1. The existing literature on seventeenth-century Russia is sparse, for that period is perhaps the least studied in Russian history. Research has focussed largely on the elite in recent years (Richard Hellie, Enserfrnent and Military Change in Muscovy, Chicago, 1971; and
2. Robert O. Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors: the Boyar Elite in Russia 1613–1689, Princeton, NJ, 1973, and the forthcoming work of P. V. Sedov and A. P. Pavlov), an area with major military implications. The story of the Russian Army before Peter is the same, the most basic works being A. S. Grishin-skii, N. L. Klado, V. P. Nikol’skii, Istoriia russkoi armii i flota 15 vols., Moscow, 1911–13, vol. 1, and
3. A. V. Chernov, Vooruzhenye sily Russkogo gosudarstva v XV-XVII vu, Moscow, 1954. The English reader will find useful
4. Robert I. Frost, After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War 1655–1660, Cambridge, 1993, as well as the recent work of
5. Carol Belkin Stevens, Soldiers on the Steppe: Army Reform and Social Change in Early Modern Russia, DeKalb, Illinois, 1995, and W. M. Reger IV, “In the Service of the Tsar: European Mercenary Officers and the Reception of Military Reform in Russia 1654–1667,” doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997.