«The African mode of production» in Great Moravia? (Marginal notes on Ivo Stefan's article)

Abstract

The paper presents a review of the article of the Czech archaeologist historian Ivo Stefan devoted to the problem of socio-political system of Great Moravia (Stefan, Ivo. Great Moravia, Statehood and Archaeology. The ((Decline and Fall))of One Early Medieval Polity, in Fruhgeschichtliche Zentralorte in Mitteleuropa. Internationale Konferenz und Kolleg der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung zum 50. Jahrestag des Beginns archaologischer Ausgrabungen in Pohansko bei Breclav, 5.-9.10.2009, Breclav, Tschechische Republik / Hrsg. von Jiri Machacek und Simon Ungerman. Bonn: Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, 2011 (Studien zur Archaologie Europas; Band 14). p. 333-354). The author of the review shows that the model proposed by Ivo Stefan for the explanation of how Great Moravia functioned corresponds to the concept of the so-called ((African mode of production)) elaborated by the French anthropologist Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch on the materials of societies of Central Africa. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]