The Chronicon Bruxellense does not simply provide useful information on the date of the date (year, month, and day) of the Rus’ attack on the Constantinople (18 June 860), but is crucial for a deeper understanding of nature of this chronicle and his sources. The article reveals important details about the date and structure of the Chronicon Bruxellense. It also offers his sources of description of Rus’ raid and identifies George Monachus Continuatus’s chronicle as the principal model. By seeking to construction the victory over the Rus’, his anonymous author presents as a skilled compiler. This paper engages with recent discussion on the first attack of Rus’ on the Constantinople, while also contributing to the renewed interest in the reception of the Chronicon Bruxellense in the late Byzantine literature.

The present article analyzes Kekaumenos’ commentary on the service of Harald Sigurdsson in the Byzantine army. Special attention is given to the composition of Consilia et Narrationes and the historiographic perception of this text. It then discusses Kekaumenos’ commentary in light of Harald’s adventures in the Haralds saga Siguðarsonar and the story about the attacks of Rus’ in the Byzantine literature. The author attempts to show that Constantine IX Monomachos tried to leave the large groups of mercenaries in Constantinople. Furthermore, the emperor’s attitude to Harald and his warriors was related to the events of Russo-Byzantine war in 1043. Constantine IX Monomachos dispersed these mercenaries into the themes. John Scylitzes wrote that the emperor put a guard over them to prevent them from inciting a rebellion. These arrests could explain Harald’s mysterious detention in the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos. It is possible to conclude that Harald’s detention was caused by the Russo-Byzantine war in 1043.

Book review of Christian Raffensperger. Ties of Kinship: Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus'. Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 2016. Distributed by Harvard UP. Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies. x, 414 pp. Tables. Notes. Works Cited. Index.$49.95, cloth.

Byzantium and the Viking World Mathias BäckBirka and the archaeology of remotion: early medieval pottery from Byzantium and beyond in eastern Scandinavia .

The article discusses the function of memory of saint Theodore Stratelates as a protector on the battlefield in the Rus’-Byzantine wars. A thorough analysis of the evidence found in the Life of Saint Basil the Younger, History of Leo the Diacon, Synopsis of John Skylitzes and the Rus’ian Primary Chronicle leads us to conclude that Theodore Stratelates’ memory was created after the attack of Rus’ on the Constantinople in 941 and the campaign of John Tzimisces against the Rus’ in 971. The comparison of sources (the Life of Saint Basil the Younger and the Rus’ian Primary Chronicle) carried out by the author enables to think that the strategos Theodore in the narrative of the Life of Saint Basil the Younger was a saint. The study of both cases shows that the war of emperor John Tzimisces with the Rus’ of Svjatoslav the Glorious changed the geography of the cult of Theodore Stratelates. The attention is paid to the sources of two Byzantine narratives (the History of Leo the Diacon and a Synopsis of John Skylitzes) about the role of Theodore Stratelates in the battlefield at Dorostolon. As such the renaming of Dorostolon to Theodoropol became part of the military ideology of emperor John Tzimisces, being its apology of the cult of Theodore Stratelates in this land. This gives some grounds for assuming that this change of the geography of the cult in Dorostolon greatly influenced later chroniclers such as author of the Rus’ian Primary Chronicle.