Russian Studies Research Guide

Ancient Russian Literature – a Number of Primary Russian Language Sources

Documents in Russian History – English Language Resources from Rus through the Soviet Era

Eurodocs – Primary Russian Language Resources from Rus though the Soviet Period

Eurodocs - Primary Sources on the History of Ukraine

Russian Language Primary Source Excerpts

The British Museum's collection of features icons in chronological order from the 15th to early 20th centuries. 

Hermitage Museum's Digital Collection - Includes a very helpful advanced serch feature.

The Museum of Russian Icons features a searchable database of their collection.

The Russian Museum features a searchable database.

Selections from The Radzivill Chronicle – 15th Century

Russian Gospels – 15th Century Illuminated Manuscript

15^th – 17^th Century Miniatures

The Life of Aleksandr Nevskii – 16^th-Century Illuminated Manuscript

The Tale of the Rout of Mamai – 17th-Century Illuminated Manuscript

The Soloveckij Uprising – 17^th-Century Illuminated Manuscript

The Medieval Jewish Kingdom of the Khazars, 740-1259

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio – Around 950

Ibn al-Athīr’s Accounts of the Rūs - 10th-13th Centuries

The Chronicle of Novgorod

The Tale of Igor's Campaign – 12^th Century

Privileges Granted to German Merchants at Novgorod, 1229

The Journey of Friar John of Pian de Carpine to the Court of Kuyuk Khan, 1245-1247

William of Rubruck's Account of the Mongols, 1253-1255

The First Treaty of Novgorod, Circa 1264-65

Pegolotti's Merchant Handbook, Circa 1340

The Journey Beyond Three Seas of Afanasij Nikitin in A.D. 1466-1472

The Sudebnik, 1497

Anthony Jenkinson's Explorations on the Land Route to China, 1558-1560

Ulozhenie, 1649

These texts are available in the Mansfield Library.

 

Armstrong, Terence E. Yermak's Campaign in Siberia: A Selection of Documents. London: Hakluyt Society, 1975.

Call Number: 910.6 H14w ser.2 no.146 (Level 2)

Berry, Lloyd E., and Robert O. Crummey. Rude & Barbarous Kingdom; Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth-Century English Voyagers. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. 

Call Number: 947.04 B534r (Level 2)

Chadwick, Nora K. The Beginnings of Russian History: an Enquiry into Sources. Cambridge [Eng.]: The University Press, 1946.

Call Number: 947.02 C432b (Level 2)

Dmytryshyn, Basil. Medieval Russia – A Source Book, 850 - 1700. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 2000.

Call Number: 947 M4899 (Level 2)

Dixon, Simon. Britain and Russia in the Age of Peter the Great: Historical Documents. London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1998.

Call Number: 327.41047 B86211 (Level 2)

Dollinger, Philippe. The German Hansa. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1970.

Call Number: 943.5 D665h.Ea (Level 2)

1295: "Ban on credit transactions declared by the Novgorod Kontor…," page 418

1411: "Regulations of the Livonian towns implementing the ban on credit transactions."

Fennell, John Lister Illingworth, and Dimitri Obolensky. A historical Russian reader: a selection of texts from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. Oxford: Clarendon P., 1969.

Call Number: 491.786 F335h (Level 2)

Fletcher, Giles, and Albert J. Schmidt. Of the Rus Commonwealth. Ithaca, N.Y.: Published for the Folger Shakespeare Library [Washington] by Cornell University Press, 1966. (Fletcher, 1549? – 1611)

Call Number: 947 f612o (Level 2)

Herberstein, Sigmund, and Richard Henry Major. Notes Upon Russia: Being a Translation of the Earliest Account of That Country, Entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii. London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1851. (16^th century)

Call Number: 910.6 H14w ser.1 (Level 2)

Hollingsworth, Paul. The Hagiography of Kievan Rusʹ. [Boston]: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, 1992.            

Call Number: 235.20947 H145 (Level 4)

Keenan, Edward L. The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the "Correspondence" Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Call Number: 947.04 I93Zk (Level 2)

Kleimola, Ann M. Justice in Medieval Russia: Muscovite Judgment Charters (Pravye Gramoty) of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1975.

Call Number: 506 A513t v. 65 (Level 5)

Major, Richard Henry. India in the Fifteenth Century, Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India in the Century Preceding the Portuguese Discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, from Latin, Persian, Russian, and Italian Sources, Now First Translated into English. New York: B. Franklin, 1964. Contains "The travels of Athanasius Nikitin, a native of Twer," a travel narrative of a Russian merchant on a voyage to India, beginning in 1466.

Call Number: 910.6 H14w ser.1 no.22 (Level 2)

Michell, Robert. The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471. London: Offices of the Society, 1914.

Call Number: 906 C16p 3rd ser. v. 25 (Level 2)

Milton, John. A Brief History of Moscovia: And of Other Less-Known Countries Lying Eastward of Russia As Far As Cathay, Gather'd from the Writings of Several Eye-Witnesses. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2009.

Call Number: 947.04 M6623b (Level 2)

Morgan, E. Delmar, C. H. Coote, and Anthony Jenkinson. Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia. London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1886. (Jenkinson: 1529 – 1611).            

Call Number: 910.6 H14w ser.1 (Level 2)

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich. The Song of Igor's Campaign: An Epic of the Twelfth Century. New York: Vintage Books, 1960.

Call Number: 891.711 S634s (Level 2)

Nestor, and Samuel Hazzard Cross. The Russian Primary Chronicle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930.

Call Number: 947 P8797.E (Level 2)

Pouncy, Carolyn. The "Domostroi": rules for Russian households in the time of Ivan the Terrible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Call Number: 640.947 D673.Ep (Level 5)

Zenkovsky, Serge A. Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. New York: Dutton, 1963. 

Call Number: 891.708 Z54m (Level 2)

Zenkovsky, Serge A., and Betty Jean Zenkovsky. The Nikonian Chronicle. Princeton, N.J.: Kingston Press, 1984.

947 N694.Ez (Level 2)

Ziolkowski, Margaret, and Avvakum Petrovich. Tale of Boiarynia Morozova: A Seventeenth-Century Religious Life. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2000.

281.9092 P8797.E (Level 4)

These collections, spanning the from the Rus period through the Soviet era, often provide excerpts of English-translated primary documents and can serve as a great starting point.

Barker, Adele Marie, and Bruce Grant. The Russia Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.

Call Number: 947 R9692 (Level 2)

Bisha, Robin. Russian Women, 1698-1917: Experience and Expression: an Anthology of  Sources. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Call Number: 305.40947 R9695 (Level 2)

Kaiser, Daniel H., and Gary Marker. Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings, 860-1860's. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Call Number: 947 R374 (Level 2)

 

Riha, Thomas. Readings in Russian Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. 

Call Number: 947 R572r (Level 2) This is a three-volume work. Also available as an electronic resource.

Vernadsky, George, and S. G. Pushkarev. A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 1972.

Call Number: 947 S724 (Level 2)

Walsh, Warren B. Readings in Russian History from Ancient Times to the Post-Stalin Era. [Syracuse, N.Y.]: Syracuse University Press, 1963.

Call Number: 947 W228r 1963 (Level 2)