Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin (russian: Валентин Лаврентьевич Янин; 6 February 1929 – 2 February 2020) was a leading

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n 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 Sigillography, also known by its Greek-derived name, sphragistics, is the scholarly discipline that studies the wax, lead, clay, and other seals used to authenticate archival documents. It investigates not only aspects of the artistic design a ...

and

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and history. His expertise was medieval Rus' especially

Novgorod the Great Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...

, 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 M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1951.

Research

In 1954, he defended his

Kandidat Candidate of Sciences (russian: кандидат наук, translit=kandidat nauk) is the first of two doctoral level scientific degrees in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. It is formally classified as UNESCO's ISCED level 8, "do ...

thesis on the

monetary system A monetary system is a system by which a government provides money in a country's economy. Modern monetary systems usually consist of the national treasury, the mint, the central banks and commercial banks. Commodity money system A commodity m ...

s 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

posadnik Posadnik (Cyrillic: посадник, (literally: по-садник - ''pre-sident'') was the mayor in some East Slavic cities or towns. Most notably, the posadnik (equivalent to a stadtholder, burgomeister, or podestà in the medieval west) was ...

s of

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...

followed in 1962 and significantly changed our understanding of the constitution of the

Novgorod Republic The Novgorod Republic was a medieval state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east, including the city of Novgorod and the Lake Ladoga regions of m ...

. The book demonstrated that the office of posadnik, while subject to election every year, was often held by one man for several consecutive years, sometimes more than a decade, and then passed on to his sons or other members of his clan. It shattered the earlier image of Novgorod as a more democratic republic and showed it to be ruled by a boyar aristocracy (not unlike other medieval republics). Yanin's monograph about the seals of Ancient Rus (2 volumes, 1970) summed up half a century of Soviet sphragistics research. After that, Yanin turned his attention to the

birch bark document Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and in variou ...

s of

, on which he was considered the greatest living authority (alongside

Andrey Zaliznyak Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak ( rus, Андре́й Анато́льевич Зализня́к, p=zəlʲɪˈzʲnʲak; 29 April 1935 – 24 December 2017) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, an expert in historical linguistics, accentology, dialect ...

Honours and Positions

In 1964, Yanin became professor in the department of archaeology in the Faculty of History at

. Since 1978, Yanin had held the chair in archaeology at the Moscow University. He was a member of the President's Committee for the Defence of the Material Culture of the Russian Federation and a member of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. In 1962, he was elected a corresponding member of the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

; he became a full academician in 1990. In 1999, he became the first historian to be awarded the

Lomonosov Gold Medal The Lomonosov Gold Medal (russian: Большая золотая медаль имени М. В. Ломоносова ''Bol'shaya zolotaya medal' imeni M. V. Lomonosova''), named after Russian scientist and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, is awarde ...

. His other awards included: * Order of Merit for the Fatherland 4th class *

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to th ...

Order of Friendship of Peoples The Order of Friendship of Peoples (russian: oрден Дружбы народов, translit=orden Druzhby narodov) was an order of the Soviet Union, and was awarded to persons (including non-citizens), organizations, enterprises, military unit ...

Medal "Veteran of Labour" The Medal "Veteran of Labour" (russian: медаль «Ветеран труда») was a civilian labour award of the Soviet Union established on January 18, 1974 by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to honour workers ...

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...

(1970) * Lenin Prize (1984) * Demidov Prize (1993) *State Prize of the Russian Federation (1996) *Triumph Prize (2002) *

Solzhenitsyn Prize The Solzhenitsyn Prize is a non-governmental Russian literary award established by the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1997. The $25,000 prize is awarded for "works in which troubles of the Russian life are shown with rare moral purity and ...

(2010). He was an honorary citizen of Novgorod the Great and an honorary member of the Novgorodian Society of Lovers of Antiquities. He died in Moscow on 2 February 2020 at the age of 90.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yanin Valentin 1929 births 2020 deaths 20th-century Russian historians Soviet historians Archaeologists from Moscow Soviet archaeologists Moscow State University alumni Moscow State University faculty Historians of Russia Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Demidov Prize laureates Solzhenitsyn Prize winners Lenin Prize winners Recipients of the USSR State Prize Recipients of the Lomonosov Gold Medal Recipients of the Order of Lenin