Iranians and Greeks in South Russia - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THIS
PREFACE
book is not intended to compete with the valuable and
learned book of ElHs H. Minns on the same subject. Our aims
are different. Minns endeavoured to give a complete survey of
the material illustrating the early history of South Russia and of the
views expressed by both Russian and non-Russian scholars on the
many and various questions suggested by the study of that material.
I do not mean that Minns' book is a mere compendium. In
dealing with the various problems of the history and archaeology of
South Russia Minns went his own way ; his criticism is acute, his
views independent. Nevertheless his main object was to give a survey
as full and as complete as possible. And his attempt was success-
ful, Minns' book will remain for decades the chief source of informa-
tion about South Russia both for Russian and for non-Russian
scholars.
M)'^ own aim is different. In my short exposition I have tried to
give a history of the South Russian lands in the prehistoric, the proto-
historic, and the classic periods down to the epoch of the migrations.
By history I mean not a repetition of the scanty evidence preserved
by the classical writers and illustrated by the archaeological material
but an attempt to define the part played by South Russia in the
history of the world in general, and to emphasize the contributions
of South Russia to the civilization of mankind.
In doing so I was obliged to use every kind of material, especially
the rich archaeological evidence furnished by the South Russian
excavations. Notwithstanding this dominant use of archaeological
material, my book is not a handbook of South Russian archaeology,
nor is it an investigation of one section in the history of Oriental and
classical art. I have tried to write history, using the archaeological