Hustyn Chronicle


The Hustyn Chronicle is a 17th-century chronicle detailing the history of Ukraine until 1598. It was written in Church Slavonic.
The Chronicle covers Ukraine's relationship with the Principality of Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the impact of the Turks and Tatars, and the origin of the Cossacks. It ends with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, and the Union of Brest.

Textual witnesses

The original chronicle has not survived, but three copies of it have been preserved:
  • The Hustyn Copy, copied in 1670 by Hieromonach Mykhailo Losyts'kyi, who called it the "Ruthenian Chronicle". Preserved in the Russian State Library, manuscripts department, f. 205, no. 118.
  • The Mhar Monastery copy
  • The Archival copy

    Contents

The Hustyn Chronicle begins with a few references to Bible stories, including the Genesis flood narrative and the Tower of Babel; thereafter, the legendary founding of Kyiv by Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv and Lybid' is narrated. This is followed by the history of Kievan Rus' by the reigns of princes, with special attention to Volyn' and Podolia. After that, it becomes a history of the Ukrainian people and their relations with neighbouring peoples, such as the Belarusians within the Lithuanian principality, the Tatars and Turks, until the emergence of the Cossacks. The last date mentioned is 1597.

Composition

The Hustyn Chronicle is largely a copy of the Hypatian Codex, but the last 25 pages are an independent continuation from 1300 to 1597.
The other sources of information have been identified as:
Given the inclusion of material from the Palinodiia, the Hustyn Chronicle could not have been compiled before 1623. Soviet historian Anatoliy Yershov concluded that Zacharias Kopystensky, the author of the Palinodiia, had probably also written the Hustyn Chronicle. But American historian George Perfecky disagreed, because the Palinodiia and the Hustyn Chronicle present very different accounts of the Christianization of Kievan Rus', and therefore were probably not written by the same author. Instead, Perfecky built upon previous research which suggested that a now-lost, anonymous Ukrainian Chronicle covering the years 1512 to 1648 had existed as one of the unaccounted sources; therefore, the Hustyn Chronicle must have been written after 1648, but before it was copied by Losyts'kyi in 1670.