In Search of the Black Death in Central Eurasia

The path, impact, and legacy of the Black Death in Central Eurasia has been understudied in the historiography, especially for the states of Central Eurasia and Eastern Europe, including Russia. For specialists on the history of Central Eurasia even the existence of the Black Death as a historical phenomenon has proven controversial. This paper builds upon recent work surveying the genetic history of plague (Little 2011) to revise not just our mapping of the path of the Black Death in Central Eurasia based upon fragmentary historical accounts. It then seeks to expand our understanding of the legacy of the Black Death in Central Eurasia by examining its impact on states, sedentary and nomadic populations, the economy, the sudden disappearance of literary languages, the rise of vernacular literary languages, and increased religiosity. This examination of the indirect consequences of the Black Death allows us to expand not only our understanding of the socio-economic and cultural legacy of the Black Death, but also the extent of its spread across Central Eurasia.