About the book: 1951 / This study is devoted to the formation of the territory of the Old Russian state. The author’s task is to trace how the territory of the state grew, to trace, using specific material, the formation of the territory of ancient Russian “independent semi-states” on the wide expanse of the East European Plain. Pre-revolutionary researchers believed that this process was “hidden from the eyes of the historian.” The problem, in fact, was posed by the course of development of Soviet historiography. Since this problem was raised for the first time, mistakes and oversights are possible. But general conclusions were drawn on a large verified material. The conclusions of the study carried out by the author on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology show that the problem of studying the formation of a state territory is by no means identical to the problem of studying ethnic territory, colonization in particular. Note that the special conclusions of the study confirm some of the author’s views on the history of our country in the early feudal era, which he had to express in print earlier. Although the work is a historical and geographical study, its conclusions are of more general interest, confirming that the territory of the ancient Russian state was formed not with the appearance of Oleg and Igor in Kyiv, but as a result of a long internal process that began long before this event and continued for centuries after it.