This article dedicated to the connections between Russian medieval art of bookmaking with the art of Southern Slavs, which infiltrated in Russia, coming from Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, through Walachia and Moldavia. In spite of influence of Southern Slavs' literature even in the times of the Conversion of Russia, or some episodes before the Mongolian invasion, the author strikes on the period, taken place from the end of the 14th century. In this period Ottomans' conquest of the territories of the Byzantine Empire and Balkans led to the emigration of some part of intellectual and artistic elite to the north - to Moldavia, Walachia, Southern and Northern Russia. The author mentions that not only oeuvres of those scribes and artists, but even creations, they took with themselves, were affecting actively on the one hand on the culture of books' writing and illustrating, and on the other hand on the development of different literary genres.