Guests in the House: Cultural Transmission between Slavs and Scandinavians, 900 to 1300 AD

Abstract

Mats Roslund's monograph combines a detailed examination of potsherds with a re-evaluation of medieval Slavic-Scandinavian relations. At first glance, the combination may be startling, but the author's methodological rigour and imaginative reconstruction of medieval realities supplement each other to good effect. The starting point is deceptively simple: how to explain the presence of Slavic artefacts in Scandinavia between 900 and 1300, and, most particularly, pottery called Baltic ware? ‘What does Baltic ware tell us about Slavic presence in the Early Middle Ages in today's Sweden and how was the tradition passed on to Scandinavian potters? … What is the link between Baltic ware and Slavic identity?’ (p. 4). These research questions arose out of openly acknowledged contemporary concerns. Roslund's personal voice is strong in the book, representative of the unreservedly positive aspects of postmodern explicitness in facing one's own position, bias, and perspectives, as well as the current political context. Roslund is very aware of the dangers of the political uses of history and archaeology, and discusses at length nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples of such politicised understandings of research. He states his own position unequivocally, a stance that one can only hope will become more common: to help ‘create new images of each other in which coming together in everyday situations … takes place on an equal basis’ (p. 530).