
Subtitle: A Religious History of Southern Russia in Ancient Times
Author(s): MEYER, Caspar
Journal: Ancient West & East
Volume: 10    Date: 2011   
Pages: 75-159
DOI: 10.2143/AWE.10.0.2141816

Abstract :
This introductory essay places Rostovtzeff’s interpretative model of northern Black Sea archaeology in the context of contemporary historical imagination in Russia and Europe. The discussion focuses in particular on Rostovtzeff’s approach to Graeco-Scythian metalwork, as pioneered in his 1913 article on ‘The conception of monarchical power in Scythia and on the Bosporus’, and the possibilities which religious interpretation of the objects’ figured scenes offered in developing the narrative of cultural fusion between Orientals and Occidentals best known in the West from his Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (1922). The author seeks to bring out the teleological tendencies of this account, largely concerned with explaining Russia’s historical identity as a Christian empire between East and West.

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