Siege of Dorostolon
For three months in 971 Sviatoslav’s army held out in the Danubian fortress of Dorostolon against John I Tzimiskes and a Byzantine fleet armed with Greek fire; after a last battle on 22 July he made peace and left Bulgaria.
- Date
- 23 April 971 – July 971start: exact date; end: month known · duration: ≈ 3 monthsDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Dorostolontoday: Silistra, Bulgaria · Balkans and Anatolia
- Participants
- Sviatoslav I, Kievan Rus’, Byzantine Empire
- Threads
- Eastern Europe and Rus’ before the Baptism (1st–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Battle of Dorostolon; Treaty of 971; Silistra 971; Договор 971 года
The Byzantine army arrived on 23 April, and around 25 April three hundred ships closed the Danube. In several battles before the walls the Rus’ fought on foot behind a dense wall of shields; their commander Sphengel and the noble Ikmor fell, and the Rus’ displayed on a tower the head of the emperor’s kinsman John Kourkouas. At a council on 21 July Sviatoslav chose to fight rather than flee, and on 22 July he led his men out for the last time; after a hard struggle, whose outcome Leo the Deacon ascribes to St Theodore Stratelates, the Rus’ fell back.
Under the treaty of July 971, whose text survives in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav swore never to attack the empire, Cherson or Bulgaria and received provisions for his men. Leo the Deacon left a famous portrait of the prince at his meeting with the emperor on the Danube: of medium height, blue-eyed, his head shaven except for a lock of hair on one side, with a gold earring, dressed in plain white.
Connections
Consequences
- Death of Sviatoslav at the Dnieper rapids972 · Eastern Europe
Part of
- Sviatoslav’s invasion of Bulgariabetween 967 and 968 – July 971 · Balkans and Anatolia
Same participants
- Battle of the Gates of Trajan17 August 986 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire
Same place
- Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382 · Balkans and Anatolia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Baptism of Poland14 April 966
- Imperial coronation of Otto I2 February 962
- Battle of Lechfeld10–12 August 955
- Hugh Capet becomes King of the FranksMay 987 – 3 July 987
Eastern Europe
- Death of Sviatoslav at the Dnieper rapids972
- Pecheneg siege of Kyiv968
- Sviatoslav’s campaign against the Khazars964 – between 968 and 969
- Feud of the Sviatoslavichi977 – between 978 and 980
- Vladimir’s pagan pantheonbetween 978 and 980
+ 8 events
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Siege of Dorostolon
- Wikipedia (Russian): Оборона Доростола
- The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century / Transl. A.-M. Talbot, D. F. Sullivan. — Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2005.
- Лев Диакон. История / Пер. М. М. Копыленко; коммент. М. Я. Сюзюмова, С. А. Иванова. — М.: Наука, 1988.
- Wikidata: Q737655