M. T. Florinsky, Russia: A History and Interpretation (2 vols., New York, 1953), detailed account to 1917, drawing heavily on pre-revolutionary scholarship.
G. Hosking, Russia and the Russians (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), broad survey of Russian history from its origins to the present.
———and R. Service (eds.), Reinterpreting Russia (London, 1999), essays that examine important issues over several centuries.
V. O. Kliuchevskii, History of Russia (5 vols., New York, 1911–31), classic pre-revolutionary history to 1825.
P. I. Liashchenko, History of the National Economy of Russia to the 1917 Revolution (New York, 1949), informative, rich history from Soviet perspective.
N. V. Riasanovsky and M. Steinberg, A History of Russia (7th edn., New York, 2005), standard textbook survey.
I. FROM KIEV TO MUSCOVY: THE BEGINNINGS TO 1700
GENERAL HISTORIES AND MONOGRAPHS
J. Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia (New York, 1969), economic and social history from the era of Kiev Rus to the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
R. O. Crummey, The Formation of Muscovy, 1304–1613 (London, 1987), informed and highly readable interpretative survey.
R. S. Hellie, Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725 (Chicago, IL, 1982), thorough study of law and practice of slavery.
D. H. Kaiser, The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia (Princeton, NJ, 1980), on the evolution of triadic, state-initiated legal institutions and concepts by Ivan III’s time.
J. L. H. Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar (Oxford, 1985), detailed history of army until 1874 conscription reform.
N. S. Kollmann, By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia (Ithaca, NY, 1999), on the meaning of ‘honour’ and ‘dishonour’ in Muscovite law and society.
E. Levin, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900–1700 (Ithaca, NY, 1989), study of ecclesiastical sources on such matters as marriage, sexual crimes, sexual deviance.
J. Martin, Medieval Russia, 980–1584 (Cambridge, 1995), comprehensive survey drawing upon most recent scholarship with new interpretations and analysis.
M. Perrie (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russia, i: From Early Rus to 1689 (Cambridge, 2006), authoritative essays on institutions, society, and culture in pre-Petrine Russia.
A. E. Presniakov, The Tsardom of Muscovy (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1978), classic pre-revolutionary account.
G. Vernadsky, A History of Russia (5 vols., New Haven, CT, 1943–69), survey from prehistory to 1682 and reflecting the perspective of the Eurasian school.
1. THE BEGINNINGS TO 1450
S. Cross and O. P. Sherbowitz-Werzor (eds. and trans.), The Primary Russian Chronicle: Laurentian Text (3rd edn., Cambridge, 1973), basic source for early history.
F. L. I. Fennell, The Emergence of Moscow, 1304–1359 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1968), detailed examination of Moscow’s growing political importance, emphasizing inter-princely conflicts, Mongol influence, and relations with neighbouring principalities.
———The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200–1304 (London, 1983), detailed political narrative.
C. J. Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde (London, 1987), reinterpretation of Mongol impact, counterbalancing destructive aspects with evidence of close, pragmatic Mongol-Rus relationships.
J. Martin, Treasury of the Land of Darkness (Cambridge, 1986), on international fur trade from the ninth to fifteenth centuries.
B. A. Rybakov, Kievan Rus (Moscow, 1989), Marxist interpretation by leading Soviet historian.
Ya. N. Shchapov, State and Church in Early Russia (New Rochelle, NY, 1993), collection of essays on the institutional structure of the Church and its relations with the princes of Kievan Rus.
2. MUSCOVITE RUSSIA, 1450–1598
G. Alef, Rulers and Nobles in Fifteenth-Century Muscovy (London, 1983), essays on the institutions, symbols of autocracy.
P. Bushkovitch, Religion and Society in Russia (Oxford, 1992), on the change in élite religious life.
R. O. Crummey Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Élite in Russia, 1613–1689 (Princeton, NJ, 1983), social history of the Muscovite aristocracy.
H. W. Dewey (comp., trans., ed.), Muscovite Judicial Texts, 1488–1556 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1966), texts of the law codes of 1497 and 1550 and other key documents.
J. L. I. Fennell, Ivan the Great of Moscow (London, 1963), political biography.
E. L. Keenan, Jr., The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the ‘Correspondence’ Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), controversial challenge to the authenticity of a set of crucial sixteenth-century sources.
M. Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire 1500–1800 (Bloomington, Ind., 2002), survey of Russian expansion into the southern and south-eastern steppe.
V. O. Kliuchevskii, A History of Russia, 5 vols. (London, 1911–13), classic account by pre-revolutionary scholar, emphasizing colonization, endogamous forces of development.
N. S. Kollmann, Kinship and Politics (Stanford, Calif., 1987), shows family and clan at the heart of Muscovite power hierarchy and political conflict.
I. de Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (New Haven, CT, 2005), readable, scholarly account of the infamous sixteenth-century tsar.
S. F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1974), translation of splendid pre-revolutionary biography.
A. E. Presnaikov, The Tsardom of Muscovy (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1978), excellent introduction to the early history of autocracy and its institutions.
R. G. Skrynnikov, Ivan the Terrible (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1981), detailed political narrative by leading Soviet historian.
I. Thyrêt, Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia (DeKalb, Ill., 2001), monograph showing how female piety served to empower royal women in Muscovite society.
3. FROM MUSCOVY TOWARDS ST PETERSBURG, 1598–1689
C. Bussow, The Disturbed State of the Russian Realm (Montreal, 1994), translation of important contemporary account.
R. O. Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors (Princeton, NJ, 1983), social and political history of aristocracy in seventeenth-century Russia.
C. S. L. Dunning, Russia’s First Civil War (University Park, Pa., 2001), detailed account of the Time of Troubles.
R. S. Hellie, The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600–1725 (Chicago, IL, 1999), valuable compendium of information on economic development in early modern Russia.
———Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy (Chicago, IL, 1971), parallel studies of enserfment and landed military élite.