About the book: 1966 / A thorough historical and archaeological study that creates a complete picture of the state of the Polotsk Land during the 9th - the beginning of the 13th century. This book is the first generalizing Soviet study devoted to the ancient history of Belarus. The author has collected and studied in detail all available sources of historical and non-historical disciplines - chronicles, data, archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, etc. As a result, the life of Northern Belarus in the distant past is recreated in its most diverse manifestations. Issues related to the pre-Slavic aboriginal population of these places and the appearance of Slavic tribes here are covered. Data from archeology and ethnography allowed the author to dwell on some features of the life of the ancient Polotsk residents and their religious beliefs. In the section on the Principality of Polotsk, much space is devoted to previously undeveloped issues related to the nature of the country’s population, its specific borders, communication routes, trade and economy. The chapter on the ancient cities of Northern Belarus contains a lot of new, previously absolutely unknown, which is the result of a generalization of the latest achievements of archeology and, above all, the excavations of the author himself. In the section on the culture of the Polotsk land, the reader will learn about the wonderful monuments of architecture, painting and applied art that she left us pre-Mongol Polotsk region, will learn the names of the highly gifted masters who created many of them, will find out issues related to Christian ideology, education and writing of the Polotsk land. All chronicle information about the political history of the Polotsk land has been revised by the author again.