# Rus' chronicles

The Rus' chronicles, Russian chronicles$^{:51}$ or Rus' letopis (Old East Slavic: лѣтопись, romanized: lětopisʹ) was the primary Rus' historical literature. Chronicles were composed from the 11th to the 18th centuries, generally written in Old East Slavic (and, later, Ruthenian and Muscovite Russian), about Kievan Rus' and subsequent Rus' principalities and history. They were one of the leading genres of Old Rus' literature in medieval and early modern Eastern and Central Europe.
The chronicle was distributed in Belarus, the Czech lands, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Chronicles were the main historical narrative until the mid-16th century (the reign of Ivan the Terrible), when they were superseded by chronographs.

## Terminology

The Old East Slavic лѣтопись (lě́topisʹ) has given rise to a number of Slavic-language derivatives (Belarusian: летапіс, romanized: ljétapis; Czech: letopis; Polish: latopis; Russian: летопись, romanized: létopisʹ; Serbo-Croatian: lȅtopīs/ljȅtopīs / ље̏топӣс, litopīs / литопӣс; Ukrainian: літо́пис, romanized: litópys), and was translated into Lithuanian as metraštis. It is translated into English as "chronicle".$^{:51}$ The record of an event usually begins with the words "Въ лѣто ..." (Vŭ lě́to ..., "In the year..."; from them, the terms litopys, letopis and latopis were derived. The chronicles contain historical documents, oral traditions (often of a mystical nature), excerpts from previous chronicles, and text by the chronicler.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 c. 1039 (Mikhail Priselkov dated it to 1037) 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 c. 1113. 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 (annals) 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 (the capital of early Rus') and Novgorod. The Primary Chronicle, at the beginning of the 12th century, was a combination of Kievan and Novgorodian chronicles (including the Novgorod First Chronicle and survives in the Laurentian and Hypatian codices. Chronicles of the 12th- and 13th-century Kievan Rus' principalities survive in the Hypatian Codex, which includes the Kievan Chronicle (covering 1118 to 1200) and the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle (covering Galicia and Volhynia from 1201 to 1292). 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 c. 1412 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. A group of 17th- and early-18th-century Ukrainian chronicles have survived, including the Hustynia, Lviv, Mezhyhiria, and Ostrih chronicles, the Chroniclers of Volhynia and Ukraine collection, the Eyewitness Chronicle, and the Chronicles of Hryhorii Hrabianka [uk] and Samiilo Velychko. These chronicles describe the rebellions, society, policies and international relations of the Cossack Hetmanate and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and their wars with the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire.
The oldest Polish chronicle written in Latin was Gesta principum Polonorum, at the beginning of the 12th century. Maciej Stryjkowski wrote the Chronicle of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia and all of Ruthenia (1582), generally considered the first printed history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

## 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 (often contradicting each other) 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 svods (collections of records from different sources), 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.

## Sources

Sources for the oldest chronicles include Byzantine and South Slavic texts on sacred history and other subjects, the chronicle of George Hamartolos on the Generations of Noah in the Primary Chronicle, legends, legal documents (such as the Rus'–Byzantine Treaties in the Primary Chronicle and a short version of Russkaya Pravda in the Novgorod First Chronicle), and historical records.

## 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 (or decade), 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 (rare) 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 c. 1495 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 (wizards) talk about the creation of humanity:
   Yan Vyshatich asked, "How do you think man came to be?" The volkhvs answered, "God bathed in the bath and sweated, wiped himself with a rag and threw it from heaven to the earth; and the devil created man, and God put his soul into him. Therefore, when a person dies, the body goes to the earth, and the soul goes to God".
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.

## Historiography

Most scholars view the chronicles as historical sources as well as works of art. Vasily Klyuchevsky used them as a historical source along with the lives of the saints.

### Early period

Study of the history of Old Russian chronicles was begun by Vasily Tatishchev and Mikhail Shcherbatov, whose work impacted the emergence of source criticism as a science. Using Tatishchev and Stroev's method, Mikhail Pogodin discovered how the chronicles were constructed. Mikhail Sukhomlinov's 1856 On the Ancient Russian Chronicle as a Literary Monument attempted to establish the literary sources of the initial chronicle. Bestuzhev-Ryumin's 1868 On the Composition of Russian Chronicles Until the End of the 14th Century deconstructed chronicle text into annual records and legends.
A new stage in the study of Russian chronicles was begun by Alexey Shakhmatov (1864-1920). His comparative textual method compared lists and analyzed text. Shakhmatov sought to learn about the circumstances of the creation of each chronicle through chronology, printing and language errors, and dialectic.

### Modern period

Starting with Shakhmatov, the main analysis of the text of the chronicles recognizes the comparison of two or more chronicles throughout their length, and not fragmentary observations. The method of Shakhmatov was developed by Mikhail Priselkov, who placed more emphasis on the historical aspect ("History of Russian Chronicles of the XI—XV centuries", 1940).
Shakhmatov's genealogy was developed and revised by his followers, among whom the greatest contribution to the study of Russian chronicles was made by Nikolai Lavrov, Arseny Nasonov, Lev Cherepnin, Dmitry Likhachev, Sergey Bakhrushin, Alexander Andreev, Mikhail Tikhomirov, Nikolai Nikolsky, Vasily Istrin, etc. Shakhmatov's methodology formed the basis of modern textology.
The study of letopis texts has become widespread in modern Russia and other countries. Among the researchers of the second half of the XX century, the greatest contribution to the study of old Russian letopises was made by I. A. Tikhomirov, D. S. Likhachev, Ya. S. Lurie, V. I. Koretsky, V. I. Buganov, etc.
The study and publication of the Belarusian-Lithuanian letopises were carried out by scientists from Poland (I. Danilovich, S. Smolka, A. Prohaska, S. Ptashitsky, Ya. Yakubovsky, E. Okhmansky), Russia (I. A. Tikhomirov, A. A. Shakhmatov, M. D. Priselkov, V. T. Pashuto, B. N. Florya), Ukraine (M. S. Grushevsky, F. Sushitsky), Belarus (V. A. Chemeritsky, N. N. Ulashchik), Lithuania (M. Yuchas, R. Yasas).

## List of chronicles
### Medieval chronicles

* Academic Chronicle (Moscow Academic Chronicle; continues the Radziwiłł Chronicle from 1206 up to the year 1418/9, with the text covering 1207–1237 being identical to that found in the Sofia First Chronicle)
* Chronicler of Pereyaslavl-Suzdal (LPS; c. 1470)
* Ermolin Chronicle [ru] (compilation, c. 1490)
* Galician–Volhynian Chronicle (continuation of the Kievan Chronicle, covering the years 1200–1292, written in the 13th century.)
* Ioachim Chronicle (17th-century compilation); authenticity disputed.
* Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible or Tsar Book (c. 1570)
* Kazan Chronicle or Kazan History (written c. 1560–1565, first printed in 1790)
* Kholmogordskaya Chronicle [ru] (mid-16th century)
* Kievan Chronicle (Kiev/Kyiv/Kyivan Chronicle, "KC"; commissioned by Rurik Rostislavich as a continuation of the Primary Chronicle)
* Lvov Chronicle ("LL"; 16th century), not to be confused with the 17th-century Lviv Chronicle
* Nikon Chronicle (mid-16th-century compilation)
* Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL; one of the oldest and most important Rus' chronicles, contains information older than the Primary Chronicle, and sometimes differs from it)
* Novgorod Fourth Chronicle ("N4"; 15th century; hypothetical source: Novgorodsko-Sofiysky Svod)
* Novgorod Second Chronicle ("N2"; 16th century)
* Primary Chronicle (PVL, Tale of Bygone Years; covering the years 852–1110s. One of the oldest and most important Rus' chronicles, found in many manuscripts and codices including the Laurentian Codex, Hypatian Codex, Königsberg Manuscript (of the Radziwiłł Chronicle), and others)
* Pskov Chronicles (15th–17th century): First, Second and Third.
* Radziwiłł Chronicle (continuation of the Primary Chronicle up to the year 1206)
* Rogozh Chronicle [ru] (c. 1450)
* Simeon Chronicle ("Sim."; written c. 1490s, earliest extant manuscript 16th century)
* Sofia First Chronicle ("S1"; last quarter of the 15th century; covering the years 852–1418, with sporadic additions up to 1471. Hypothetical source: Novgorodsko-Sofiysky Svod)
* Sofia Second Chronicle (16th century)
* Suzdalian Chronicle (14th century; preserved in Lav., Rad., Aka, and LPS)
* Trinity Chronicle ("TL"; early 15th century)
* Tver Chronicle ("Tver"; 16th century, includes material from c. 1400)
* Typographic Chronicle [ru] (c. 1500)
* Vladimir Chronicler (Vladimirskiy letopisets; "Vlad."; 16th century)
* Volyn Short Chronicle (c. 1500, covering the years 852–1500)

### Lithuanian Chronicles

The (Belarusian-)Lithuanian Chronicles are a 14th–16th-century grouping of chronicles written in the Ruthenian language for the purpose of Lithuanian patriotism.
* Bychowiec Chronicle (Bykhovets Chronicle)
* Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia (1520s)

### Ukrainian Chronicles

The Ukrainian Chronicles are a 17th–18th-century grouping of chronicles written in Late Ruthenian (early modern Ukrainian).
* Chroniclers of Volyn and Ukraine (17th-century collection of twelve chronicles)
* Hustyn Chronicle (17th century)
* Lviv Chronicle (17th century)
* Mezhyhirya Chronicle (17th century)
* Ostroh Chronicler (17th century)

#### Cossack Chronicles

The Cossack Chronicles [uk] are a 17th–18th-century subgroup of the early modern Ukrainian Chronicles.
* Chronicle of Hrabyanka [uk] by Hryhoriy Hrabyanka [uk]
* Chronicle of Samiilo Velychko [uk] by Samiilo Velychko
* Eyewitness Chronicle [uk]

### Siberian Chronicles

The Siberian Chronicles were written from the end of the 16th century to the 18th century:
* Kungur Chronicle
* Remezov Chronicle
* Stroganov Chronicle
* Yesipov Chronicle