The book "The History of the Byzantine Empire". Volume 1. F.I. Uspensky, St. Petersburg, Brockhaus-Efron, 1913

The book "The History of the Byzantine Empire". Volume 1. F.I. Uspensky, St. Petersburg, Brockhaus-Efron, 1913

The book presented in the Stargift collection is the main work of an outstanding Russian scientist, the largest world—renowned Byzantine scholar, academician Fyodor Ivanovich Uspensky. The contents of the book cover the period from the formation of Byzantium to 867.

A large-format edition, on coated paper, in a leather binding. The volume was supplemented by numerous illustrations both in the text and on separate sheets, in black and white and in color. Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the publication was not completed. The second and third volumes of the study were published already under Soviet rule — in 1927 and in 1948.

The research is distinguished by the author's point of view on the causes and course of historical events, which is supported by excellent knowledge of sources and possession of historical material. Special attention is paid to the spiritual and secular influence of Byzantium on the Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula and Russia, as well as the formation and spread of Orthodoxy among the Slavic peoples. It is no coincidence that Fyodor Uspensky writes: "In the history of Byzantium, political affairs are so intertwined with church affairs that it is often impossible to separate church politics from political history."

The book is distinguished not only by the author's brilliant mastery of primary sources, which he often cites to achieve the reader's understanding of the most complex problems of the development of the described historical events, but at the same time by a bright and intelligible language, devoid of the usual dryness of scientific and historical treatises.

Fyodor Uspensky is a Russian Byzantinist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From the very beginning of his academic career, Ouspensky specialized in the study of the history of Byzantium and the Yugoslav countries.