Two Dialogues About Rus' (26.10.2022)
A street dialogue between Vitalii Dribnytsia and a Russian-speaking interlocutor who claims to be well versed in the chronicles but cannot name either the author or the century of the chronicle he has supposedly read. Against this backdrop Dribnytsia explains where the name “Kyivan Rus’” came from, why a 9th-century city is not described through the lens of a “capital,” and why a 12th-century chronicler knew less about 10th-century events than their Byzantine contemporaries. The material supplements the analysis of the myth that “Kyivan Rus’ never existed.”
Key moments
- 07:25 The term 'Kyivan Rus'' was coined by Mykhailo Maksymovych, the first rector of Kyiv University (1830s)
- 11:01 In antiquity a city emerges over decades, not by decree; the difference between a city and a fortress
- 13:53 Suzdal is first mentioned in 1024, while Kyiv as a fortified city dates to the 8th–9th centuries
- 16:11 A 12th-century chronicler could not have known the events of the 10th century; the Byzantine contemporary (Leo the Deacon) knew more