Thomas Schaub Noonan (January 20, 1938 – June 15, 2001) was an American historian,

Slavicist Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was prim ...

and anthropologist who specialized in early

Russian history The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in 862, ruled by Varangians. Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became ...

and Eurasian nomad cultures. Educated at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

, Noonan was, for many years, a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of History at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. He was the author of dozens of books and articles and one of the leading authorities on the development of the

Kievan Rus Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern Europe, Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Hist ...

and the

Khazar The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

Khaganate A khaganate or khanate was a polity ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. That political territory was typically found on the Eurasian Steppe and could be equivalent in status to tribe, tribal chiefdom, principality, monarch ...

. Noonan placed a great deal of importance on

numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...

in understanding economic and social trends. He was the mentor of numerous scholars and leading historians. In 2001 many of his colleagues honored him by publishing the first of a multivolume collection of articles under the title "

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

in Honor of Thomas S. Noonan," which was edited by Roman K. Kovalev and Heidi M. Sherman. The second volume appeared in 2005. Noonan died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in 2001.

Selected bibliography

Kievan Rus and early Russia

*Noonan, Thomas S. ''The Nature of Medieval Russian-

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n Relations, 850-1015'' (1974). *Noonan, Thomas S. ''Medieval Russia, the Mongols, and the West: Novgorod's relations with the Baltic, 1100-1350'' (1975). *Noonan, Thomas S. ''Fifty Years of Soviet Scholarship on Kievan History: A Recent Soviet Assessment'' (1980). *Noonan, Thomas S. "The Circulation of

Byzantine Coins Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only i ...

in Kievan Rus" ''Byzantine Studies/Études Byzantines'' 7/2 (1980): 143-181. *Noonan, Thomas S. "Russia's Eastern Trade, 1150-1350: The Archaeological Evidence." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 3 (1983): 201-264. *Noonan, Thomas Schaub. "When Did Rus/Rus' Merchants First Visit Khazaria and Baghdad?" ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 7 (1987–1991): 213-219. *Noonan, Thomas S. ''The Islamic World,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and ...

.'' Variorium, 1998.

Khazar studies

*Noonan, Thomas S. "Did the Khazars Possess a Monetary Economy? An Analysis of the Numismatic Evidence." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 2 (1982): 219-267. *Noonan, Thomas S. "What Does Historical Numismatics Suggest About the History of Khazaria in the Ninth Century?" ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 3 (1983): 265-281. *Noonan, Thomas S. "Why Dirhams First Reached Russia: The Role of Arab-Khazar Relations in the Development of the Earliest Islamic Trade with

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 4 (1984): 151-282. *Noonan, Thomas S. "Khazaria as an Intermediary between Islam and Eastern Europe in the Second Half of the Ninth Century: The Numismatic Perspective." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 5 (1985): 179-204. *Noonan, Thomas S. "Byzantium and the Khazars: a special relationship?" ''Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies'', Cambridge, March 1990, ed.

Jonathan Shepard Jonathan Shepard is a British historian specialising in early medieval Russia, the Caucasus, and the Byzantine Empire. He is regarded as a leading authority in Byzantine studies and on the Kievan Rus. He specialises in diplomatic and archaeologica ...

and Simon Franklin, pp. 109–132. Aldershot, England: Variorium, 1992. *Noonan, Thomas S. "What Can Archaeology Tell Us About the Economy of Khazaria?" ''The Archaeology of the Steppes: Methods and Strategies - Papers from the International Symposium held in Naples 9–12 November 1992'', ed. Bruno Genito, pp. 331–345. Napoli, Italy: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1994. *Noonan, Thomas S. "The Khazar Economy." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 9 (1995–1997): 253-318. *Noonan, Thomas S. "The Khazar-Byzantine World of the Crimea in the Early Middle Ages: The Religious Dimension." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 10 (1998–1999): 207-230. *Noonan, Thomas S. "Les Khazars et le commerce oriental." ''Les Échanges au Moyen Age: Justinien, Mahomet, Charlemagne: trois empires dans l'économie médiévale'', pp. 82–85. Dijon: Editions Faton S.A., 2000. *Noonan, Thomas S. "The Khazar Qaghanate and its Impact on the Early Rus' State: The translatio imperii from Itil to Kiev." ''Nomads in the Sedentary World'', eds. Anatoly Khazanov and André Wink, pp. 76–102. Richmond, England: Curzon Press, 2001.

Selected bibliography

Kievan Rus and early Russia

Khazar studies

Further reading