Tsarist Russian, Soviet, and Post‐Soviet Traditions and the Study of Ancient Greeks outside their Homelands

This chapter deals with the main historical problems of the Black Sea and Central Asia where ancient Hellenic civilization spread from the eastern Mediterranean. Some of these problems were first formulated and studied in Tsarist classical scholarship, but were mainly taken up by Soviet scholars and, more recently, by post‐Soviet and post‐East Bloc scholars. Over time, the main scholarly questions addressed include the migration of Greeks to the Black Sea, the foundation and development of their poleis, interaction between Greeks and barbarians, and the spread of Greek culture and traditions in Bactria, Sogd, and Margiana.