Paphlagonian expedition of the Rus'

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The Paphlagonian expedition of the

Rus'–Byzantine War (860)
.

Expedition

The expedition is documented in the Life of Saint

Propontis (probably aiming for Constantinople) before turning east and raiding Paphlagonia some time after the death of St. George (ca. 806). When they fell upon the city of Amastris, the intercession of St. George helped the inhabitants to survive the raid. This is held by many to be the earliest written record of the migration of the Rus' into southeastern Europe. It is only according to late and dubious accounts that the Rus' would have reached Byzantine borders before the Paphlagonian expedition. Notably, the 15th century Slavonic Life of St. Stephen of Sugdaea records the invasion led by a certain Bravlin
of the Rus', who supposedly devastated Crimea in the 790s, but this does not feature in the ancient Greek recension of the work.

Date of the expedition

Dating the Life is of paramount importance for dating the Paphlagonian expedition. Unfortunately the source or parts of it have been variously ascribed to the 9th or 10th centuries, and the question still seems to be far from being settled.

860 raid.[5] Others still, including the same Vasiliev in his later production, argued for an even later composition of the Life and accordingly held the account of the Paphlagonian raid to echo the 941 attack
. This is little more than an unverifiable guess, however, and a rather facile one, given that the work is transmitted by a single 10th-century manuscript.

See also

References

General
  • Vasily Vasilievsky. Русско-византийские исследования. St. Petersburg, 1893.
  • George Vernadsky. The Problem of the Early Russian Campaigns in the Black Sea Area. // American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Feb., 1949), pp. 1-9.
  • Andrey Sakharov
    . Дипломатия древней Руси: IX - первая половина X в. Moscow, 1980.
  • Efthymiadis St. On the Hagiographical Work of Ignatius the Deacon. // Jahrbuch Österreichischer Byzantinistik, 1991, 41, pp. 73-83.
Inline
  1. ^ "Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database" (PDF). 1998. p. 43. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2017-03-10.
  2. ^ A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, French Ed. H. Grégoire/M. Canard 1. Brussels 1935, 184 n5 and 241–245.
  3. ^ C. Zuckerman, Deux étapes dans la formation de l'ancien état russe, in: M. Kazanski/A. Nercessian/Id. (edd.), Les centres proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient. Réalités byzantines, 7. Paris 2000, 95–121, here 101 f.
  4. ^ Treadgold W. Three Byzantine Provinces and the First Byzantine Contacts with the Rus' // Proceedings of the International Congress Commemorating the Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine (Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12/13, 1988/1989) / Eds. O. Pritsak, I. Sevcenko. Cambridge Mass., 1990, 132-144.
  5. ^ Markopoulos A. La Vie de Saint Georges d'Amastris et Photius. // Jahrbuch Österreichischer Byzantinistik, 1979, 28, pp. 75-82.

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