Abstract:
The article addresses the problem of the "Cherven towns" from the point of view of the history of the Primary Chronicle of Rus‟. Instead of putting the mentions of these “towns” into the context of archaeological and parallel written sources, the author analyses them as an integral part of the narrative of the Kyivan chronicler, who worked in the beginning of the 12th century. It is argued that all the three mentions of the "Cherven towns" in the Primary Chronicle constitute a retrospective historical construction which has almost nothing to do with the real events of the end 10th – the first half 11th centuries.
