RECENZIJE IN POROČILA O KNJIGAH / RECENSIONI DI LIBRI / BOOK REVIEWS 307 
Жизнеописания оттона 
БамБергского в церковных 
сочинениях и преданиях / пер. с лат., 
исслед. и коммент. а.с. досаева и о.в. 
кутарева. – санкт-петербург: дмитрий 
буланин, 2021, 912 с., 16 с. цв. вкл.
(The lives of oTTo of BamBerg 
in clerical TexTs and legends / 
translated from latin, research and 
commentaries by andrey s. dosaev and 
oleg v. Kutarev. saint-Petersburg: 
dmitry bulanin, 2021, 912 Pages, 16 
Pages of coloured illustrations.)
Russian Slavistics may be considered re-
latively advanced in researching Slavic 
paganism: in the over more than 250 years 
since Vasily N. Tatishchev and Mikhail V. 
Lomonosov, many authors from different 
spheres from history and archaeology through 
to ethnography and linguistics have studied 
various aspects of this major topic. Yet, while 
this is true of the ancient paganism of the 
Eastern Slavs, the traditions of Southern and 
Western Slavs have received less attention.
During the 1850s to 1880s, Russia saw 
the rise of paganism-related studies on the 
Western Slavs, especially the culture of 
the Polabian and Baltic Slavs, entailing the 
work of Izmail I. Sreznevsky, Alexander 
F. Hilferding, Alexander A. Kotlyarevsky 
etc. However, after then and throughout the 
entire 20th century only a handful of major 
studies focused primarily on the history 
and social organisation of the Baltic Slavs. 
The case of the translation of sources was 
pitiful and paradoxical. Despite the Soviet 
school of translating ancient sources being 
on a high level, only a single translation of 
Helmold of Bosau’s “Chronica Slavorum” 
was released (in 1963).
Still, the beginning of the 21st century 
has seen a new wave of interest in this 
topic in Russia. Since 2005, new editions 
have emerged of important sources like the 
chronicles of Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam 
of Bremen (two different editions at once), 
Saxo Grammaticus and a number of other 
German chronicles and annals as well as 
Scandinavian sagas. Russian translations 
of classic foreign research have also been 
released, e.g. those by Henryk Łowmiański 
and Aleksander Gieysztor. Alexander F. 
Hilferding’s “History of Baltic Slavs” was 
reissued. Of new noteworthy works, we 
must mention Andrey Paul’s book on the 
Baltic Slavs on the mediaeval lands of mo-
dern Germany. Yet, a lack of new works is 
felt, especially considering all of the latest 
findings and research about the heritage of 
the Baltic Slavs in Poland and Germany. 
The mentioned literature has now been 
enriched with a new major work, “The 
Lives of Otto of Bamberg”, that combi-
nes the academic translation of sources 
with interdisciplinary research. The book 
was written by two individuals. Andrey S. 
Dosaev, who in 2017 released a translation 
of “Gesta Danorum” of Saxo Grammaticus, 
introduces a fresh translation of a set of Latin 
sources from the middle and second half of 
the 12th century. The second author, the 
religious scholar Oleg V. Kutarev, writes 
about a set of topics such as the life of Otto 
of Bamberg, the history of German-Slavic 
relations during the early and high Middle 
Ages, the missionary work of the Catholic 
Church, the hagiography of Mediaeval saints 
and, of course, the culture and paganism 
of the Baltic Slavs. Both authors provide 
extensive comments and indexes.
A short summary of the sources follows: 
Otto, the Bishop of Bamberg, was invited as 
a missionary to baptise Pomerania (today, a 
large territory covering north-western Po-
land and north-eastern Germany) in 1120s 
RECENZIJE IN POROČILA O KNJIGAH / RECENSIONI DI LIBRI / BOOK REVIEWS308 
after those once free pagan lands had been 
conquered by Poland. During his two visits, 
Otto managed to baptise the Pomeranians 
and not only created the basis for a church 
structure in the region, but assisted with 
future Germanisation of the local culture. 
The work includes all the Lives of Otto 
written by his younger contemporaries and 
their students. It is interesting that the hagi-
ographic tradition shows a growing number 
of miraculous elements in each subsequent 
text, slowly turning a historical character 
into a semi-mythological saint, with healing 
powers (Otto was canonised as a saint by 
the Catholic Church in 1189, half a century 
following his death in 1139). Information 
about the Pomeranian customs, pagan belief 
and rituals is even more valuable. A lot of 
unique data is contained in those texts only 
(e.g. a detailed description of the god Tri-
glav or the term «contina» used to describe 
Slavic pagan temples). It is also important 
to keep in mind that this data comes from 
those who actually came in close contact 
with the Slavic pre-Christian culture.
The book’s Applications section includes 
the translation of a few other small texts, 
e.g. the Papal bull, adding more political 
context to Otto’s activities. The political 
aspect is hard to read in the hagiography 
text as the latter is naturally more concerned 
with the virtue of the saint and baptism. 
Nevertheless, “it would be neither a mistake, 
nor an exaggeration to call Otto of Bamberg 
during the period of at least the 1100–1120s 
a politician among other things” (pp. 488).
The translation of sources consumes 
about half the book (pp. 10–469), including 
12 texts: Lives, stories of Otto-related mi-
racles, and Applications. These texts have 
never been available before in a full Russian 
translation. Another one-third of the book is 
devoted to Oleg V. Kutarev’s text «The Lives 
of saint Otto of Bamberg» as source material 
for mediaeval culture” (pp. 470–750). The 
book has 10 chapters, each dedicated to 
a certain topic. For example, one chapter 
presents analysis of Otto’s biography using 
the Lives as well as other known sources 
(Ch. 2), while another chapter considers 
textual studies of Lives and their authors 
(Ch. 7). Some chapters are connected (ch. 
3–6) and present a narrative about the history 
and culture of the Baltic Slavs, especially 
the Pomeranians, from them settling in the 
region after the Migration period to them 
vanishing following fighting and assimilating 
with the Germans and Poles. Here Otto’s 
baptism is presented as a natural part of the 
entire history of the Baltic Slavs. Readers 
are provided with a broad context for the 
information given by the Lives. A separate 
chapter (Ch. 9) is dedicated to the presence 
of Otto of Bamberg in Russian literature 
over the centuries. The analysis of the early 
stage is quite interesting by showing how 
the data from the sources became mixed 
with later speculation that led to many odd 
curiosities such as Triglava, a female deity 
who has outshined the source-accurate male 
counterpart in terms of popularity, being 
created. In Chapter 10, an innovative idea 
concerning the textual effect of Otto’s Lives 
on Saxo’s “Gesta Danorum” is introduced 
as part of analysis of the influence held by 
the Lives on the subsequent culture and 
literature.
Oleg Kutarev’s text qualifies as a large 
afterword not just for the Lives of Otto but 
also for all of the translations of sources 
mentioned above that previously lacked 
proper scholarly analysis: the text “is seen 
as a necessary foreword for the topic of the 
history and paganism of the Polabian-Baltic 
Slavs today” (pp. 742). It is worth noting 
that the author includes the leading research 
RECENZIJE IN POROČILA O KNJIGAH / RECENSIONI DI LIBRI / BOOK REVIEWS 309 
of modern foreign historiography, even 
though many facts have long deserved a 
place in Russian literature. For instance, he 
provides illustrations and descriptions of a 
wooden Pomeranian idol from a Szczecin 
city: “the idol was found in 1995 and, as 
far as we know, has never been mentioned 
in Russian literature before” (pp. 565–566, 
pictures 14–15). The book contains over 20 
coloured illustrations, chiefly of archaeolo-
gical findings related to Slavic paganism in 
Pomerania and a few monochrome paintings 
mostly dedicated to mythological themes. 
Some geographical maps are also included. 
Both the monography and the detailed 
commentaries contain quotes in fragments 
(at times quite large) from never-before-
-translated sources.
The small article by Andrey S. Dosaev 
(pp. 751–759) considers the ever-topical 
question of the origin of the Rus people and 
might seem unrelated to the rest of the book, 
although the sources do touch on the topic, 
even if only briefly. One author of the Lives, 
Herbord “calls both Rujanie and Russians 
by the same name «Rutheni»”. The authors 
reach a logical conclusion and explain that 
“Herbord probably just confused the two 
due to the similarly sounding names” (pp. 
527 ft. 4, pp. 824 comment, pp. 723).
Detailed and nuanced commentaries 
on the sources (more than 820) make up a 
significant share of the book (pp. 760–834) 
and are followed by several indexes and a 
Reference list. The book is well designed 
and equipped with an elaborate page header, 
which allows for quick orientation hence 
and reduces the need to constantly return 
to the Contents page. The overall number 
of copies is just 530 books, with the book 
having been available since early December 
2021 and popular among readers and it is 
hoped that it will not be the last one.
We also hope that, first, the authors will 
in the future present new works on this still 
underexplored topic in Russian Slavicstics 
and, second, that this magnificent book 
will revive interest in this fascinating topic 
(given that out of all the ancient Slavs the 
Polabian-Baltic and the Ancient Rus are 
the two we know the most about, but other 
Slavic pagan ancient traditions considerably 
less!) and will also encourage new works, 
translations and grateful admirers.
Ivan F. Obraztsov, Moscow