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The cambridge history of Russia Vol. 1

edited by: Maureen Perrie
published by: Cambridge University Press
pp: 800
ISBN:  978-0-521-81227-6
price: £129.00

Book's frontpage

This first volume of the three-volume Cambridge History of Russia deals with the period before the reign of Peter the Great. The concept of the ‘pre-Petrine’ period has a profound resonance in Russian intellectual and cultural history. Although Russia had not been entirely immune from Western influences before Peter’s reign, the speed and scale of Europeanisation increased greatly from the beginning of the eighteenth century. This processwas deeply divisive, and its significance and effects were debated in the nineteenth century by ‘Westerniser’ intellectuals, who favoured modernisation, and their
‘Slavophile’ opponents, who idealised the Muscovite past. In the post-Soviet period, as Russians attempt to reconstruct their national identity after the experience of seven decades of state socialism, aspects of this debate have been revived. The pre-Petrine period has come to be seen in some neo-Slavophile circles as the repository of indigenous Russian values, uncontaminated by the Westerninfluenceswhichwere to lead eventually to the disastrousCommunist experiment. For many contemporary Westernisers, by contrast, the origins of the Stalinist dictatorship lay not so much in the dogmas of Marxism as in old Muscovite traditions of autocracy and despotism.
 
Such views, which have found an echo in much Western journalistic commentary and in some popular English-language histories of Russia, tend to be based on outdated and ill-informed studies. The present volume, which brings together the most recent interpretations of serious scholars in order to provide an authoritative and reliable new account of pre-Petrine Russia, is designed to advance the knowledge and understanding of the period in the anglophone world.

 

Table of contents

List of plates

List of maps

List of figures
 
List of genealogical tables

Notes on contributors

Acknowledgements

Note on dates and transliteration

Chronology

List of abbreviations

1. Maureen Perrie, Introduction
2. Denis J. B. Shaw, Russia’s geographical environment

Part I. Early Rus' and the Rise of Muscovy (c. 900–1462)
3. Jonathan Shepard, The origins of Rus’ (c.900–1015)
4. Simon Franklin, Kievan Rus’ (1015–1125)
5. Martin Dimnik, The Rus’ principalities (1125–1246)
6. Janet Martin, North-eastern Russia and the Golden Horde (1246–1359)
7. Janet Martin, The emergence of Moscow (1359–1462)
8. V. L. Ianin, Medieval Novgorod

Part II. The expansion, consoliddation and crisis of Muscovy (1462–1613)
9. Donald Ostrowski, The growth of Muscovy (1462–1533)
10. Sergei Bogatyrev, Ivan IV (1533–1584)
11. A. P. Pavlov, Fedor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov (1584–1605)
12. Richard Hellie, The peasantry
13. Denis J. B. Shaw, Towns and commerce
14. Michael Khodarkovsky, The non-Christian peoples on the Muscovite frontiers
15. David B. Miller, The Orthodox Church
16. Richard Hellie, The law
17. Michael S. Flier, Political ideas and rituals
18. Maureen Perrie, The Time of Troubles (1603–1613)

Part III. Russia under the first Romanovs (1613–1689)
19. Marshall Poe, The central government and its institutions
20. Brian Davies, Local government and administration
21. Brian Davies, Muscovy at war and peace
22. Michael Khodarkovsky, Non-Russian subjects
23. Richard Hellie, The economy, trade and serfdom
24. Nancy Shields Kollmann, Law and society
25. Denis J. B. Shaw, Urban developments
26. Maureen Perrie, Popular revolts
27. Robert O. Crummey, The Orthodox Church and the schism
28. Lindsey Hughes, Cultural and intellectual life

Bibliography
 
Index

 

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