People and Cities: A Guide to Medieval Rus

Russian history is often told as either a succession of conquests and military triumphs or an unbroken chronicle of violence and oppression. But there is another way to look at the past.
The protagonists of this book are holy fools and saints, pilgrims and icon painters, as well as ordinary people who upheld freedom, compassion, and human dignity in the face of cruelty and indifference. Each chapter brings together the story of an individual and the city with which they are associated: Metropolitan Philip confronts the Tsar, Fevronia outwits the boyars of Murom, Stephen of Perm teaches respect for those who are different, and Simon Ushakov searches for a new visual language for icon painting.
In People and Cities, writer, poet, and journalist Ivan Davydov offers a guide to the often-overlooked world of pre-Petrine Rus'. The book is both an invitation to discover the richness of medieval Russian literature and culture and a meditation on what it means to remain human in inhuman times.

Ivan Davydov. People and Cities: A Guide to Medieval Rus'. — Moscow: Individuum, 2025.
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