Praise to Vytautas


The Praise to Vytautas is a panegyric from the early 15th century, dedicated to Vytautas the Great, who reigned as grand duke of Lithuania from 1392 to 1430, written in the Belarusian variety of Early Ruthenian. It is considered one of the first works of Ruthenian secular panegyric prose.

Manuscript editions

The text has been preserved in four manuscript editions:
  1. : included in a manuscript translation of the Ascetic Words by Isaac the Syrian, rewritten in Smolensk;
  2. : included in the first redaction of the Belarusian-Lithuanian Chronicles, preserved in several manuscripts such as the Supraśl Manuscript and the Slutsk Chronicle ;
  3. : preserved in the short and expanded editions of the Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia;
  4. : found in various historical collections that existed in Russia in the 16th–18th centuries.
The Praise to Vytautas of 1428 is a private business note-afterword to a book, written by an admirer of Vytautas in Smolensk. This apparently original text was written while Vytautas was still alive, and probably commissioned by him personally. The chronicle version of 1430 in the Supraśl Manuscript is a personal work of the panegyric genre. While many scholars have supposed that this much more elaborate version of the Praise functioned as Vytautas' posthumous commemoration, Mickūnaitė argued that "a closer look at the text, along with circumstantial evidence, suggests that it was aimed at glorifying the living ruler". Namely, Vytautas is not spoken about as if he were a deceased person, nor are there any laments in the text. The third edition is a combined abbreviated text of the chronicle edition of the Praise to Vytautas, with the introductory part from the .
A critical edition of the text was published in PSRL Volume 17, pp. 417–420; and in PSRL Volume 35, pp. 58–59. A later version of the Praise was translated into English and published as The West Russian Chronicle's Panegyric on Vitovt, after 1430 in 1972. The incipit of this English translation is: "It is good to keep a tsar's secrets; but it is likewise good to tell the deeds of a great sovereign."

Contents and style

The text praises the "great and wise" knyaz Vytautas, whom the rulers of Europe serve or befriend. It glorifies the policy of unifying the East Slavic lands led by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Mickūnaitė wrote: "The most vivid manifestation of Vytautas' glory is the vastness of his lands and the honor that other rulers pay him. Among those, many are mentioned, although the list of the Tatar khans is the most extensive."
Starting from the second, more elaborate edition of the text from 1430, the central example cited of the power and influence Vytautas wielded is the Congress of Lutsk, which he hosted in 1429, and which was attended by dozens of European monarchs and Tatar khans. The Praise summarises Vytautas' hold over all the lands along the Baltic Sea as follows: "To put it simply, not a single city could be found along the Littoral which would disobey that glorious sovereign."
According to University of Aberdeen historian Linas Eriksonas, the Praise to Vytautas is "a eulogy to the sovereign in the Byzantine style." He deemed this text to be one of the foundations of the literary heroic traditions in Lithuania, established by "the Orthodox chroniclers who in a line with the Orthodox doctrine of Apostolic Tradition and a strictly adhered hierarchy, came up with the first iconic images of Grand Duke Vytautas and his heroic predecessors."
On the other hand, Mickūnaitė argued, "even a brief glimpse at the Pokhvala shows its complete ignorance of Byzantine rhetoric. The few common features include the motifs of the ruler's wisdom and the parallel with water resources used in
Byzantine imperial laudations. Otherwise, neither the structure nor the content accords with Menander's rules" on rhetoric that dominated in the Byzantine Empire. Nevertheless, the "function and pompous phrasing places the panegyric to Vytautas closer to Byzantium" than to Russia. Moreover, the Praise was dedicated to a living duke rather than a deceased one, as was common in vitae of Rus' princes.

Authorship

According to Giedre Mickūnaite, the panegyric known as the Praise to Vytautas was originally written in 1428 by Timofey, a scribe of bishop Gerasim of Smolensk. This conclusion is based on the fact that the manuscript of 1428, which is a copy of the text of Isaac the Syrian commissioned by Vytautas, is followed by "an indication of its author, the scribe, his patron, and the commissioner, after which the enumeration of the deeds of the “most glorious
sovereign” begins."

Primary sources

  • .
  • – The text of the Praise to Vytautas can be found on л.78–л.82.
  • – The text of the Praise to Vytautas can be found on л.51–л.58об..
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Literature

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