Talk:Mstislav Mstislavich

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One of the most popular?

Where on earth was the statement that Mstislav Mstislavich was "one of the most popular and active princes of Kievan Rus'" sourced from? Most popular with whom? His contemporaries (the ruling elite; members of the court; peasants; his parents and best friends... or was his popularity attributed by later historians?)? Who, then, were the other most popular princes and how was their 'popularity' determined? According to whom? At least one very, very reliable and verifiable source which clarifies how this conclusion was drawn is needed to back up such a sweeping, subjective statement.

This entire article smacks, not only of non-neutral POV writing, but lacking in any serious sourcing other than generalised references to a couple of texts.

A review of "The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200 to 1304" reads:

"Written by long time Professor of Russian language and literature John Fennell the lack of historical awareness or the confidence to engage critically with the sources and scholarship shows in this limited political run through that focuses on northern Russia.

The discussion of the career of Danilo of Galich is extremely poor compared with that of Aleksandr Nevsky despite the published and translated latin sources for the former. There is no mention of the Papal contacts with the Russian Princes although these are also published and available in translation. There is no discussion as to why the Princes spent so much time fighting over Kiev and no discussion of the pre-Mongol steppe despite a long tradition of on going contacts and interactions. There is also no use of archeological evidence or discussion of trade and commerce despite surviving treaties.

Fennell's views on 'western aggression' and the tangled scriptorial tradition of the surviving written Russian sources are also impeccably orthodox when really those concepts still need a good vigorous shake."

As for Michael C. Paul, he's a virtual unknown and only obtained his PhD recently and has only published a handful of papers appended to minor journals or self-published. Surely there must be more reliable sources outside of his essay? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:50, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]