Bibliography of the history of the Early Slavs and Rus'

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. 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.

Works listed here are cited in the notes or bibliographies of scholarly sources. Each is published by an academic or major press, written by a recognized expert, or substantially reviewed in scholarly journals; borderline cases are omitted. A selection of primary sources are included. Many of the books below carry their own bibliographies; see the Further reading section for other bibliographies, and the External links section for historical sites, academic sites, and museums.

Citations follow APA style. Book have citations to academic journal or mainstream published reviews when available. For books only partly about the subject, relevant chapter or section titles are provided when useful and available. Translators of the original-language edition are included when possible. In cases where a title or name has appeared with more than one English spelling, the most recent published form is used and a footnote documents any earlier title under which the work appeared.

General works

Period works (7501223)

Alef, G. (1983). Rulers and nobles in 15th-century Muscovy. Variorum. Birnbaum, H., Flier, M. S., & Rowland, D. B. (1984, 1994). Medieval Russian culture (2 vols.). University of California Press. Martin, J. (2007). Medieval Russia, 980–1584. Cambridge University Press. Meyendorff, J. (1997). Byzantium and the rise of Russia: A study of Byzantino-Russian relations in the fourteenth century. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. Nicolle, D. (1999). Armies of medieval Russia, 750–1250 (Illustrated ed.). Osprey Publishing. Ostrowski, D., & Poe, M. T. (Eds.). (2011). Portraits of old Russia: Imagined lives of ordinary people, 1300–1745. Routledge. Paszkiewicz, H. (1954). The origin of Russia. University of Chicago Press. Presniakov, A. E. (1970). The formation of the great Russian state: A study of Russian history in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries (A. E. Moorhouse, Trans.). Quadrangle Books. Stefanovich, P. S. (2016). The political organization of Rus' in the 10th century. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 64(4), 529–544.

Early Slavs

Barford, P. M. (2001). The early Slavs: Culture and society in early medieval Eastern Europe (1st ed.). Cornell University Press. Bocek, V., Jansens, N., & Klir, T. (Eds.). (2020). New perspectives on the early Slavs and the rise of Slavic: Contact and migrations. Universitätsverlag Winter. Bogatyrev, S. (2000). The sovereign and his counsellors: Ritualised consultations in Muscovite political culture, 1350s–1570s. Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Curta, F. (2021). Slavs in the making: History, linguistics, and archaeology in Eastern Europe (ca. 500–ca. 700). Routledge. Curta, F. (2019). Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500–1300) (2 vols., Brill's Companions to European History 19). Brill. Curta, F. (2001). The making of the Slavs: History and archaeology of the Lower Danube region, c. 500–700. Cambridge University Press. Curta, F. (2006). Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250. Cambridge University Press. Dolukhanov, P. (1996). The early Slavs: Eastern Europe from the initial settlement to the Kievan Rus. Routledge. Dvornik, F. (1956). The Slavs: Their early history and civilization. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Garipzanov, I. H. (Ed.). (2008). Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and state formation in early medieval Europe. Brepols. Geary, P. (2001). The myth of nations: The medieval origins of Europe. Princeton University Press. Gimbutas, M. A. (1971). The Slavs. Thames & Hudson. Halperin, C. (2010). National identity in premodern Rus'. Russian History, 37(3), 275–294. Magocsi, P. R. (2015). With their backs to the mountains: A history of Carpathian Rus' and Carpatho-Rusyns. Central European University Press. Miller, D. B. (1992). The many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus'. Russian History, 19(1/4), 231–260. Noonan, T. S. (1998). The Islamic world, Russia and the Vikings, 750–900. Ashgate Publishing. Plokhy, S. (2010). The origins of the Slavic nations: Premodern identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Cambridge University Press. Pritsak, O. (1977). The origin of Rus'. The Russian Review, 36(3), 249–273. Pritsak, O. (1991). The origin of Rus'. Harvard University Press. Raffensperger, C. (2017). The kingdom of Rus' (Past Imperfect). Arc Humanities Press. Reisman, E. S. (1988). The absence of a common-descent myth for Rus'. Russian History, 15(1), 9–19.

Vikings Androshchuk, F. (2013). Vikings in the east: Essays on contacts along the road to Byzantium (800–1100) (Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 14). Uppsala University. Davidson, H. R. E. (1976). The Viking road to Byzantium. George Allen & Unwin. Duczko, W. (2004). Viking Rus: Studies on the presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (The Northern World 12). Brill. Keller, C. (2010). Furs, fish, and ivory: Medieval Norsemen at the Arctic fringe. Journal of the North Atlantic, 3, 1–23. Korpela, J. (2014). The Baltic Finnic people in the medieval and pre-modern Eastern European slave trade. Russian History, 41(1), 85–117. Kovalev, R. K. (Ed.). (2023). The northern lands of Rus' and the eastern Baltic in the Viking Age and Middle Ages. Brill. Martin, J. (1986). Treasure of the land of darkness: The fur trade and its significance for medieval Russia. Cambridge University Press. Stalsberg, A. (2001). Scandinavian Viking-Age boat graves in Old Rus'. Russian History, 28(1/4), 359–401.

Byzantine Empire Davidson, H. R. E. (1976). The Viking road to Byzantium. George Allen & Unwin. Clucas, L. (Ed.). (1988). The Byzantine legacy in Eastern Europe. East European Monographs. Fennell, J. L. (2015). A history of the Russian church to 1488. Routledge. Franklin, S. (2002). Byzantium-Rus-Russia: Studies in the translation of Christian culture. Ashgate/Variorum. Kazhdan, A. P., & Epstein, A. W. (1985). Change in Byzantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. University of California Press. Maiorov, A. (2015). The alliance between Byzantium and Rus' before the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204. Russian History, 42(3), 272–303. Meyendorff, J. (1997). Byzantium and the rise of Russia: A study of Byzantino-Russian relations in the fourteenth century. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. Obolensky, D. (1971a). The Byzantine commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Obolensky, D. (1971b). Byzantium and the Slavs: Collected studies. Variorum Reprints. Obolensky, D. (1994). Byzantium and the Slavs. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. Sedlar, J. W. (1994). East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500. University of Washington Press. Shepard, J. (2017). The expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia. Routledge.

Novgorod Brisbane, M. A. (Ed.). (1992). The archaeology of Novgorod, Russia: Recent results from the town and its hinterland. Society for Medieval Archaeology. Birnbaum, H. (1996). Novgorod in focus: Selected essays. Slavica. Bushkovitch, P. (1975). Urban ideology in medieval Novgorod: An iconographic approach. Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique, 16(1), 19–26. Halperin, C. J. (1999). Novgorod and the "Novgorodian Land". Cahiers du Monde russe, 40(3), 345–363. Kolchin, B. A. (1989). Wooden artefacts from medieval Novgorod. British Archaeological Reports. Lelis, A. A. (2005). The view from the northwest: The Chronicle of Novgorod as the mirror of local experience of Rus' history, 1016–1333. Russian History, 32(3/4), 389–399. Levin, E. (1983). Women and property in medieval Novgorod: Dependence and independence. Russian History, 10(2), 154–169. Paul, M. C. (2003). Episcopal election in Novgorod, Russia 1156–1478. Church History, 72(2), 251–275. Raba, J. (1967). The fate of the Novgorodian republic. The Slavonic and East European Review, 45(105), 307–323. Sevastyanova, O. (2010). In quest of the key democratic institution of medieval Rus': Was the "veche" an institution that represented Novgorod as a city and a republic?. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 58(1), 1–23. Thompson, M. W. (1967). Novgorod the Great: Excavations at the medieval city directed by A. V. Artsikhovsky and B. A. Kolchin. Evelyn, Adams & Mackay.

Khazaria Golden, P. B., Ben-Shammai, H., & Róna-Tas, A. (Eds.). (2007). The world of the Khazars: New perspectives (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8, Vol. 17). Brill. Zhivkov, B. (2015). Khazaria in the ninth and tenth centuries (D. Manova, Trans.; East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, Vol. 30). Brill.

Kievan Rus'

Dimnik, M. (1987). The "testament" of Iaroslav "the Wise": A re-examination. Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 29(4), 369–386. Dimnik, M. (1994). The dynasty of Chernigov, 1054–1146. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Dimnik, M. (1996). Succession and inheritance in Rus' before 1054. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Dimnik, M. (2003). The dynasty of Chernigov, 1146–1246 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Dvornichenko, A. Y. (2016). The place of the Kievan Rus in history. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University: History, 61(4), 5–17. Fennell, J. (1983, 2014). The crisis of medieval Russia, 1200–1304. Routledge. Franklin, S. (2001). Pre-Mongol Rus': New sources, new perspectives?. The Russian Review, 60(4), 465–473. Franklin, S. (2006). Kievan Rus' (1015–1125). In M. Perrie (Ed.), The Cambridge history of Russia (Vol. 1, pp. 73–97). Cambridge University Press. Franklin, S., & Shepard, J. (1996). The emergence of Rus: 750–1200. Routledge. Halperin, C. J. (2015). A comparative approach to Kievan Rus'. Russian History, 42(2), 149–157. Hanak, W. K. (2013). The nature and the image of princely power in Kievan Rus', 980–1054: A study of sources. Brill. Hraundal, T. (2014). New perspectives on eastern Vikings/Rus in Arabic sources. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 10, 65–98. Hrushevsky, M. (1997). History of Ukraine-Rus' (3 vols.). Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press. Hurwitz, E. S. (1980). Prince Andrej Bogoljubskij: The man and the myth. Licosa Editrice. Korpela, J. (2001). Prince, saint and apostle: Prince Vladimir Svjatoslavic of Kiev, his posthumous life, and the religious legitimization of the Russian great power. Otto Harrassowitz. Kovalev, R. (2015). Reimagining Kievan Rus' in unimagined Europe. Russian History, 42(2), 158–187. Maiorov, A. (2015). The alliance between Byzantium and Rus' before the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204. Russian History, 42(3), 272–303. Marinich, V. G. (1976). Revitalization movements in Kievan Russia. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 15(1), 61–68. Martin, J. (2006). Calculating seniority and the contests for succession in Kievan Rus'. Russian History, 33(2/4), 267–281. Miller, D. B. (1992). The many frontiers of pre-Mongol Rus'. Russian History, 19(1/4), 231–260. Pelenski, J. (1977). The origins of the official Muscovite claims to the "Kievan inheritance". Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 1(1), 29–52. Pelenski, J. (1987). The sack of Kiev of 1169: Its significance for the succession to Kievan Rus'. Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 11(3/4), 303–316. Pelenski, J. (1988). The contest for the "Kievan succession" (1155–1175): The religious-ecclesiastical dimension. Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12/13, 761–780. Pelenski, J. (1998). The contest for the legacy of Kievan Rus'. East European Monographs, Columbia University Press. Raffensperger, C. (2012). Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus' in the medieval world. Harvard University Press.