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arch and his newly flcdgcd domain a member of the family of carly fcudal European States.

Thcre is no doubt that the cclebration in the 1960s of the lOOOth anniversary of the conversion of Poland to Christianity helped to incrcasc understanding of the origins of their nation and State among the generał public. Issucs relating to the period before the Slav tribe of Polanians achicvcd maturity to aspire to statehoodcontinued to be much less wcll understood outside aca-demic circles. The ambition of the present cxhibition is to rcm-edy this unsatisfactory lcvcl of awareness of issucs associated with the origin of Slav pcoplcs in Europę of the early medieval period. Moreover, improvcd knowlcdge of our Slavic roots which we sharc with other peoplcs spread far and widc across Europę, distinct in terms of territory and chronology, will surcly assist continued inąuiry of the origins of the Polish nation.

It took various Slav tribes belween threc and five hundred ycars to devc!op a sense of linguistic, cconomic, social and even-tually ideological unity. Making their appcarancc among other barbarian tribes the Slavs manifested a distinct culturc, spccific customs and a unique social organisation. Wherc they camc from and how the process of their developmcnt occurred is a qucstion which continues to puzzle acadcmics in various ficlds, not all of them historians.

Givcn that relatively few written sourccs are availablc on the earliest Slavs it is ncccssary to basc the reconstruction of their carliest history largcly on archacological study sceking evidence from other historical disciplines as well as biological and social Sciences. Whilc the present level of knowledgc is still far from satisfactory sonie advances havc becn madę.

The present exhibition obviously offers only a glimpse at ^a fragment of a larger wholc. By way of compensation we olfer this collcction of papers by distinguished Polish rcscarchers in the field of Slavic studics. It forms a substantivc subslructure of the exhibition offering a review of the most rcccnt theories and idcas inspired by a marked development of mcthodology in ar-chaeology and related ficlds. Building of thcoretical models, analy-sis of culturc phenomena, raising of new research issues previ-ously neglected in the literaturę of the subject will hopefully assist futurę fruitful inquiry into the origins of Slav culturc and the devclopment of Slavs as an independent ethnic complcx.

Admittcdly the cxhibilion has its limitations which an at-tentive visitor will not fail to identify. Sonic of tlicsc flaws havc an extra-scientific dimension. The first of thesc limitations rc-sults from a conscious sclection of the chronological and territo-rial scopc of the cxhibition. It was thought fit to dcvotc the exhi-bition only to the earliest history of Slavs taking as a point of departure the timc of their appcarancc on the Danube early in the 6th ccnlury. This event is supported by written records (Procop of Cacsarea) and recurrent appearancc of the proper name of the Slavic ethnos (Sclavonians, Sclavini, Sklavcni and Antians, for their eastem branch) from that linie in historical sources. It was decidcd that the period of cmergencc of carly feudal Slav States, especially, Grcat Moravia, Poland, Bohcmia and Ruthenia is rcla-tively well understood and that the culturc of the Great Moravia and earliest history of Poland had alrcady becn presented in archacological exhibitions. Consequcntly, the upper timc limit of the exhibilion is the timc of formation of Slavic States (whencver and whercvcr this happened).

A subject also dclibcrately avoided in the cxhibition is that of Slav ethnogenesis. The problem continues to be widcly discussed by researchcrs and has yet to be resolved in a satisfactory and conclusive nianner. The qucslion of the ethnic origin of the Slavs is examined by tliree authors: Aleksander Gieysztor, Hanna Popowska-Taborska and Stanisław Tabaczyński. The lat-ter author focuscs spccially on mcthodology and research per-spectivcs in this field invoking the most recent trends of world research. Polish research has in this field morę than one impor-tant achievement.