until 1581, when Russia lost Narva and could no longer afford to restrict European
trade. Dutch merchants were allowed into White Sea trade and by the end of the
century they had surpassed the British in volume. In 1584 Russia founded the port
of Arkhangelsk directly on the shore (Kholmogory was some 75 km up the
Northern Dvina) to facilitate trade. With shipping possible through the White
Sea for a brief window every summer, Russia and its north European partners built
Archangel into Russia’s most active trading port by the end of the sixteenth century.
In the century between 1450 and 1550 the Grand Principality of Moscow had
proven itself a formidable power, consolidating control over major resources and
trade entrepôts in the crucial Baltic, Volga, and Black Sea spheres. Already Mus-
covy contained a diverse population—East Slavic, Orthodox peasants and landlords
in the center; East Slavic and Finno-Ugric forest peoples north to the Arctic and
east to the Urals, who included Orthodox Christians and many still practicing
local animist religions. De facto empire had begun, on the eve of conquests of
Kazan and Siberia.
*****
On the Rus’state: Omeljan Pritsak,The Origin of Rus’(Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by
Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1981), chap. 1;
Thomas S. Noonan,“The Flourishing of Kiev’s International and Domestic Trade,
ca.1100–ca.1240,”in I. S. Koropeckyj, ed.,Ukrainian Economic History: Interpretive
Essays(Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard
Ukrainian Research Institute, 1991), 102–46; Peter Golden,“Aspects of the Nomadic
Factor in the Economic Development of Kiev Rus’,”in Koropeckyj, ed.,Ukrainian
Economic History,58–101; Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard,The Emergence of Rus’,
750 – 1200 (London and New York: Longman, 1996). This literature reflects a modern
“Eurasianist”approach; on its origins, see Nicholas Riasanovsky,“The Emergence of
Eurasianism,”California Slavic Studies4 (1967): 39–72.
Rise of Moscow through the sixteenth century: N. S. Kollmann,“The Principalities of Rus’
in the Fourteenth Century,”inThe New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 6:c.1300–
c.1415(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): 764–94, 1051–8 and“Russia,”
inThe New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 7:c.1415–c.1500(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998): 748–70, 976–84; Donald Ostrowski,“The Growth of Muscovy
(1462–1533),”in Maureen Perrie, ed.,The Cambridge History of Russia, Vol. 1 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 213–39; Janet Martin,Medieval Russia,
980 – 1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Robert O. Crummey,The
Formation of Muscovy, 1304– 1613 (London: Longman, 1987).
On Novgorod: Henrik Birnbaum,Lord Novgorod the Great: Essays in the History and Culture
of a Medieval City-State(Columbus, Oh.: Slavica Publishers, 1981). Surveys of Kyiv Rus’
and early modern Ukraine include Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 4th edn.
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) and Paul R. Magocsi,A History of Ukraine
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). On the fur trade: Janet Martin,Treasure
of the Land of Darkness: The Fur Trade and its Significance for Medieval Russia(Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
For the Mongol background, see Allen J. Frank,“The Western Steppe: Volga-Ural region,
Siberia and the Crimea,”in Nicola Di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank, and Peter B. Golden, eds.,
The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age(Cambridge: CambridgeDe Facto Empire 53