Klein, L. (2019). The Iliad: An epic and history. St. Petersburg: Eurasia. (In Russ.)

Abstract

The Iliad: An Epic and History [‘Iliada’: epos i istoriya] is the last book by L. Klein, a prominent Russian historian, archaeologist, philologist, and the founder of theoretical archaeology. The book was originally conceived as the third part of a larger research project, The Iliad Deciphered [Rasshifrovannaya ‘Iliada’]. The Iliad: An Epic and History includes important additions to The Iliad’s Anatomy [Anatomiya ‘Iliady’], with references to its tables and maps, as well as to Disembodied Heroes [Besplotnye geroi]. Klein analyzes how frequently epithets were used with city names and names of the heroes, as well as morphemes of frequently used and key words in terms of their age and geography. Based on the results of this analysis, he divides the Iliad into parts and proceeds to describe them in detail. Klein also elaborates on the images of the heroes and their origins in local cults. A large part of the work is devoted to analysis of the Catalogue of Ships. Thanks to the findings provided by the book the readers get a comprehensive view of the overall textual structure of the Iliad.