SFENGUS – AN UNKNOWN TO ANNALS BROTHER OF VLADIMIR THE SAINT? "UKRAINIAN" VERSIONS

Abstract

The article is devoted to problems of structure of a ruling dynasty of the Ancient Russian state, possibility of existence in the tenth century not only the Rurikid, but also other Russian ruling clans, Chernigov's - in particular. Consideration of these questions is carried out on the basis of the analysis of the Ukrainian (and not only) historiography of a separate episode Ancient Rus’s foreign policy, covered at the Byzantium authors John Skylitzes and George Kedrenos: participation of Sfengus, "brother of Vladimir" in the Byzantium campaign to Crimea in 1016. Versions of Sfengus’s identification, put forward mainly by Chernigov and Bukovinian scholars are very diverse, original and, without repeating the hypothesis of the "patriarch" of the Ukrainian historical science M. Hrushevsky, find some parallels in modern Russian historiography on this problem.

Keywords

• ancient rus’
• sfengus
• ukrainian historiography
• genealogy
• skylitzes
• kotlyar
• shevchenko
• filipchuk