This is a select bibliography of post-World War II English-language books (including translations) and journal articles about the Early Slavs and Rus' and its borderlands until the Mongol invasions beginning in 1223. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. The sections "General surveys" and "Biographies" contain books; other sections contain both books and journal articles. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities.
Inclusion criteria
Works included are referenced in the notes or bibliographies of scholarly secondary sources or journals. Included works should either be published by an academic or widely distributed publisher, be authored by a notable subject matter expert as shown by scholarly reviews and have significant scholarly journal reviews about the work. To keep the bibliography length manageable, only items that clearly meet the criteria should be included.
Citation style
This bibliography uses APA style citations. Entries do not use templates. References to reviews and notes for entries do use citation templates.
If a work has been translated into English, the translator should be included and a footnote with appropriate bibliographic information for the original language version should be included.
When listing works with titles or names published with alternative English spellings, the form used in the latest published version should be used and the version and relevant bibliographic information noted if it previously was published or reviewed under a different title.
General works on Russian history which have significant content about this bibliography's timeframe of history.
A limited number of English language translated primary sources referred to in the above works. [b]
The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor. Today Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians are the existent East Slavic nations. Rusyns can also be considered as a separate nation, although they are often considered a subgroup of the Ukrainian people.
The Primary Chronicle, shortened from the common Russian Primary Chronicle, is a chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been originally compiled in or near Kiev in the 1110s. Tradition ascribed its compilation to the monk Nestor beginning in the 12th century, but this is no longer believed to have been the case.
The Grand Prince of Kiev was the title of the monarch of Kievan Rus', residing in Kiev from the 10th to 13th centuries. In the 13th century, Kiev became an appanage principality first of the grand prince of Vladimir and the Mongol Golden Horde governors, and later was taken over by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The Severians, also Severyans, Siverians, or Siverianians were a tribe or tribal confederation of early East Slavs occupying areas to the east of the middle Dnieper River and southeast of the Danube River. They are mentioned by the Bavarian Geographer, Emperor Constantine VII (956–959), the Khazar ruler Joseph, and in the Primary Chronicle (1113).
Old East Slavic was a language used by the East Slavs from the 7th or 8th century to the 13th or 14th century, until it diverged into the Russian and Ruthenian languages. Ruthenian eventually evolved into the Belarusian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian languages.
Sviatoslav II Iaroslavich or Sviatoslav II Yaroslavich was Grand Prince of Kiev from 1073 until his death in 1076. He was a younger son of Yaroslav the Wise, the grand prince of Kiev. He is the progenitor of the Sviatoslavichi branch of Rurikids.
Rurik Rostislavich, also spelt Riurik, was Prince of Novgorod (1170–1171), Belgorod (1173–1194), Grand Prince of Kiev, and Prince of Chernigov (1210–1214).
Oleg Svyatoslavich was a prince from Kievan Rus' whose equivocal adventures ignited political unrest in the country at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries. He reigned as Prince of Chernigov from 1094 to 1097, and as Prince of Novgorod-Seversk from 1097 to 1115. He was the progenitor of the Olgovichi family.
The Volhynians were an East Slavic tribe of the Early Middle Ages and the Principality of Volhynia in 987–1199.
The Principality of Chernigov was one of the largest and most powerful states within Kievan Rus'. For a time the principality was the second most powerful after Kiev. The principality was formed in the 10th century and maintained some of its distinctiveness until the 16th century. The Principality of Chernigov consisted of regions of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.
Mstislav Vladimirovich was the earliest attested prince of Tmutarakan and Chernigov in Kievan Rus'. He was a younger son of Vladimir the Great, the grand prince of Kiev. His father appointed him to rule Tmutarakan, an important fortress by the Strait of Kerch, in or after 988.
Jonathan Shepard is a British historian specialising in early medieval Russia, the Caucasus, and the Byzantine Empire. He is regarded as a leading authority in Byzantine studies and on the Kievan Rus. He specialises in diplomatic and archaeological history of the early Kievan period. Shepard received his doctorate in 1973 from Oxford University and was a lecturer in Russian History at the University of Cambridge. Among other works, he is co-author of The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 (1996), and editor of The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (2008).
The Rus', also known as Russes, were a people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD.
Rusʹ Khaganate, or kaganate of Rus is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe between c. 830 and the 890s.
Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus', was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic, it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, founded by the Varangian prince Rurik. The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when Kiev was at the center. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes.
Normanism and anti-Normanism are competing groups of theories about the origin of Kievan Rus' that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries concerning the narrative of the Viking Age in Eastern Europe. At the centre of the disagreement is the origin of the Varangian Rus', a people who travelled across and settled in Eastern Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries, and are considered by most modern historians to be of Scandinavian origin, eventually assimilated with the Slavs. The Normanist theory has been firmly established as mainstream, and modern Anti-Normanism is viewed as historical revisionism.
This is a select bibliography of post World War II English language books and journal articles about the history of Russia and its borderlands from the Mongol invasions until 1613. Book entries may have references to reviews published in academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
This is a select bibliography of English-language books and journal articles about the history of Ukraine. Book entries have references to journal reviews about them when helpful and available. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below. See the bibliography section for several additional book and chapter-length bibliographies from academic publishers and online bibliographies from historical associations and academic institutions.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the history of Belarus. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included. Book entries have references to journal articles and reviews about them when helpful. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below. The External links section contains entries for publicly available select bibliographies from universities.
Topical outline of articles about Slavic history and culture. This outline is an overview of Slavic topics; for outlines related to specific Slavic groups and topics, see the links in the Other Slavic outlines section below.
Many of the above works contain bibliographies. Included below are a selection of works with large bibliographies related to Russian history.