Heinz E. Ellersieck of the California Institute of Technology wrote in 1974 that the historians of "Skandinavskii sbornik" developed the idea of the "friendly frontier" as part of their mission to "develop and strengthen 'the friendly connections between the peoples of the Soviet Union and their nearest neighbors in the northwest' ", a process that began with the publication of an article by Boris Porshnev about Russian friendship with Sweden during the Thirty Years' War.