In a review of the first two volumes in 1959, Russian historian I. P. Shaskol'skii welcomed the journal, saying in "Вопросы истории" (Questions of History) that it brought a Marxist-Leninist approach to the history of the Scandinavian countries to which Soviet historical scholarship had previously paid little attention, leaving many fundamental questions open, such as establishing when the feudal system in Scandinavia transitioned to the capitalist system and when a class society emerged.