Talk:Timeline of Kyiv

Dating discrepancies
I'm trying to sort out when who captured Kyiv and in which order. We should avoid WP:SYNTH. Just because Magocsi (2010) says Roman the Great took Kyiv in 1200 and that Rurik Rostislavich took it back in 1203, doesn't mean that the Encyclopedia of Ukraine's (1993) reporting of 'In 1204 he [=Roman] captured Kyiv' constituted a 'recapture', and should be read as 'recaptured'. That is ignoring what the text says; as far as the Encyclopedia is concerned, this was the only capture, otherwise we could expected it to have been phrased differently. The sources could differ in their dating of the same events and not be in line. This is almost certainly the case, because Magocsi (2010) dates the sack of Kyiv by Rurik to 1203, and Baedeker (1914) to 1204. If it happened twice, and the city changed hands multiple times, they would probably have said so. What I think is most likely is that Roman captured Kyiv in 1200 or 1203, and that Rurik took it back in 1203 or 1204, and that Roman never recaptured it before he was killed in 1205, because none of these sources says anything about Roman recapturing Kyiv; it's always phrased as a one-off. (That also makes it implausible that Rurik sacked/retook Kyiv twice, because he seems to have lost control of it to Roman only once). The problem is that we do not know which of these secondary sources are erring, so a tertiary source is needed to analyse on which primary sources these dates are based, and which dating is more likely.

The same is the case for Danylo of Galicia allegedly capturing Kyiv twice according to an unsourced statement in an earlier version of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (before I started improving that article today): In 1239 and 1242 he captured Kiev, attempting to become the Grand Prince of all Rus, but he lost the city the first time after a few weeks, the second after a year. Magocsi (2010) comes close to supporting the 1239 date on p. 125: [Danylo] even expanded eastward, taking control of Kiev on the eve of the Mongol attack in late 1240.. But 'on the eve of' could mean anything. Encyclopedia of Ukraine indeed supports a 1239 capture: ...in 1238, with the support of the burghers. The next year he took Kyiv.... But neither one says anything about Danylo recapturing Kyiv after the Mongols sacked it in late 1240, and they imply he would have done so if given the chance (which never happened). Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)