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The Problem of the Early Russian Campaigns in the Black Sea Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

George Vernadsky
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Extract

Constantinople—“the Imperial City” (Tsargrad), as the Russians used to call it—with its riches and splendor, its churches and palaces, fired the imagination of many a “Barbaric people of the North,” and following in the wake of the Huns, the Avars, and the Bulgars, the Russians in their turn were eventually attracted by her. Out of their wars and commerce with the Byzantines there gradually developed a deeper cultural intercourse between the two nations, and it is the Byzantine form of Christianity which became the foundation of the Russian Church.

The first Russian attack on Constantinople took place in 860. Both the fact itself and the date are firmly established by evidence available in which Patriarch Photius's two homilies occupy a prominent place.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 1949 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1949

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References

1 Vasiliev, A. A., The Russian Attack on Constantinople in 860 (Cambridge, Mass.: the Mediaeval Academy of America, 1946)Google Scholar; subsequently referred to as Vasiliev, Attack.The date of the attack has been established by Cumont, F. in Anecdota Bruxellensia, ed. Cumont, F. (1894), I, 33 Google Scholar.

2 Prudentius, Annales, ed. Pertz, MGH, Scriptores (1826), I, 434. See also Vernadsky, G., Ancient Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), pp. 270 and 307 Google Scholar.

3 V. G. Vasilievsky's preliminary study on the Life of St. George of Amastris first appeared in Žurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveščenija in 1878; that on the Life of St. Stephen of Surož, in the same Žurnal in 1889; these two studies and the texts of the two “Lives” were then published, under the title “Russko-Vizantijskie issledovanija: Žitija svv. Georgija Amastridskogo i Stefana Surožskogo,” in Letopis’ Zanjatij Arkheografičeskoj Komissii, Vol. IX (1893); posthumously revised and republished in Vasilievsky, , Trudy, Vol. III (Petrograd, 1915)Google Scholar; I have used this final edition, hereafter referred to as Vasilievsky, Trudy, III.

4 See Kunik, A. A., Die Berufung der Schwedischen Rodsen (St. Petersburg, 1845), II, 343-48Google Scholar; idem., “Der Raubzug und die Bekehrung eines Russenfürsten nach der Biographie des Bischofs Georg von Amastris,” Bulletin de la Classe Historico-Philologique de l'Académic Imperiale de St. Petersbourg, III, No. 3 (1845), 33–48; idem., “O Zapiske Gotskogo Toparkha,” Zapiski Akademii Nauk, XXIV, No. 1 (1874), 97-116. See also Vasilievsky, , Trudy, III, v Google Scholar.

5 Archbishop Philaret (Filaret), istorija Russkoj Cerkvi (2d ed.; Moscow, 1857), I, 8 (inaccessible to me; quoted by Vasilievsky, Trudy, III, VI); W. von Gutzeit, “Ueber die Lebensgeschichte des heil. Georgios von Amastris,Bulletin de l' Académic Impériale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, Vol. XXVII (1881). See also Vasiliev, , Attack, pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

6 Grégoire, H., “La Légende d'Oleg et l'expédition d'Igor,” Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres de l'Académie Royale de Belgique, XXIII (1937), 80–94.Google Scholar

7 Grégoire, H., “Le Glosel Khazar,” Byzantion, XII (1937), 225-66.Google Scholar

8 Grégoire, H., “La Vision de Constantin liquidée,” Byzantion, XIV (1939), 341-51.Google Scholar

9 G. Ostrogorsky, “L'Expédition du prince Oleg contre Constantinople en 907,” Annales de l'Institut Kondakov, XI (1940), 47-62. Even before the appearance of this volume of the Annales, Grégoire, using a reprint of Ostrogorsky's article, published his answer to Ostrogorsky: H. Grégoire, “Réponse a l'article de M. Ostrogorsky,” Byzantion, XIV (1939), 379-80. In my opinion, Grégoire failed to refute Ostrogorsky's conclusions.

10 Vasiliev, , Attack, p. 76.Google Scholar

11 See Byzantion, XV (1940-41), 231.

12 Vasiliev, , Attack, pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

13 G. da Costa-Louillet, “Y Eut il des invasions russes dans l'Empire Byzantin avant 860?” Byzantion, XV (1940-41), 248; subsequently referred to as Da Costa.

14 Vasiliev, , Attack, p. 80.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. and n. 35.

16 Da Costa, p. 244.

17 Beljaev, N. T., “Rorik Jutlandskij i Rjurik načal'noj letopisi, Seminarium Kondakovianum. III (1929), 220.Google Scholar

18 On this point see also Vasiliev, Attack p. 79 and n. 33.

19 Da Costa, p. 245.

20 Ibid., p. 246.

21 Ibid., p. 247.

22 Vasiliev, , Attack, p. 85.Google Scholar

23 See ibid., p. 86, and Da Costa, p. 247.

24 Vasilievsky, , Trudy, III, CXXX Google Scholar.

25 Vasiliev, , Attack, p. 86.Google Scholar

26 Attaliates, M., Historia, ed. Bekker, I. (Bonn, 1853), p. 20.Google Scholar