The literature on meromorphic functions 1 is very large. There is a comprehensive survey [62] that contains everything that was reviewed on the topic in the Soviet "Referativnyi Zhurnal" in 1953-1970, and a later large survey [67]. More recent surveys [30], [80] and [48] are shorter and have narrower scope. Some books on specific topics in the theory of meromorphic functions published after 1970 are [18], [20], [79], [100], [137], [134], [138], [162]. A survey of the fast developing subject of iteration of meromorphic functions is [7]. Here we give a short survey of some results which are closely related to the problems considered in this book. Thus we do not include many important topics, like geometric theory of meromorphic functions, iteration, composition, differential and functional equations, normal families, Borel and Julia directions, uniqueness theorems, and most regrettably, holomorphic curves and quasiregular mappings.