Auty R., Obolensky D. (Eds.) An Introduction to Russian History

Cambridge University Press, 1976. — 403 p. — (Companion to Russian Studies 1). — ISBN: 0-521-20893-9; ISBN: 0-521-28038-9.An introduction, complete in one volume, to the history of Russia from medieval times to the fall of Khrushchev and beyond. A study of the geographical setting in which the Russian state grew to its present super-power status is followed by five chapters which discuss the political, social, and economic history of the country, and four final chapters examine respectively the role of the Church, Soviet government and politics, the economy of the Soviet state, and the international relations of the USSR. Each chapter has been specially commissioned for this volume, and the writers are acknowledged experts in their fields. Every chapter is followed by a guide to further reading. This is perhaps the most comprehensive and authoritative collaborative history of Russia yet to appear. It will be read as a continuous account, and will also be consulted as a standard reference guide in libraries of universities, colleges, and schools wherever Russian and Soviet history, European history, and international relations are studied. It forms the first part of the three-volume Companion to Russian Studies, the two other parts of which deal with Russian language and literature, and Russian art and architecture respectively.The Geographical Setting (D.J.M. Hooson, Professor of Geography, University of California, Berkeley).The natural habitat.
Growth and peopling of the Russian state.
The location of economic activities.
Distribution of population.
Regions.
Kievan Russia (A.D. Stokes, Lecturer in Russian, University of Oxford).
Early history.
The Normanist controversy.
The origins of the Kievan state.
The beginnings of Russian Christianity.
Svyatoslav.
Yaropolk.
Vladimir I and the conversion of Russia.
Yaroslav.
Yaroslav's successors.
Vladimir Monomakh.
The decline of Kiev.
Appanage and Muscovite Russia (Nikolay Andreyev, Emeritus Reader in Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge)
The Mongol invasion.
Alexander Nevsky.
The 'appanage system'.
The rise of Muscovy.
Moscow, Lithuania, and Tver'.
Vasily II.
Ivan III and the hegemony of Moscow.
The church.
Vasily III.
Russian society.
Ivan IV: the Muscovite tsardom.
The 'Time of Troubles'.
The Romanov dynasty.
Tsar Alexis.
Imperial Russia: Peter I to Nicholas I (Marc Raeff, Bakhmetoff Professor of Russian Studies, Columbia University).The empire.
The government.
The economy.
The social classes.
Westernization.
Tensions.
Imperial Russia: Alexander II to the Revolution (John Keep, Professor of Russian History, University of Toronto).
The burdens of empire.
The efflorescence of secular culture.
Economic and social change.
Government and opposition.
Soviet Russia (H.T. Willetts, Lecturer in Russian History, University of Oxford).
The February Revolution.
The October Revolution.
Civil war and foreign intervention.
The NEP.
Stalin's rise to power.
Collectivization.
The Purges.
Soviet foreign policy between the wars.
The Soviet Union in the
Second World War.
Stalin's last years.
The ascendancy of Khrushchev.
The fall of Khrushchev.
The Church (John Meyendorff, Professor of Byzantine and East European History, Fordham University; Professor of Church History, St Vladimir's Seminary, New York).
Doctrine, liturgy, spirituality, and missions.
Intellectual trends.
Schisms and sects.
The Russian Church and the Soviet state.
The Structure of the Soviet State: Government and Politics (L.B. Schapiro, Professor of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science).
Historical factors.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The Constitution of 1936.
Organs of control.
Conclusion and prospects.
The Structure of the Soviet State: The Economy (Alec Nove, Bonar Professor of International Economic Studies, University of Glasgow).
The system before 1928.
The Stalin system.
A centralized, command economy.
The Khrushchev period.
The economy under Brezhnev and Kosygin.
The Soviet Union and its Neighbours (Hugh Seton-Watson, Professor of Russian History, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London).
The Russians and neighbour nations.
Periods of Soviet foreign policy.
Germany and eastern Europe.
The Middle East.
China and the Far East.