List of Russian historians

A

• Valery Alekseyev (1929-1991), anthropologist, proposed Homo rudolfensis
• Mikhail Artamonov (1898-1972), historian and archaeologist, founder of modern Khazar studies, excavated a great number of Scythian and Khazar kurgans and settlements, including the fortress of Sarkel
• Artemiy Artsikhovsky (1902-1978), archaeologist, discoverer of birch bark documents in Novgorod

B

• Vasily Bartold (1869-1930), turkologist, the "Gibbon of Turkestan", an archaeologist of Samarcand
• Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin (1829-1897), 19th-century historian and paleographer, founder of the Bestuzhev Courses for women
• Nikita Bichurin (1777-1853), a founder of Sinology, published many documents on Chinese and Mongolian history, opened the first Chinese-language school in Russia
• Boris Hessen (1893-1936), physicist who brought externalism into modern historiography of science

D

• Dmitry Ilovaysky (1832-1920), major 19th century anti-Normanist
• Igor Diakonov (1915-1999), historian and linguist, a prominent researcher of Sumer and Assyria
• Dimitri Obolensky (1918-2001), historian and Byzantinist

F

• Boris Farmakovsky (1870-1928), archaeologist of Ancient Greek colony Olbia
• Friedrich von Adelung (1768-1843), historian and museologist, researched the European accounts of the Time of Troubles

G

• Vladimir Golenishchev (1856-1947), egyptologist, excavated Wadi Hammamat, discovered over 6,000 antiquities, including the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, the Story of Wenamun, and various Fayum portraits
• Timofey Granovsky (1813-1855), a founder of mediaeval studies in Russia, disproved the historicity of Vineta
• Boris Grekov (1882-1953), prominent researcher of Kievan Rus' and Golden Horde
• Alexander V. Gordon (born 1937), prominent researcher of the French Revolution, Third world and Peasantry
• Vladimir Guerrier (1837-1919), historian of the French Revolution, founder of the Courses Guerrier for women
• Lev Gumilev (1912-1992), historian and ethnologist, prominent researcher of ancient Central Asian peoples, related ethnogenesis and biosphere, influenced the rise of Neo-Eurasianism

H

I

Igor Diakonov (1915-1999), historian and linguist, a prominent researcher of Sumer and Assyria

K

• Pyotr Kafarov (1817-1878), prominent sinologist, discovered many invaluable manuscripts, including The Secret History of the Mongols
• Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826), sentimentalist writer and historian, author of the 12-volume History of the Russian State, the principal early 19th-century account of national history
• Vasily Klyuchevsky (1841-1911), dominated Russian historiography at the turn of the 20th century, shifted focus from politics and society to geography and economy
• Alexander Kazhdan (1922-1997), Byzantinist, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
• Nikodim Kondakov (1844-1925), prominent researcher of Byzantine art
• Andrey Korotayev (born 1961), historian and anthropologist, a founder of cliodynamics, a prominent developer of social cycle theory

• Stanislaw Kuczera, (1928-2020), sinologist and archaeologist
• Nikolay Kun (1877-1940), historian, writer and educator
• Yelena Yefimovna Kuzmina (1931-2013), prominent researcher of prehistory of Indo-Aryan peoples

L

• Platon Levshin (1737-1812), president of the Most Holy Synod during the Age of Enlightenment, author of the first systematic course of the history of Russian Orthodox Church
• Nikolay Likhachyov (1862-1936), first and foremost Russian sigillographer, prominent also in a number of other auxiliary historical disciplines
• Aleksey Lobanov-Rostovsky (1824-1896), statesman, published the major Russian Genealogical Book
• Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), polymath scientist and artist, the first opponent of the Normanist theory, published an early account of Russian history

M

• Mikhail Artamonov (1898-1972), historian and archaeologist, founder of modern Khazar studies, excavated a great number of Scythian and Khazar kurgans and settlements, including the fortress of Sarkel
• Mykola Kostomarov (1817-1885), historian, folklorist and romantic writer, researched the differences between Great Russia and Little Russia and the history of Ukraine

  

• Pyotr Kozlov (1863-1935), explorer of Central Asia, discoverer of the ancient Tangut city of Khara-Khoto and Xiongnu royal burials at Noin-Ula

N

• Nikolay Danilevsky (1822-1885), ethnologist, philosopher and historian, a founder of Eurasianism, the first to present an account of history as a series of distinct civilisations

M

• Madhavan K. Palat (born 1947), since 1989 Professor of Russian and European History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India. Visiting Professor of Imperial Russian History at the University of Chicago (2006).
• Boris Marshak (1933-2006), excavated the Sogdian ruins at Panjakent
• Friedrich Martens (1845-1909), legal historian, drafted the Martens Clause of the Hague Peace Conference

  

• Vladimir Minorsky (1877-1966), prominent historian of Persia
• Yagutil Mishiev (born 1927), writer, author of books about the history of Derbent, Dagestan, Russia.
• Anatoly Moskvin (born 1966), linguist and historian, arrested in 2011 after the bodies of 26 mummified young women were discovered in his home.
• Gerhardt Friedrich Müller (1705-1783), co-founder of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explorer and the first academic historian of Siberia, a founder of ethnography, author of the first academic account of Russian history, put forth the Normanist theory
• Aleksei Musin-Pushkin (1744-1817), prominent collector of ancient Russian manuscripts, discovered The Tale of Igor's Campaign

O

• Dimitri Obolensky (1918-2001), Byzantine commonwealth researcher
• Alexey Okladnikov (1908-1981), prominent historian and archaeologist of Siberia and Mongolia

  

• Sergey Oldenburg (1863-1934), a founder of Russian Indology and the Academic Institute of Oriental Studies
• George Ostrogorsky (1902-1976), preeminent 20th century Byzantinist

P

• Avraamy Palitsyn (died 1626), 17th-century historian of the Time of Troubles
• Anna Pankratova (1897–1957), leading Soviet historian, educator and writer
• Evgeny Pashukanis (1891-1937), legal historian, wrote The General Theory of Law and Marxism
• Boris Piotrovsky (1908-1990), prominent researcher of Urartu, Scythia, and Nubia, long-term director of the Hermitage Museum
• Mikhail Piotrovsky (born 1944), orientalist, current director of the Hermitage Museum
• Mikhail Pogodin (1800-1875), leading mid-19th-century Russian historian, proponent of the Normanist theory
• Boris Polevoy (1918-2002), major historian of the Russian Far East
• Mikhail Pokrovsky (1868-1932), Marxist historian prominent in 1920s

  

• Natalia Polosmak (born 1956), archaeologist of Pazyryk burials, discoverer of Ice Maiden mummy
• Alexander Polovtsov (1832-1909), statesman, historian and Maecenas, founder of the Russian Historian Society
• Tatyana Proskuryakova (1909-1985), Mayanist scholar and archaeologist, deciphered the ancient Maya script

R

• Semyon Remezov (ca. 1642- after 1720), cartographer and the first historian of Siberia, author of the Remezov Chronicle
• Mikhail Rostovtsev (1870-1952), archeologist and economist, the first to thoroughly examine the social and economic systems of the Ancient World, excavated Dura-Europos
• Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), painter, archeologist, and public figure, explorer of Central Asia, initiator of the international Roerich’s Pact on protection of historical monuments
• Sergei Rudenko (1885-1969), discoverer of Scythian Pazyryk burials
• Boris Rybakov (1908-2001), historian and chief Soviet archaeologist for 40 years, primary opponent of the Normanist theory

  

S

• Dmitry Samokvasov (1843-1911), discoverer of Black Grave in Chernigov
• Viktor Sarianidi (1929-2013), discoverer of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex and the Bactrian Gold in Central Asia
• Mikhail Shcherbatov (1733-1790), a man of Russian Enlightenment, conservative historian
• Anatoly Pavlovich Shikman (born 1948), author of Figures of Russian History and other works.
• Sergey Solovyov (1820-1879), principal Russian 19th-century historian, author of the 29-volume History of Russia
• Vasily Struve (1889-1965), orientalist and historian of the Ancient World, put forth the Marxist theory of five socio-economic formations that dominated the Soviet education

T

• Yevgeny Tarle (1874-1955), author of the famous studies on Napoleon's invasion of Russia and on the Crimean War
• Vasily Tatischev (1686-1750), statesman, geographer and historian, discovered and published Russkaya Pravda, Sudebnik of 1550 and the controversial Ioachim Chronicle, wrote the first full-scale account of Russian history
• Mikhail Tikhomirov (1893-1965), leading specialist in medieval Russian paleography, published the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles
• Kamilla Trever (1892-1974), specialist in the history and culture of Transcaucasia and Central Asia
• Boris Turayev (1868-1920), author of the first full-scale History of Ancient East
• Peter Turchin (born 1957), population biologist and historian, coined the term cliodynamics

U

• Fyodor Uspensky (1845-1928), Byzantinist, researcher of the Trapezuntine Empire
• Aleksey Uvarov (1825-1884), founder of the first Russian archaeological society, discovered over 750 ancient kurgans

V

• Vasily Vasilievsky (1838-1899), prominent 19th century Byzantinist
• Alexander Vasiliev (1867-1953), author of a comprehensive History of the Byzantine Empire
• Nikolay Veselovsky (1848-1918), first to excavate Afrasiab (the oldest part of Samarkand), as well as the Solokha and Maikop kurgans in Southern Russia

  

• Viacheslav Petrovich Volgin, (1879–1962), historian of early communist systems

Y

• Nikolai Yadrintsev (1842-1894), discoverer of Genghis Khan's capital Karakorum and the Orkhon script of ancient Türks
• Valentin Yanin (1929-2020), primary researcher of ancient birch bark documents

Z

• Gennady Zdanovich (born 1938), discoverer of Sintashta culture settlement Arkaim
• Viktor Zemskov (1946-2015), researcher of political repression in the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1954

See also

Further reading

• Baron, Samuel H., and Nancy W. Heer. "The Soviet Union: Historiography Since Stalin." in Georg G. Iggers and Harold Talbot Parker, eds. International handbook of historical studies: contemporary research and theory (Taylor & Francis, 1979). pp 281–94.
• Boyd, Kelly, ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing vol 2. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1025–41. ISBN 9781884964336.
• Confino, Michael. "The New Russian Historiography and the Old—Some Considerations," History & Memory (2009) 21#2 doi:10.1353/ham.0.0027 in Project MUSE
• David-Fox, Michael et al. eds. After the Fall: Essays in Russian and Soviet Historiography (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2004)
• Eissenstat, Bernard W. "MN Pokrovsky and Soviet Historiography: Some Reconsiderations." Slavic Review 28.4 (1969): 604–618.
• Enteen, George M. The Soviet Scholar-Bureaucrat: MN Pokrovskii and the Society of Marxist Historians (Penn State Press, 1978).
• Kuzio, Taras. "Historiography and national identity among the Eastern Slavs: towards a new framework." National Identities 3.2 (2001): 109–132. online
• Sanders, Thomas, ed. Historiography of Imperial Russia: The Profession and Writing of History in a Multinational State (1999).
• Tillett, Lowell. The great friendship: Soviet historians on the non-Russian nationalities (U of North Carolina Press, 1969).
• Topolski, Jerzy. "Soviet Studies and Social History" in Georg G. Iggers and Harold Talbot Parker, eds. International handbook of historical studies: contemporary research and theory (Taylor & Francis, 1979. pp 295–300..