For the first time in historiography, the article analyses the descriptions of the people Romaioi (Romans), designated as “Greeks”, in the original (“non-translated”) Old Rus’ literature of the 11^th–12^th centuries. The Greeks are depicted by Old Rus’ authors as bearers of high culture, endowed with exceptional spiritual (primarily true Orthodox faith and uniquely beautiful rituals) and material values. A typical Greek is characterised by possessing unique knowledge, skills, and technologies, such as philosophy, rhetoric, wine-making, healing, and icon painting. Greeks serve as teachers whose evaluation of the achievements of the “new Christian” people, Rus’, is exceedingly important. At the same time, Greeks frequently employed their skills for nefarious purposes which instils distrust in Rus’ regarding them and their matters: they use philosophy and rhetoric for deception and manipulation, wine for poisoning, and so on. The ambivalence surrounding the Old Rus’ ethnic stereotype of a Greek reflects the complex duality in the relationship between the peoples of Rus’ and the Romaioi, who were, on the one hand, co-religionists and often allies, yet on the other hand, just as frequently military opponents and competitors in various realms.

The concept of physical space as an abstract expanse was neither articulated nor conceptualized, indicating that it was alien to the mentality of medieval Icelanders. The lexemes associated with the concept of space depict it as limited, comprising distinct areas and inherently inhabited: heimr ‘abode, land; the region of the world or sky’ and rúm ‘room, space; a room, seat, place’. More specific were the designations of certain sections of the space: land ‘land’ and staðr ‘a stead, place, abode’. The most important aspect of all these spaces was their association with human or mythological beings. The conception of ‘boundary’ was predominantly practical; it was related to the demarcation of land property and, due to its significance, was represented by a number of terms: mörk (also a [border] forest), landamæri, landamörk, endimörk (edge). The dimensions of local spaces, their length, and the distances between specific geographical objects were defined by days of travel; that is, the distance was measured by the ‘human factor’. The space was thus perceived as being anthropomorphic. Familiarisation with a new area of space was, in some instances, accompanied by its domestication, which was achieved through various means. The most significant way to appropriate a piece of space was by assigning names to it and to the objects contained within it. In the domesticated space of the north-western part of Eastern Europe, Old Norse designations of the region and its centres predominated, whereas, in the ‘alien’ space, most place names were transliterations of local names. The domesticated space was organised through centres of power and their contraposition to the periphery (the opposition inni : úti).

The paper focuses on the issue of genre classification of the Old Icelandic saga. The saga is a unique genre of literature and is divided into several subgenres which various scholars define differently. Typically, scholarship employs traditional schemes based on thematic and chronological principles; it differentiates between the “kings’ sagas” dedicated to the history of Norway from ancient times until the end of the 13^th century; “family sagas” that recount the history of Icelandic families from the settlement of Iceland in the late 9^th century; “sagas of ancient times” which narrate events in Scandinavia up to the end of the 9^th century; “bishops’ sagas,” meaning biographies of Icelandic bishops; a collection of sagas detailing events in Iceland during the 12^th and 13^th centuries known as the “Sturlunga saga”; along with “chivalric sagas,” which are prose retellings of chivalric romances and similar indigenous Scandinavian sagas; biographies of saints; and translations of historical and pseudo-historical literature. Simultaneously, there exists a categorisation of sagas into the “sagas of modern times,” “sagas of the past,” and “sagas of antiquity.” Since the end of the last century, saga scholars have actively employed M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of the “chronotope” – the unity of temporal and spatial relations reflected in literature – to discuss the genre characteristics of the sagas. Using the example of the “sagas of ancient times”, and in particular “Yngvars saga viðfǫrla”, the author demonstrates that the “chronotope” as such is an insufficient basis for creating a functioning classification of saga sub-genres. The author argues that sagas are inherently complex in their internal organisation since their defining characteristic is “hybridity”, which emerges from individual sagas’ combining the distinctive features of subgenres traditionally classified in preceding scholarship.

The Icelandic genealogies which have come down to us through medieval narrative sources, primarily in family sagas and Landnámabók, possess a formalised structure. In the texts, they are presented in the form of ahnentafel. There are very few single-line genealogical lists (only ascending or descending) in the sources; in most instances, they consider relatives from both the male and female lines. The order of transition from one genealogical line to another in generational lists was strictly regulated; various verbs were employed to describe the change in the count of kinship (heita, vera, and eiga in the preterite). The analysis conducted in the article revealed that the verb heita was used to refer to individuals who, as a general rule, lived during the time of the saga’s action (or – in the case of Landnámabók – the island’s settlement) as they participated in the development of its plot; conversely, those who lived prior to the saga’s events were designated by the verb vera. Consequently, these two verbs can serve as additional chronomarkers to illuminate both the time of recording of the ahnentafel and the time of action in the sagas.

The article explores the spatial and temporal coordinates of the narrative in five Old English hagiographies of the Virgin Martyr Juliana (by Cynewulf, 8^th – 9^th centuries), the Virgin Martyrs Agatha and Agnes (by Ælfric Grammaticus, late 10^th century), the Holy Bishop Nicholas of Myra, and the ascetic Hermit Aegidius (anonymous, 11^th century). There are three types of coordinates that determine the genre specifics of the work: the earthly world, the sacred (biblical) world, and the transcendent world. In the life of the Holy Bishop, the earthly realm takes precedence over the other two, reflecting the nature of his activities and power. The life of the ascetic Hermit significantly references Gospel events and his connections to the transcendent world. In the lives of the Martyred Virgins, the transcendent world is emphasized, while earthly coordinates are diminished, and biblical allusions serve an enlightening role. In the poetic life of the Virgin Martyr Juliana, the influence of the Germanic mythoepic tradition is evident, manifesting in the episation and hyperbolisation of descriptions through the use of heroic-epic motifs and phraseology.

The article argues that the Chronicle poems depict not only events, such as victories over enemies or coronations or deaths of rulers, but also their spatiotemporal coordinates, presented in inextricable interdependence. The Chronicle poems, as demonstrated in the article, integrate various methods of measuring time: absolute calendar time based on the birth of Christ (Anno Domini); sacral time linking events to Church feasts; relative time assessed by the reign of a monarch from his accession to the throne until his death; genealogical time rooted in the dynastic names of the ruler and his ancestors; and spatial time defined by the use of the chronotope. In the Battle of Brunanburh, the chronotope broadens the spatiotemporal perspective, evaluating the victory on a universal scale. In the Capture of the Five Boroughs, the chronotope legitimises the acquisition of new space and the return of ancestral lands, ensuring long-lasting glory for the subject of praise. In the poem about the Coronation of Edgar, the chronotope establishes a parallel between the coronation of an earthly monarch and the consecration of the head of the Church, thereby affirming the king’s dominion over a sacred space. The chronotope of the poem about the Death of Edgar acquires apocalyptic symbolism, establishing the spatiotemporal determinacy of natural cataclysms and disasters within the kingdom by the king’s death. In the poem on the Death of Alfred, the chronotope is imbued with allusive functions that contrast the past greatness of the nation with its treacherous present. The chronotope in the poem concerning the Death of Edward presents a contrast between the fleeting, temporary power over terrestrial space, which is handed down to a worthy successor (Harold Godwinson), and the promise of eternal salvation in the heavenly kingdom. The study of the chronotope in the poems of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as conducted in the article, sheds light on the perception of time and space acquisition in medieval England.

The article examines the chronotope features of the scenes that depict waiting for Doomsday in Old English Christian epic. Addressing this theme in a poetic work involved portraying future events, which was atypical for epic narration, as its fundamental subject was depicting the idealised past. The violation of the “epic distance” by evaluating the described events from an external perspective could occur in the heroic epic of the Anglo-Saxons. This paper demonstrates that the Christian epic employs not only the ability to assess events but also combines different temporal layers and describes the future in more concrete terms than the heroic epic while incorporating the present – that is, the time of the narration – into the narrative perspective. This change in chronotope differentiates Christian epic from heroic epic, allowing for the distinction of the former as a separate genre, particularly in the light of the ambiguous boundaries between genres within Old English poetic tradition.

The article explores three miniatures illustrating the myth of Zeus’s birth on the island of Crete, sourced from three different Greek manuscripts. The original image is located in the 11^th-century Byzantine manuscript containing the ancient text of the didactic poem on hunting, the Cynegetica, by Oppian of Apamea from the third century A.D. The second miniature, a copy, is located in the 16^th-century Renaissance Italian manuscript by the Venetian scribe Bartolomeo Zanetti. The third miniature, which was copied in Paris in 1554 by an anonymous miniaturist (collaborating with the renowned Cretan calligrapher Angelo Vergecio) from an Italian version, radically transforms the artistic approach of the protograph. As a result, the miniature of the Parisian manuscript becomes a true cartoid, incorporating elements of the actual geography of Crete and the major cities during Venice’s domination over the island into its mythological space. The Byzantine image is transformed into a Renaissance mini-masterpiece.

The paper examines the functions of the categories of space and time in the Western European travel literature of the 13^th – 15^th centuries. Although space and time are primary coordinates of any voyage, they are manifested in different forms depending on the specific genre of travel notes and, more importantly, on the “cultural role’ assumed by the author, which determines the modality of their narrative. Thus, within missionary accounts, merchants’ notes, chronicles of the Crusades, and pilgrims’ diaries, these categories exhibit distinctive characteristics. An analysis of the works of Odorico da Pordenone, Giovanni da Piano del Carpini, William of Rubruck, Marco Polo, Geoffroi de Villehardouin, Jean de Joinville, Niccolò da Poggibonsi, and other authors of travel literature demonstrates that numerous distinct means of representing space and time exist in medieval travel literature. They are determined by the author’s aims, social status and education, and the audience to whom the work is directed.

The article examines the topos of the “other world” in two versions of the 13th-century Old French poem “La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne”, which is part of the cycle concerning the First Crusade. The typologically early version “Elioxe” refers to a relatively specific location of the kingdom of the father of the Swan Knight; at the same time, the space from which the hero’s mother originates – specifically, a mountain where a fountain is situated – possesses the attributes of the “other”, wondrous world. The action of the poem “Béatrix”, which developed at a later stage in the plot’s existence, conversely unfolds in a remarkable world – a fairy-tale kingdom on an island surrounded by the sea. The article shows the semantic proximity of locations such as a mountain (at the foot of which a river or a fountain can be found and on the summit of which a castle can be situated) and an island (on which a mountain or a castle is located). The author of the article complements her analysis by examining the plot of Melusine, which emerged around the same time as the “plot of the Swan Knight” and shares several plot parallels with it, as well as the Arthurian novels that feature the topos of the “other world”, including a description of both a mountain and an island. The choice of one of the options for embodying the topos of the “other world” relies on the setting of the action: whether it occurs in the sacred realm itself or at the boundary between the “other” and conditionally “historical” worlds. In the poem “Elioxe”, the mother of the Swan Knight, having descended from the mountain, leaves the “other” space and marries a mortal. In the poem “Béatrix”, which represents a relatively late stage in the existence of the “plot of the Swan Knight”, both the hero and his parents are endowed with a sacred nature, and the “other world” is depicted as an island on which the royal castle and other significant locations for the plot are situated.