The lecture opens with a response to Adrian's previous lecture by Adrian's teaching assistant, a Russo-Ukrainian scholar, Dmytro Ostapenko. History is all about argument and evidence. Dmytro critiques Adrian's "Normanist" point of view about the C9th-C10th origins of the Russian state (i.e., that the Rusi’an state was Varangian-Viking inspired). Dr Dmytro Ostapenko offers a stricter view of what is meant by “statehood”. Dr Ostapenko cites evidence discussing how bands had already evolved into Slavic tribes and kings (and hence a state) and he discusses a wider range of what he believes are indigenous Slavic cultural and economic influences on state formation. Adrian then replies and as he does he discusses more of the Viking and Slav evidence, focussing on the Russian Primary Chronicle (circa 1115) and relations between forest and steppe, as viewed in the light of Arab-Persian (Ibn Fadhlan, Ibn Khurdadbeh), Carolingian (Bertinian Annals 832), Byzantine (C10th Constantine VII Porphyrogenitas on the Administration of the Empire) and Khazar sources.

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