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552 Reviewsical link between monastery and tsar. This close textual analysis within the contextof the late seventeenth-century political reality is the most effective section of thebook. Rothe has a sensitivity to the fine line that Gizel' had to tread: to assert theautonomy of the monastery while acknowledging the authority of the tsar.Rothe's attempt to place the Sinopsis within a historiographical context is not assuccessful, however. He claims that the Sinopsis is an example of East Slavic"humanist" history writing: the Sinopsis exhibits the influence of Renaissanceideas, but in the incomplete form so characteristic of East Slavic borrowing fromWestern Europe. He states that the Sinopsis is part of the development of "scientifichistory writing" (p. 32) and of "modern historiographical method" (p. 36) in theEast Slavic world. The argument is two-fold. The first element consists of a claimof "humanism by association": Gizel' used Polish historians who are commonlyconsidered to be humanist—Stryjkowski, Guagnini, Bielski. Secondly, Gizel' borrowedsome of the "humanist" techniques found in these Polish histories: theinterest in origins tales; the widening of the source base; the naming of sources bothwithin the text and in the margin; the juxtaposition of conflicting accounts; the stressupon the link with antiquity. But Gizel' 's humanism was a bastard humanism: theSinopsis shows a grasp of humanist meaning but not of its style; a lack of understandingof the Renaissance concept of tyranny; a less critical and more crude historicalnarrative than that of the humanist Stryjkowski; a failure to incorporate juristicarguments. To Rothe's mind, this incompleteness can be attributed to the lack of a"scholarly tradition" in the Ukraine.In the study of seventeenth-century East Slavic history writing, considerations of"humanism" and "modern historiographical methods" are red herrings. Do originstales, source references, and crude comparison of contradictory accounts makefor modern historical method? Did modern historical method develop gradually andincrementally over time, thereby allowing us to see the Sinopsis as a hesitant step onthe road towards modernity? Certainly the Sinopsis, precisely because of thecharacteristics noted by Rothe, is different from traditional chronicle writing. Yet allof these characteristics (along with the technique of prefiguration) are to be found inmedieval European history writing. A case can be made that these "innovations"were introduced because they would appeal to, and reflected concerns shared by, theSinopsis's intended audience—the tsar's court. To demonstrate that European historianswidely held the Muscovites to be the "Ur-people" of the Slavs and claimedthat Alexander and Augustus held them in high esteem (and to advertise this appealto European authorities by the use of margin notes) would play well in Moscow. Byusing Rothe's own method of considering text within context, I would argue that theSinopsis's very medieval interest in authority, tradition, and glory is evidence of thedevelopment of a new court culture in late seventeenth-century Muscovy.These objections on my part in no way detract from the worth of Rothe's book.In many respects, it is an example of the close textual analysis needed before we canbegin the reconstruction of seventeenth-century East Slavic historical culture.David H. DasUniversity of Washington