The book by E. D. Frolov is perhaps the only generalizing study in Russian antiquity devoted to the key problem of ancient history - the birth of the polis, i.e. the formation of that type of socio-political organization that became decisive for classical antiquity, for ancient Greek society to the same extent as for the Roman one. Table of contents: Preface to the first edition. 3Preface to the second edition. 5Part I. ON THE WAY TO POLIS Chapter 1. Greek polis as a historical and historiographical phenomenon (to pose the question)... 61. Classical concept of polis... 62. The newest skeptical direction ... 193. Domestic (Soviet) historiography ... 44 Chapter 2. Historical background of the polis (the problem of genesis) 561. The starting point. The situation at the turn of the 2nd–1st millennium BC. e. 562. On the way to the policy. Homeric Society. 643. Formation of a (proto)polis. Synoicism. 84Part II. ARCHAIC REVOLUTION AND FORMATION OF THE CLASSICAL POLIS Chapter 3. Economic progress and social struggle... 94Chapter 4. Initial legislative reform.. 124Chapter 5. Colonization and tyranny.. 1461. Great colonization of the VIII-VI centuries. BC...1462.Early Greek tyranny 163Part III. FORMATION OF POLIS IN THE COLONIZATION ZONEChapter 6. Outlines of the process in the Greek West. Troubles in Leontyny. 172Chapter 7. Social struggle in archaic Syracuse... 184Chapter 8. Socio-political development of Pontic Heraclea...... 205Conclusion............232Appendix. The Greek polis as reflected in the most ancient epigraphic documents......238Additional bibliography................255List of abbreviations......260