The question before us is to what stage of social and economic development—or, to borrow a term from geology, to what socio-political formation—Kievan Russia belongs.

Chronologically, as we know, the Kievan period included the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Those three centuries witnessed the rise and blossoming of feudal institutions in western and central Europe; they represent what may be called the feudal age par excellence. It seems only natural that one should be inclined to place Kievan Russia in the same category and characterize its sociopolitical regime as feudal. Yet until recently Russian historians have been reluctant to do so. They did not raise any definite objections to the study of feudalism in Russia: they simply ignored the problem.