A book dedicated to the 550th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople was prepared for publication by a group of students of the Department of Modern Greek and Byzantine Philology of St. Petersburg State University under the guidance of Professor Y. N. Lyubarsky. The purpose of the publication is to provide the reader with the opportunity to independently study the works of four Greek historians of the 15th century and form their own picture of the events of the siege and fall of the capital of the Byzantine Empire. To facilitate this task, the publication includes an article on the events preceding the capture of Constantinople, and biographical information about Greek authors, whose works were included in the book. The comments, composed in such a way as to demonstrate all the disagreements existing between these works and the hypotheses generated by them about the death of the Byzantine Empire, serve the same purpose. The publication is intended for a wide range of readers.