This review is devoted to the book of Pavel E. Lukin and Alexander A. Safonov “In the Heart of the Balkans: Essays on the History of Macedonia (from ancient times to the early twenty-fi rst century)”. The authors challenged themselves to write a textbook of the History of Macedonia for history and philology university students, which was the very fi rst attempt in the Russian historiography. The textbook was provided with an extension of a selected bibliography and a list of abbreviations and illustrations. In addition, the authors also proposed an exemplary history course curriculum, which is actually the full content of the university course program. Lukin and Safonov’s book also contains a brief history of the most important historical cities and the illustrative material which demonstrates the beauty of the cultural heritage of the region in architecture and painting. It could be interesting to a wide circle of readers. The work due to the stated framework of the textbook may sometimes lack the deep analysi