Rus' chronicles
The Rus' chronicles, or Russian chronicles, was the primary Rus' historical literature. Chronicles were composed from the 11th to the 18th centuries.
Chronicles were the main historical narrative until the mid-16th century, when they were superseded by chronographs.
Terminology
The record of an event usually begins with the words "Въ лѣто ...", excerpts from previous chronicles, and text by the chronicler.Origin
The construction of the oldest Russian chronicle generally accepted by modern scientists was developed by Alexey Shakhmatov. In Shakhmatov's view, the origin of the Russian chronicle was compiled in the Kiev metropolis. According to scholarly consensus, the chronicles were originally a complete work and not divided into years.The Primary Chronicle was written. Although its authorship is disputed, Nestor the Chronicler has traditionally been credited. In 1116, the chronicle was revised by Vydubychi Monastery abbot Sylvester. This edition is preserved as part of the Laurentian letopis. In 1118, its third edition was written by an unknown author on behalf of Novgorod knyaz Mstislav I of Kiev. It was preserved as part of the Hypatian Codex. Dmitry Likhachov, following Nikolay Nikolsky, deduced the beginning of the Rus' chronicle from West Slavic Moravian legends.
Attention, especially in the northern chronicles, was paid to the Old Rus' knyazi; despite the clerical composition of most of the chronicles, many texts depict them as chosen by pagan gods. The Rurikids were emphasized.
Folk legends and stories were sources. Historical distortions were not permitted; according to Shakhmatov, any mystical motives or phenomena in a chronicle was because the author believed in their truth or significance.
During the 1850s and 1860s it was thought that the Rus' chronicle originated as annals and evolved into a narrative, a view supported by Michael Sukhomlinov and Izmail Sreznevsky. This theory has been revived by Alexey Gippius and Alexey Tolochko), who believe that the chronicle was written as svods until the Primary Chronicle. The annals were brief, factual, and lacked complex narrative structure. Over time their accuracy increased, dates appeared, the volume of information expanded, and narrative additions were made.
History
The Rus' chronicles began to be systematically prepared during the mid-11th century. There were two centers of chronicle preparation in this early period: Kiev and Novgorod. The Primary Chronicle, at the beginning of the 12th century, was a combination of Kievan and Novgorodian chronicles and the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. Late 12th- and early 13th-century chronicles of Rostov, Pereyaslavl and Vladimir-Suzdal survive in the Laurentian Codex and the Radziwiłł Chronicle.The late-13th- and early-14th-century Hypatian Codex survives in 15th-to-18th-century сopies. A 1377 copy of the 14th-century Laurentian Codex survives.
The 1375 Tverian annals are part of the Rogozhskiy Chronicle and the 16th-century Tverian Collection. A chronicle related to Cyprian, Metropolitan of Moscow covered up to 1408 and survived as the Trinity Chronicle until the 1812 Fire of Moscow. It was reconstructed by Mikhail Prisyolkov. A chronicle made in Tver contained revisions similar to the late-14th–early-15th-century Trinity Chronicle. The 1430s Novgorodsko-Sofiysky Svod, compiled at the office of the Moscow Metropolitan, may have combined the Sofia First and Novgorod Fourth Chronicles.
The first known Grand Duchy of Moscow chronicles appeared during the mid-15th century. A 1470s compilation included the first part of the Yermolin Chronicle. The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery chronicle contained the second part of the Yermolin Chronicle. The Sofia Second Chronicle is thought to have derived from the Lvov Chronicle. The Ioasaf Chronicle, covering 1437–1520, was made at the end of the 1520s at the office of the Moscow Metropolitan and was a source for the Nikon Chronicle. The multi-volume Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible was compiled. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chronicles, such as the late-16th-to-18th-century Siberian Chronicles, were local, provincial texts.
Fourteenth-to-sixteenth-century Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles such as the Suprasl, Bykhovets, and Barkulabovo chronicles continued the tradition of Rus' chronicles.
Purpose
After the 12th and 13th centuries, Rus' chronicles were usually produced by monasteries or at the courts of princes and bishops. Later editors were increasingly concerned with compiling and revising existing writings.Textual comparison indicates a pronounced political orientation and abrupt changes. Shakhmatov and his colleagues sought to establish the identity and views of their authors and to place a chronicle in its contemporary political struggle. D. S. Likhachev, V. G. Mirzoev, and A. F. Milonov wrote about the educational and didactic purposes of the old Russian chronicles.
According to Igor Danilevsky, the chronicles had an eschatological purpose. Since the second half of the 11th century, they were "books of life" which would appear at the last judgment. According to Timothy Himon, Danilevsky's arguments are indirect. Himon suggests that the chronicles had several goals, including the recording of sacred and unusual events and reinforcing power; the chronicle is considered a tool of political power.
Сharacteristics
The chroniclers were primarily clergy. Rus' chronicles were composed in monasteries, at the courts of princes, the tsars of Moscow and the kings of Galicia-Volhynia, and in the offices of metropolitan bishops. The chronicles typically consisted of collections of short factual entries for the preceding year and speeches and dialogues by princes. The Rus' chronicles contain narratives about the settlement of the Eastern Slavs and neighbouring peoples, how Kievan Rus' was founded and developed, and its diplomatic relations, society, culture, and religion. The chronicler would sometimes provide an extended, embellished narrative on the most significant events of Rus' history.Aleksey Shakhmatov was the leading expert in the textual criticism of Rus' chronicles. Shakhmatov considered the main part of the chronicle texts , with every new chronicle a collection of previous chronicles and newly-added historical records.
Many of the chronicles have become viewed as annals produced in state or church offices. The hypothetical Novgorod Archbishop Chronicle is believed to have been prepared at the office of the Diocese of Novgorod from the 12th to the 14th centuries, and was the basis of the 15th-century Novgorod First Chronicle.
Copies
Rus' chronicles survive in codices. Some chronicles have several versions, but others are known from only one copy. Every chronicle was a collection of materials from earlier chronicles. Individual chronicles were revised, shortened or expanded with entries on the events of the last year, and dozens of such collections may exist.Timeline
The early-12th-century Primary Chronicle, describing the early history of Kievan Rus', is the oldest surviving Rus' chronicle. Aleksey Shakhmatov noted that a number of entries about 11th-century Novgorod are present in the 15th-century Novgorod First Chronicle but absent from the Primary Chronicle. This led Shakhmatov to theorize that the beginning of the Novgorod First Chronicle includes text older than that in the Primary Chronicle. He called it the "Primary Svod", and dated it to the end of the 11th century as a basis for the Primary Chronicle. If two or more chronicles coincide up to a particular year, one chronicle is copied from another or they had a common source. Shakhmatov developed a timeline of the old Rus' chronicles, connecting most of them and demonstrating that the extant 14th-to-17th-century chronicles date back to the Primary Svod, earlier, hypothetical 11th-century and late-10th-century historical records. His method and theories became a mainstay of Rus' chronicle studies.Textual criticism
An estimated 5,000 svods exist. Most have not been preserved as originals; only copies and partial revisions created between the 13th and 19th centuries, including the oldest 11th- and 12th-century chronicles, are known.Many of the oldest chronicles have not survived. Each principality had a court chronicler to describe its history and defend its views. During the 15th century, chronicles such as the Pskov Letopises and western Russian chronicles were hostile to the Principality of Moscow. The travel story A Journey Beyond the Three Seas was incorporated into the 16th-century Lvov Chronicle and the Sofia Second Chronicle.
Influence on dream visions
Nikolai Prokofiev and Rosalia Shor noted an occasional dream-vision motif in old Russian chronicles. In her article, "The Genre of Visions in Ancient Russian Literature", Alla Soboleva notes the chronicles' unusual worldview. An illustration in the Slavic manuscript of Cosmas Indicopleustes' sixth-century Christian Topography depicts the sun going underground at sunset and, according to Yegor Redin, was incorporated into the Old Russian chronicles.Historian Igor Froyanov cites a scene in the Novgorod First Chronicle and the Primary Chronicle where volkhvs talk about the creation of humanity:
Two wizards reportedly appeared in Novgorod in 1071 and began to sow unrest, saying that the Dnieper would soon flow backwards and the land would move. Most chronicles have digressions which predict the future, describe strange phenomena, and discuss their meaning from a mystical point of view.