Rec. ad op.: J.M. Hartley. The Volga: A History of Russia’s Greatest River

The paper presents an analysis of British researcher Janet Hartley’s work devoted to the history of the Volga region from ancient times to the beginning of the XXI cent. It is shown that this work is an interesting example of combining historical, ethnographic and economic-geographical approaches to understanding the Russian past and its release can be considered a notable event in modern Western Russian studies. At the same time, the review noted the weaknesses of the book by J. Hartley: there are a significant number of factual inaccuracies, as well as one-sidedness in the assessments of a number of historical phenomena.

Volga River, Russian history, interdisciplinary studies, Western historiography, Janet Hartley