About Valentin Yanin
Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin (Russian: Валентин Лаврентьевич Янин; 6 February 1929 – 2 February 2020) was a leading Russian historian who authored 700 books and articles. He had also edited a number of important journals and primary sources, including works on medieval Russian law, sphragistics and epigraphy, archaeology and history. His expertise was medieval Rus' especially Novgorod the Great, where he had headed archaeological digs beginning in 1962. == Early life == Yanin was born in Vyatka. 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 Systems 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.
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