The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia, first published in 1877, by the Danish philologist, Vilhelm Thomsen (1842–1927), contains Thomsen's three lectures on the origins of the Russian state. The lectures were given at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, in May 1876. The first lecture covers the ethnic background of ancient Russia and its earliest political institutions and the second and third lectures investigate Russia's Scandinavian origins. Thomsen demonstrated and explored the interlinked histories of Russia and Scandinavia by comparative examinations of Russian and the Scandinavian languages. By this analysis, Thomsen was able to demonstrate the importance of the Scandinavian element in the earliest origins of Russian culture, identity, political institutions and language. The work is an outstanding piece of philological investigation and a key text in early Russian cultural, linguistic and political history. It continues to be relevant to the advanced student of Russian language and early Russian history.
