Omeljan Pritsak - Main Interests

Main Interests

Pritsak was a medievalist who specialized in the use of oriental, especially Turkic, sources for the history of Kyivan Rus', early modern Ukraine, and the European Steppe region. He was also a student of Old Norse and was familiar with Scandinavian sources for the history of Kyivan Rus'. His magnum opus, The Origin of Rus', only one volume of which has appeared in English (1981), inclines toward, but does not totally adopt, a Normanist interpretation of Rus' origins. He saw Kyivan Rus' as a multi-ethnic polity.

In addition to the early Rus', Pritsak's works focused on Eurasian nomads and steppe empires such as those created by the Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Kipchaks. However, he firmly rejected the "Eurasian" approach to Ukrainian and Russian history and would have nothing to do with its Russian nationalist postulates.