Illustration: students of Department of Visual Design and Art, Lviv Polytechnic National University.
Who was Queen Ellisiv, born one thousand years ago in Kyiv? She married King Harald Hardruler Sigurdsson of Norway in 1044, becoming the first Norwegian queen not born in Scandinavia. This mini-conference aims to shed light on what we know about Ellisiv and the world in which she lived.
WHEN: 24 October 2025 at 12:00 – 17:30
WHERE: Historisk Museum, 3rd floor, Frederiksgate 2, Oslo
The event is organised by the Embassy of Ukraine in Norway, Ukrainian Cultural Association, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History and Museum of Cultural History, both at the University of Oslo, Collegium Medievale: The Association of Researchers In Medieval Studies, and the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU).
Program
12.00–12.30: Registration and coffee
12.30: Welcome by His Excellency Oleksiy Gavrysh, Ambassador of Ukraine to Norway
Greetings from the organizers Yuliya Pidlisna, Ukrainian Culture Association, Kristine Ødeby Haugan, Museum of Cultural History and Collegium Medievale, and Anders Winroth, University of Oslo.
12.45–14.15: From Kyiv to Norway: Contexts
Chair: Anders Winroth, University of Oslo
- From Kyiv to Oslo, 1050–1060: A Comparative Perspective by David Hill, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research
- Norway and Rus: Material Evidence of Contacts in the Early Medieval Period by Fedir Androshchuk, Uppsala Research Centre for the World in the Viking Age
- Harald, Ellisiv and Eleventh-Century High Politics by Sverrir Jakobsson, University of Iceland
- Questions and discussion
- 14.15–15.00: Coffee break
15.00–16.30: Ukraine from Norway: Connections
Chair: Svitlana Arabadzhy, University of Oslo
- The Mysterious Varangian Warrior on the Wall in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv by Bjørn Bandlien, University of South-Eastern Norway,
- Daughter, Wife and Queen: Ellisiv in Norse Poetry and Sagas by Caitlin Ellis, University of Oslo
- Between Kyiv and the Fjords: Networks Linking Rus’ and Scandinavia in the 11th–12th Century by Natalia Khamaiko, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and The Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)
- Questions and discussions