Istoriya Baptizma (a History of the Baptists).

Edited by Sergey V. Sannikov. Odessa: Odessa Theological Seminary, "Bogomyslie," 1996. 496 pp.

This work is a rather unusual composite work in the Russian language that incorporates scholarship from both the West and East. The first three sections of the book incorporate in Russian translation much of Robert Torbet's, A History of the Baptists (1950 ed.), chapters 1-8, 10-11,12 in part, and 16-17. The sixth section, entitled "Baptists in the Contemporary World," incorporates a small portion of Albert W. Wardin's work, Baptists Around the World, including Denton Lotz's account of the Baptist World Alliance, Wardin's chapter, "Baptist Missions and Expansion," and statistical data.

Sections four and five incorporate the work of Sergey N. Savinsky, ISTORIYA RUSSKO-UKRAINSKOGO BAPTIZMA (A History of Russian-Ukrainian Baptists), which was published by the Odessa Theological Seminary in 1995. Savinsky is the foremost Russian author on Russian Baptist history. Through his efforts in collecting a mass of Russian sources, in 1985 he wrote a manuscript entitled, "A Short History of the Russian-Ukrainian Evangelical-Baptist Brotherhood in Russia and in the Soviet Union." This work was used as the basis for many of the historical lectures that appeared in the correspondence course for pastors of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of the USSR as well as chapters 1-7 in the history, ISTORIYA EVANGEL'SKIKH KHRISTIAN-BAPTISTOV VSSR, which the All-union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists published in 1989. (See Baptist History and Heritage, April, 1991, 60-61 for a review of this work). Savinsky's 1995 work is a shortened version and takes the story only up to 1967. In addition to material from these three works, Sannikov also includes several Russian Baptist and Evangelical Christian confessions of faith, including the one adopted in 1985, as well as a confession of the Odessa Theological Seminary. This compilation is designed primarily for theological students and other students of Christian history. The work is an excellent example of trying to meet the desperate need of providing Baptist materials in the Russian language since the fall of Russian communism. Many more original works as well as Western works in Russian translation are needed.--Reviewed by Albert W. Wardin Jr., professor emeritus of history, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.