Polabian Slavs [Polabskie slavianie]

Item Details

St. Petersburg, Sushchinsky Press, 1871

Fair

Pavinsky, Adolf Ivanovich (1840–1897). The Polabian Slavs [in Struggle with the Germans in the 8th–12th Centuries] = The Polabian Slavs in Struggle with the Germans from the Eighth to the Twelfth Century. A Historical Study by A. Pavinsky. — St. Petersburg: F. Sushchinsky Press, 1871. — [6], II, IV, 171 p.

Signs of erased Notes on title page.

The study of the history of the Polabian Slavs in Russian historical scholarship was initiated by A.F. Gilferding, a prominent historian, ethnographer, linguist, publicist, and public figure. His History of the Baltic Slavs had a wide public resonance. As Gilferding’s successor and continuer of his work stood his student A.I. Pavinsky. Using the same sources, he wrote the work The Polabian Slavs in Their Struggle Against the Germans in the 8th–12th Centuries, in which the entire history of the Polabian Slavs is reduced to the process of resisting Germanization and to the Slavs’ eventual demise. It is this book that is being distributed.

A.I. Pavinsky paid special attention to such a factor as Christianity, seeing in it one of the decisive reasons for the Germans’ superiority over the Slavs: “In this respect they possessed a moral superiority to which the Slavs could rise only with the help of the same enlightening principle as the Germans—that is, through the acceptance of Christianity.” Viewing the process of Germanization of the Polabian Slavs as inseparable from the imposition of Christianity, A.I. Pavinsky at the same time noted that German failures directly depended on “the strength of the pagan spirit.” The author confirmed this with evidence from sources about the long preservation of paganism in the conquered lands. Focusing primarily on the struggle of the Slavs against the Germans, A.I. Pavinsky practically did not touch upon the issues of social and economic life of the Polabian Slavs in his book.