Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin (, born 6 February 1929 in
Vyatka) is a leading
Russian historian who has authored 700 books and articles. He has also edited a number of important journals and primary sources, including works on medieval Russian law,
sphragistics and
epigraphy,
archaeology and history. His expertise is medieval Rus' especially
Novgorod the Great, where he has headed archaeological digs beginning in 1962.
Early life
His maternal grandparents were arrested in 1937 and died in a prison camp in 1938. His father was apparently on a list to be executed but escaped this fate and moved with his family to Moscow. Yanin finished his secondary education in 1946, graduating with a Gold Medal; he matriculated at
Moscow State University in 1951.
Research
In 1954, he defended his
Kandidat thesis on the
monetary systems of pre-Mongol Rus. This was published as
The Monetary and Weight System of Medieval Russia («Денежно-весовые системы русского средневековья) and has become a classic. His doctoral thesis on the
posadniks of
Novgorod followed in
1962 and significantly changed our understanding of the constitution of the
Novgorod Republic.V. L. Yanin,
Novgorodskie Posadniki (Moscow: Moscow State University, 1962; reprinted Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kul'tury, 2003). The book demonstrated that the office of posadnik,...
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