Unfortunately, the ideas about the historical experience of the Byzantine Empire, even among the educated and cultural part of modern Russian society, are extremely primitive, while the significance of this experience in the formation and development of Russian culture and statehood is difficult to exaggerate. Partly to fill this historical memory failure will help the proposed book, containing more than 3800 dictionary articles and applications, short in form, available in the language and manner of presentation of the material. This is a popular science publication that gives the reader a general idea of the history of the Eastern Roman Empire for eleven centuries: from the founding of Constantinople in 324 AD. before its fall under Ottoman pressure in 1453.