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The
Primary Chronicle (сть времяньныхъ лѣтъ}};,
Povest' vremennykh let;,
Povist' vremjanykh lit;
Apovests' minulikh chasoũ often translated into English as
Tale of Bygone Years), is a history of the
Kievan Rus' from around
850 to
1110 originally compiled in
Kiev about
1113.
Three editions
The original compilation was long considered to be the work of a monk named
Nestor, and hence it was formerly referred to as
Nestor's Chronicle, or
Nestor's manuscript. Among many sources he used were earlier (now lost) Slavonic chronicles, Byzantine annals of
John Malalas and
George Hamartolus,
native legends and
Norse sagas, several Greek religious texts, Rus-Byzantine treaties, oral accounts of
Yan Vyshatich and other military leaders. Nestor worked at the court of
Sviatopolk II of Kiev and probably shared his pro-Scandinavian policies.
The early part is rich in anecdotal stories, among which are the arrival of the three
Varangian brothers, the founding of Kiev, the murder of
Askold and Dir, the death of
Oleg, who was killed by a serpent concealed in the skeleton of his horse, and the vengeance taken by
Olga, the wife of
Igor, on the
Drevlians, who had murdered her husband. The account of the labors of
Saints Cyril and Methodius among the
Slavic peoples is also very interesting, and to Nestor we owe the tale of the summary way in which
Vladimir the Great suppressed the worship of
Perun and other idols at Kiev.
In the year
1116, Nestor's text was extensively edited by
hegumen Sylvester who appended his name at the end of the chronicle. As
Vladimir Monomakh was the patron of the village of
Vydubychi where his monastery is situated, the new edition glorified that prince and made him the central figure of later narrative. This second version of Nestor's work is preserved in the Laurentian codex (see below).
A third edition followed two years later and centered on the person of Vladimir's son and heir,
Mstislav the Great. The author of this revision could have been Greek, for he corrected and updated much data on Byzantine affairs. This latest revision of Nestor's work is preserved in the Hypatian codex (see below).
Two manuscripts
Because the original of the chronicle as well as the earliest known copies (the Laurentian codex and the Hypatian codex) are lost, it's difficult to establish the original content of the chronicle, word by word.
The
Laurentian codex was copied by the
Nizhegorod monk Laurentius for the Prince
Dmitry Konstantinovich in
1377. The original text he used was a lost codex compiled for the Grand Duke Mikhail of
Tver in
1305. The account continues until 1305, but the years 898-922, 1263-83 and 1288-94 are missing for reasons unknown. The manuscript was acquired by the famous
Count Musin-Pushkin in
1792 and subsequently presented to the
Russian National Library in
St Petersburg.
The
Hypatian codex was discovered at the
Ipatiev Monastery of
Kostroma by the Russian historian
Nikolay Karamzin. The Hypatian manuscript dates to the 15th century, and incorporates much information from the lost 12th-century Kievan and 13th-century
Halychian chronicles. The language of this work is the East Slavic version of
Church Slavonic language with many additional irregular east-slavisms (like other east-slavic codices of the time).
Numerous monographs and published versions of the chronicle have been made, the earliest known being in
1767.
Aleksey Shakhmatov published a pioneering
textological analysis of the narrative in
1908.
Dmitry Likhachev and other Soviet scholars partly revisited his findings. Their versions attempted to reconstruct the pre-Nestorian chronicle, compiled at the court of
Yaroslav the Wise in the mid-11th century.
Assessment
Unlike many other medieval chronicles written by European monks, the Tale of Bygone Years is unique as the only written testimony on the earliest history of East Slavic peoples. Its comprehensive account of the history of
Kievan Rus is unmatched in other sources, although important correctives are provided by the
Novgorod First Chronicle. It is also valuable as a prime example of the
Old East Slavonic literature.
Further Information
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