Among the finest products of Kievan Rus literature were the Lives of the first Rus saints, including Olga, Volodimer, Boris and Gleb, Feodosij, and Avraamij of Smolensk. Drawing on Byzantine, Church Slavonic, and Western literary traditions, the Rus hagiographers fashioned religious narratives that were at once traditional and tailored specifically for an East Slavic audience. These hagiographic works are now collected and translated into English in a single volume for the first time. Paul Hollingsworth's introduction examines the hagiographers' literary portrayals of the saints against the background of political, ecclesiastical, and cultural developments of Kievan Rus.