Dr. Russell Martin, associate professor of history at Westminster College, recently co-authored a book on Russian history.

"The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century: The Consular and Ceremonial Ranks of the Russian Sovereign's Court,' 1613-1713" was co-authored by Martin, Marshall Poe, Ol'ga Kosheleva, and Boris Morozov.

"It's a print version of an electronic database of Muscovite or medieval Russian elites who held the four highest court ranks, and who were the most important figures at the royal court after the tsar himself," Martin said.  "For generations, historians have not had a complete list of the names of persons who held these ranks.  The goal of the database project and this book was to provide a definitive list of names of everybody who was anybody at the ruler's court from the turn of the 16th century to the turn of the 17th century.

"The other important aspect of the database project is the fact that this was an academic joint venture' between American and Russian scholars, one of the first to form after the fall of the Soviet Union.  My Russian colleagues, Morozov and Kosheleva are leading scholars in Russia on medieval Muscovy.   The future looks bright, as well.  With a set of new partners, I am hoping to take the list of names and fill in their biographies with their personal, familial, religious, and economic activities.  I hope one day to have a comprehensive electronic biographical dictionary of the Muscovite elite.  But that lies many decades in the future."

Martin appeared on A&E Biography in a broadcast on Ivan the Terrible as an expert on the controversial ruler, and has been an expert witness in a Canadian civil trial about the Russian royal family.  He is the co-founder of the Muscovite Biographical Database, a Russian-American computerized register based in Moscow of early modern Russian notables.  The Neville Island, Pa., native is not only fluent in Russian, but also reads Old Church Slavonic/Russian, French, German, Latin, and Polish.

Martin, who has been with Westminster College since 1996, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

For more information, contact Martin at (724) 946-6254 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu

Dr. Russell Martin