SUMMARY:

V. Petrukhin, one of the leading experts in ancient Russian history and in the history of Jewish-Slavic contacts, believes that the Eoffe – Pereswetoff polemics touch upon a very complex and sensitive issue. First, not all sources have yet been introduced which could help resolve it. Second, “national romanticism”, characteristic of post-Soviet Jewish historiography, has an impact on the researcher’s position, which, according to Petrukhin, Eoffe’s article illustrates sufficiently. At the same time, Petrukhin criticizes the “literary” position of Pereswetoff-Murath, who compared the “virtual” presence of Jews in ancient Russian texts with the Cheshire’s cat’s grin. Petrukhin suggests a more complex view of the problem, avoiding on the one hand its direct ideologization and nationalization, and on the other trying to avoid the creation of a sealed intertextual space of ancient Christian books. He takes into consideration different persistent motifs, which stimulated interest in Judaic tradition, and pays attention to the impact of medieval literary sources rooted in Jewish tradition upon ancient Russian culture. These subjects have practically substituted for the absent “secular” literature. At the same time, Petrukhin notes the fact that late translations in Rus’ of patristic works were directed against Jews and pagans and written several centuries before the Christianization of Slavic countries. Due to this translation, the Jewish threat became a historiographic phantom in Rus’, born out of the rigorist fever of the Russian literati. Petrukhin also notes that the presence of the anti-Judaic polemical tradition could correlate with different policies with respect to Jews. In that sense Rus’ secular authorities always followed a rigorous Orthodox line. Thus, further study of the “reality” of the Jewish presence in Rus’ and of Jewish-Slavic contacts is required as is taking into consideration newer sources and research perspectives.