2026 Issue №2

Medieval and Scandinavian studies generally date the Viking Age to 793—1066, a period during which belligerent Scandinavians played a dominant role in the political and socio-economic life of various states. However, recent interdisciplinary research on Scandinavian society during the Early Middle Ages has expanded these chro­nological boundaries. An understanding of the criteria underlying different research approaches allows the chronological period of Scandinavian activity to be defined more precisely. This article aims to determine the chro­nological boundaries of the Viking Age through an integrated historical and cultural studies approach. Within the historical approach, using historical-genetic and comparative-historical methods and content analysis and drawing on a range of international medieval sources, the study identifies the features constituting the concept of ‘Vikings’ during their period of activity. Within the cultural studies approach, sources from the Modern period are used to reveal attri­butes constructed much later by nineteenth-century Romantic cultural figures. Identifying the properties of the concept of ‘Vikings’ makes it possible to determine the criteria used to define the chronological boundaries of the era. Viking military invasions, sea robberies, piracy and paganism serve as markers of the most active phase of Viking conquests of 793—1066. Other properties include the development of trade, religion, written culture, and political and social institutions, bridging the concepts of ‘Vikings’ and ‘Scandinavians’. This perspective expands the chronological boundaries of the Viking Age, framing it as an era stretching from the early eighth to the sixteenth century in accordance with different scholarly approaches. The conclusion highlights the artificial nature of such historical-chronological constructs as the Viking Age and emphasises the need for a balanced differentiation or integration of two approaches to the concepts of ‘Vikings’ and ‘the Viking Age’.

This article examines the formation of the Bug-Holländers community in Polesia in the context of migration processes in Central and Eastern Europe. The Holländers were a special category of the farmer population of Royal Prussia and other regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) who enjoyed a special social and legal status. In Belarusian Polesia, representatives of this category of farmer population were known as the Bug-Holländers. This contribution details the arrival of the Holländers in Royal Prussia in the 16th and early 17th centuries, focusing on their status. The reasons and conditions for the resettlement of Prussians to Polesia, namely the Brest-Litovsk Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the 17th century are highlighted in the context of the internal colonisation by the Holländer, with a chronological framework provided for the emergence of the Bug-Holländer community. The study identifies the role of the Protestant Count Raphael Leszczynski in the resettling the Holländers from the territory of Royal Prussia and analyses the text of the 1624 privilege bestowed on the settlers.

As a combination of personnel, weapons and equipment, the organisational structure of units and formations reflects their combat capability. This structure, laid down in documents such as organisation and equipment tables, reveals how the military leadership views a specific unit at a specific point in time. Rifle forces constituted the main part of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Before the war, rifle forces consisted of rifle divisions consolidated into rifle corps of two or three divisions. Their organisational structure was reformed shorty before the war in response to the availability of new weapons the army and the experience of armed conflicts of the late 1930s. The unsuccessful start of the Great Patriotic War led to the rapid depletion of some military resources. This made it necessary to adapt the organisational structure of infantry to the requirements of the time in order to counter the German army in an adequate manner. This work aims to consider the main factors determining changes in the organisational structure of rifle forces from the beginning of the war until the end of 1941. Using historical-­genetic and historical-comparative methods, the article determines the main milestones in the development of the infantry organisational structure at the beginning of the war and identifies its main features. It is concluded that the problem of maintaining the combat readiness of rifle troops at the beginning of the war was extremely acute for the Soviet leadership, as manifested in a significant number of changes made during the first six months of the war.