Barbara Komnena

Barbara Komnena (Russian: Варвара Комнина) is a mythical figure, claimed to be the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (reigned 1081–1118), and the wife of the Grand Prince of Kiev Sviatopolk II Iziaslavich.

Although she is mentioned in works of various historians such as G. V. Vernadsky,^[1] at present, most researchers her a fictional character. Varvara never appears among the four daughters of the emperor: Anna, Maria, Eudokia and Theodora.^[2][3] She is also never mentioned lists of the members of the Komnenos dynasty at all. There is no mention of such a marriage in Byzantine sources. The most important text about this era are the memoirs of Anna Komnene, who would have been Varvara's sister, and who does not mention her in the number of her father's children, or as a relative given for the Russian prince.

Varvara appears in Russian history mainly in connection with the transfer of the relics of her holy patroness, Saint Barbara from Constantinople to Kiev. According to legend, the relics were given to Barbara as a dowry by her father. These relics, according to tradition, were laid by her in St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, and transferred, after its demolition, to St. Volodimir's Cathedral).

Visiting Kiev in 1656, the Antiochian patriarch Macarios III Zaim heard another legend about the transfer of the relics to Kiev in connection with the marriage of Princess Anna Porphyrogenita to Prince Vladimir the Great.^[4] However, it seems most likely that the transfer relics of Saint Barbara's relics to Kiev took place after the Tatar invasion and during the weakening of Byzantium.^[5][6]

Researchers point out that the story of Princess BarBara seems to have appeared in hagiographic literature, such as "The Lives of Saints" by Dimitry of Rostov, and also in "The torment of St. the Great Martyr Barbara and the story of her glorious wonders" by  [Wikidata] ^[7]

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