Abbott Gleason is Keeney Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University, where he has served as Chairman of the History Department and Director of the Watson Institute from 2000-2001. In 1995 he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. In 1980-1982 he was Director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and was subsequently chosen Chairman of its Board Advisers.

"As a companion for a journey across Russian history, this book is entertaining, clever and varied, brilliant at its best, and able to speak simultaneously and with authority to all kinds of students, general readers and specialists. Yet it has an eclectic air about it." (Slavonic and East European Review, 2 April 2011) "Read from cover to cover, A Companion to Russian History will be of enormous value to those who teach survey courses in Russian history, to graduate students preparing for comprehensive exams in Russian history, or simply anyone who wants to get current with trends in the field." (The Russian Review, 2010)"...Recommended as an up-to-date and well written guide to many important issues in Russian history, likely to be useful to everyone from senior school pupils to scholars seeking guidance in unfamiliar fields." (Reviews in History, April 2010)

• Notes on Contributors x1 Russian Historiography after the Fall 1Abbott GleasonPart I Rus′: The Early East Slavic World 152 From “Proto-Slavs” to Proto-State 17P. M. Barford3 The First East Slavic State 34Janet Martin4 Rus′ and the Byzantine Empire 51George Majeska5 The Mongols and Rus′: Eight Paradigms 66Donald OstrowskiPart II To Muscovy and Beyond 876 Muscovite Political Culture 89Nancy Shields Kollmann7 Slavery and Serfdom in Russia 105Richard Hellie8 Russian Art from the Middle Ages to Modernism 121Ilia A. Dorontchenkov(translated by Abbott Gleason)9 The Church Schism and Old Belief 145Nadieszda KizenkoPart III The Russian Empire 16310 Petrine Russia 165Lindsey Hughes11 The Westernization of the Elite, 1725–1800 180Gary Marker12 The “Great Reforms” of the 1860s 196Daniel Field13 Industrialization and Capitalism 210Thomas C. Owen14 The Question of Civil Society in Late Imperial Russia 225Christopher Ely15 Russia: Minorities and Empire 243Robert Geraci16 The Intelligentsia and its Critics 261Gary Saul Morson17 Russian Modernism 279Andrew Wachtel18 Russia’s Popular Culture in History and Theory 295Louise McReynolds19 The Russian Experience of the First World War 311Melissa StockdalePart IV The Soviet Union 33520 From the First World War to Civil War, 1914–1923 337Mark von Hagen21 The Woman Question in Russia: Contradictions and Ambivalence 353Elizabeth A. Wood22 Stalinism and the 1930s 368Lynne Viola23 The Soviet Union in the Second World War 386Nikita Lomagin(translated by Melissa Stockdale and Abbott Gleason)24 The Cold War 414David C. Engerman25 Old Thinking and New: Khrushchev and Gorbachev 429Robert English26 The End of the Soviet Union 451Robert V. DanielsPart V Whither Russia? 47127 Russia’s Post-Soviet Upheaval 473Bruce Parrott28 Russian History and the Future of Russia 490William E. OdomIndex 505