Life of Alexander Nevsky
The Life of Alexander Nevsky is an Old [East Slavic literature|Old East Slavic] hagiography about Alexander Nevsky, composed and edited in stages between the late 13th century and the mid-15th century. In most manuscript copies, its full title is Tale about the Life of the Brave, Blessed, and Great Prince Alexander Nevskii.
Contents
The Life of Alexander Nevsky describes the life and achievements of Aleksandr Yaroslavich, a prince of Novgorod and a grand prince of Vladimir. He is presented as having defended the northwestern borders of Rus against a Swedish invasion in the legendary Battle of the Neva, defeated the Livonian Order at the Battle of Lake Peipus in 1242 and paid a few visits to Batu Khan to protect the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality from the Khazar raids. The work is filled with 'patriotic spirit' and achieves a 'high degree of artistic expressiveness' in its glorification of Alexander's deeds and those of his warriors as heroic.Textual criticism
Manuscripts
The "First Edition" or "First Redaction" of the Life of Alexander Nevsky has been preserved in 13 manuscripts, with the oldest extant manuscripts dating from the 14th century, and the youngest to the 17th century. Yurii Begunov published the first list of all known 13 extant manuscripts in 1965. The 1377 Laurentian Codex only contains the Lifes beginning, the 1486 Synodal manuscript 154 only the beginning and end, while the other 11 manuscripts contain the full text of the "First Edition".| no. | s. | Manuscript ID | Pages/folia | Dating | Custodian | City |
| 1 | Лв | Laurentian Codex | 1377 | National Library of Russia | Saint Petersburg | |
| 2 | Пс | Synodal manuscript collection 154 | 1486 | State Historical Museum | Moscow | |
| 3 | П | Pskov-Caves Monastery, 60 | лл. 245 об.—249 | late 15th century | State Archive of Pskov Oblast | Pskov |
| 4 | Л | Р. IV, оп. 24, 26 | лл. 472—479 об. | mid-16th century | Pushkin House | Saint Petersburg |
| 5 | А | Moscow Theological Academy, 208 | лл. 1—9 об. | mid-16th century | Russian State Library | Moscow |
| 6 | В | Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, 523 | лл. 174 об. —190 | Q3 16th century | Russian State Library | Moscow |
| 7 | М | Museum collection 1706 | лл. 137 об. —152 об. | Q3 16th century | State Historical Museum | Moscow |
| 8 | Ар | Manuscript collection 18 | лл. 112—129 | Q3 16th century | State Archive of Arkhangelsk Oblast | Arkhangelsk |
| 9 | Пг | M. P. Pogodin collection 641 | Q3 16th century | National Library of Russia | Saint Petersburg | |
| 10 | Б | E. V. Barsov collection 1413 | лл. 302 об.—319 об. | 1600 | State Historical Museum | Moscow |
| 11 | Р | Olonets Seminary collection, 15 | лл. 649 об.—659 | Q2 17th century | Russian State Library | Moscow |
| 12 | О | A. N. Ovchinnikov collection, 281 | лл. 530—542 об. | mid-17th century | Russian State Library | Moscow |
| 13 | У | A. S. Uvarov collection 279 | лл. 346 об.—353 | Q3 17th century | State Historical Museum | Moscow |
Textual history
Historian Vasily Klyuchevsky was the first to make a distinction between different editions of the Life of Alexander Nevsky, naming the oldest edition the "First Edition".Yurii Begunov, basing himself on thirteen stand-alone manuscripts, dated the first redaction of the Life of Alexander Nevsky to the 1280s, hypothesising that it had been composed in the Rozhdestvensky monastery in Vladimir-on-Kliazma. Begunov reasoned that during this recension, a passage was added mentioning that metropolitan Kirill II of Kiev declared that "the sun has set in the Suzdalian Land" at Nevsky's funeral.
According to scholar Donald Ostrowski, the original text of the Life of Alexander Nevsky was a secular military narrative, written by a layman in the late 13th century, who made no mention of "the Suzdalian Land", nor of "the Rus' Land". Some hagiographic motifs would be inserted by a cleric a century later, but still no reference to "Suzdalian/Rus' Land". Ostrowski argued that the "First Redaction" of the Life should be dated to the mid-15th century, because it used the Novgorod First Chronicle Older Redaction as a source, whereas the NPL Younger Redaction incorporated parts of the Life. It would be this editor who added an allusion to Volodimer I of Kiev's conversion of "the Rus' Land", and two mentions of "the Suzdalian Land", one of them the setting sun passage.