The Truth of History in the Graffiti on the Fresco of St. Sophia of Kyiv: a New Reading of the Most Ancient Inscriptions

Abstract

The article, in the context of the author’s proposal of new dating of St. Sophia of Kyiv to the years of 1011–1018, focuses on the conceptual problem of the apogee of the development of ancient Rus-Ukraine. It is argued that this historical phenomenon is characteristic of the era of Volodymyr the Great, rather than Yaroslav the Wise, which was only a “weakened copy” of his father’s reign. To support this argument, the article analyzes the oldest Sophia graffiti from 1015 and 1019. A new reading of these graffiti using the method of a complex causal approach has made it possible to more clearly understand and objectively perceive the specific historical situation, which was falsified in the annals, and to bring it to life. In the altar part of the cathedral, the graffiti, previously considered to be the inscriptions of Volodymyr (Vasyliy) Monomakh and his contemporary Metropolitan Nikephoros and dated to the beginning of the 12th century, have been re-attributed. The author argues that these graffiti are 100 years older and are the autographs of Volodymyr (Vasyliy) the Great and his contemporary, the Byzantine general Archon Nikephoros Xiphias, created in 1014–1015 to commemorate the Belasytsia victory of Basil II with the help of Volodymyr’s troops in Bulgaria. This is the oldest authentic evidence of the existence of Sophia of Kyiv at that time as an already-built and frescoed temple that Volodymyr aimed to complete before his death. The existence of Sophia in the second decade of the 11th century is also confirmed by the author’s previously attributed graffiti of the “Olisava group” of 1019. These were preserved in the princely choirs of the cathedral, which belonged to Princess Olisava, the mother of Sviatopolk I, and his entourage, as well as the Metropolitan of Kyiv Ioann I. The graffiti left by the soldiers of the Novgorod official Kosniatyn Dobrynych on the walls of the cathedral’s open galleries also date back to the same year. The graffiti of 1019 record the end of the princely feud of 1015–1019 and the arrival of Yaroslav from Novgorod to power in Kyiv. Therefore, all the avalyzed graffiti are reliable epigraphic documents that testify to the emergence of Sophia of Kyiv in 1011–1015 and shed light on the course of historical events and the formation of national culture.