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The Laurentian Chronicle" is a parchment manuscript containing a copy of the annalistic code of 1305, made in 1377 by a group of scribes under the guidance of the monk Lavrenty on the instructions of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Dmitry Konstantinovich from the list of the beginning of the 14th century. The text begins with "The Tale of Bygone Years" and is brought up to 1305. The manuscript does not contain news for 898?922, 1263?1283, 1288?94. Code 1305 was the Grand Duke's "Vladimir Code", compiled during the period when the Grand Duke of Vladimir was Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver. It was based on code 1281, supplemented ( from 1282) Tver chronicle news. Lawrence's manuscript was written in the Annunciation Monastery in Nizhny Novgorod or in the Vladimir Nativity Monastery. In 1792 it was acquired by A.I. Musin-Pushkin and subsequently presented to Alexander I, who gave the manuscript to the Public Library (now named after M. .E.Saltykov-Shchedrin), where it is stored.

The Laurentian Chronicle is one of the oldest Russian chronicles, which is an important historical and literary monument of the Eastern Slavs. It received its name after the monk Lavrenty, who, by order of the Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, in 1377 rewrote it from the old? a chronicler who recounted events up to 1305.

The Laurentian Chronicle also includes entries from other chronicle sources, thanks to which the events of Russian history are described until 1377. The beginning of the publication of the chronicle dates back to 1804, but only in 1846 it was published in full in the 1st vol. PSRL (2nd reprint. 1872; 3rd reprint 1897). Historians of the 19th century made a great contribution to the study of the complex text of the Laurentian Chronicle, and later? A.A. Shakhmatov, M.D. Priselkov, D.S. Likhachev.

"Laurentian Chronicle" is a valuable source of research into the events associated with the campaign against the Polovtsy of Novgorod-Seversky Prince Igor Svyatoslavich. In the entry under 1186 (erroneously, instead of 1185), a story is placed here, beginning as follows: “That same summer, when Olgovi’s grandchildren were thought of as Polovtsy, they didn’t go around that summer with all the princes, but they themselves went about themselves, saying: "We are not princes, but we will also earn our own praises? And having taken off at Pereyaslavl, Igor with two sons from Novgorod Seversky, from Trubech Vsevolod, his brother, Olgovich Svyatoslav from Rylsk, and Chernigov to help and go into the land of their [Polovtsy]."

The story of the "Laurentian Chronicle" is much shorter than the story of the "Ipatiev Chronicle" about the same campaign of Igor Svyatoslavich, nevertheless, in a number of places it gives details that are not in? The Lay on Igor's Campaign?.

The text of the chronicle, containing the story of the campaign of Igor Svyatoslavich in 1185, was again published in the 1st vol. PSRL (Moscow: Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1962, stb. 397?

Sources:

1804, 1824 -- partial edition of chronicle [not completed];
"Laurentian Chronicle", 1st ed., St. Petersburg, 1846 (? Complete collection of Russian chronicles?, Vol. 1);
"Laurentian Chronicle", 2nd ed., no. 1?3, L., 1926?28;
"Laurentian Chronicle", 2nd ed. (phototype reproduction), M., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1962.

Literature:

Komarovich V.L., "Laurentian Chronicle" // "History of Russian Literature", vol. 2, part 1, M. ? L., 1945;
Nasonov A.N., "History of Russian Chronicle XI ? early XVIII v.", M., 1969, ch. 4;
Franchuk V.Yu., "On the creator of the version of Prince Igor's campaign against the Polovtsy in 1185 in the Laurentian Chronicle" // "? The Word about Igor's Campaign? and His Time", M., ? Science?, 1985, p. 154? 168;
Shakhmatov A.A., "Review of Russian chronicle codes of the XIV-XVI centuries", M., L., 1938, pp. 9-37;
Priselkov M.D., "The history of Russian chronicle writing in the 11th-15th centuries", M., 1996, pp. 57?113.

Topic tags:
Old Russian chronicles

The Laurentian Chronicle, a parchment manuscript containing a copy of the annalistic code of 1305, made in 1377 by a group of scribes under the guidance of the monk Lavrenty on the instructions of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Dmitry Konstantinovich from the list of the beginning of 14 in the Tale of Bygone Years and brought to 1305. The manuscript lacks news for 898 -922, 1263-1283, 1288-94. Code 1305 was a grand princely Vladimir code compiled at a time when Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver was the grand prince of Vladimir. It was based on the code of 1281, supplemented (since 1282) with the Tver chronicle news. Lawrence's manuscript was written in the Annunciation Monastery in Nizhny Novgorod or in the Vladimir Nativity Monastery. In 1792, it was acquired by A. I. Musin-Pushkin and subsequently presented to Alexander I, who gave the manuscript to the Public Library (now named after M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin), where it is kept. The complete edition was carried out in 1846 ("The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles", vol. 1).

The name of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Dmitry Konstantinovich is associated with an annalistic code compiled for him in 1377 on behalf of Bishop Dionysius by Mnich Lavrenty and which is the oldest of all surviving and indisputably dated lists of the Russian chronicle.

Obtained by the research of acad. A. A. Shakhmatova and M. D. Priselkov’s indisputable conclusions boil down to the recognition of the monument rewritten by Lawrence as the Grand Duke’s Chronicler of 1305, identical with the protographer of the Trinity Chronicle, between the Laurentian copy of which and what Lawrence wrote off (i.e., this very code of 1305 d.), there were no intermediate stages of chronicle writing. Consequently, everything in the list of Lawrence that, for whatever reasons, it would be impossible to elevate to the code of 1305, must be attributed without hesitation to him. The work of Mnikh Lavrenty on his chronicle source is clearly characterized by the analysis of the story about the Tatar invasion of 1237.

The story of the Laurentian Chronicle under 1237-1239, starting with a description of the Ryazan events, touching on Kolomna and Moscow, then vividly and in detail draws the siege and capture of Vladimir, mentioning in passing the capture of Suzdal; then leads us to the Sit, where Yury Vsevolodovich and Vasilko of Rostov camped, and where they bring Yury the news of the death of Vladimir, which he mourns; then briefly talks about the victory of the Tatars and the murder of Yuri; with details of Rostov origin, the death of Vasilko is depicted further; it talks about the burial of Yuri, and everything ends with his praise.

The older version of the story about these events was read in the Trinity Chronicle, the text of which is restored according to the Resurrection. This older version was also contained in the chronicle source, which Lavrenty reworked. The whole story as a whole, as it looked in the Trinity Chronicle, is drawn in the following form.

More detailed than in the Laurentian Chronicle, the retelling of the Ryazan events and the events in Kolomna connected with them (and not with Yuri of Vladimir) was replaced, as in the Laurentian Chronicle, with a description of the siege and capture of Vladimir with minor but significant differences from it; after a general indication with the Lavrentievskaya of the outcome of 6745, the story directly went on to the episode with Dorozh, the ambassador of Prince Yuri, sent to reconnoiter the whereabouts of the Tatars, which was absent in the Laurentian Chronicle, to the picture of the battle on the City, sustained in the tone of military stories, with a brief mention of the murder of Yuri, and with a detailed depiction of Vasilko's death; the ecclesiastical element was limited to three prayers of Vasilko with the introduction of the style of lamentations into them; "Praise" Vasilko then listed his worldly virtues; There was no "praise" for Yuri; the story ended with a list of princes, headed by Yaroslav, who escaped from the Tatars, "with the prayers of the Holy Mother of God." The originality of this restored edition of the story about Batu's rati in the Trinity Chronicle, and, consequently, in the Chronicler of 1305, compared with the close to it, but more common edition in the Laurentian, is beyond doubt. All extensions, reductions or replacements in the Lavrentievskaya in comparison with what was read about Batu's rati in the Chronicler of 1305 could only be made by the one who copied this Chronicler in 1377 with his own hand, that is, Lavrentiy. His authorial contribution to the story of Batu's army can now, therefore, be easily discovered.

Lavrenty began his work on the text of the imaginary protographer by skipping over that accusatory tirade about the non-brotherly love of the princes, which was undoubtedly read in the Chronicler of 1305 and, going back to the Ryazan vault, was directed against Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich.

In the Laurentian Chronicle, the entire Ryazan episode is abbreviated, but at the same time, neither the negotiations of the Ryazan people with Yuri Vsevolodovich, nor his refusal to help them are even mentioned; there is no formidable tirade caused by all this. There is, moreover, no mention of the Tatar ambassadors to Yuri in Vladimir; discarding it along with everything else in the introductory episode about Ryazan, Lavrenty took into account, however, this mention below: it begins that “praise” to Yuri, on which the whole story about Batu’s rati ends in the Laurentian Chronicle and which was not in the Trinity and in the Chronicler 1305. This is his own afterword to the story as a whole, and Lavrenty begins with the detail of the protograph omitted at the beginning. “Byakhut bo before sent the ambassadors of their wickedness to the bloodsuckers, saying: be reconciled with us; he (Yuri) does not want to, like a prophet to say: battle is glorious, it is better to eat the world of the cold. The detail about the Tatar ambassadors from the context condemning for Yuri Vsevolodovich (in the protograph) was thus transferred by Lavrenty to his own laudatory context. Therefore, the entire “praise” as a whole is permeated with a polemic that is understandable only to contemporaries. It has long been the custom of Russian chroniclers to argue with what was issued from the protograph during correspondence. Let us recall the controversy of the Kyiv chronicler about the place of Vladimir's baptism. In the same way, in this case, the “praise” to Yuri by the mnich Lavrenty polemicizes with the angry invective of the Ryazan that was omitted during the correspondence of the protographer. “Praise” from the very first words opposes the accusation of Prince Yuri of non-brotherly love from the very first words with something directly opposite: “because the wonderful prince Yuria is trying to keep God’s commandments ... remembering the word of the Lord, if he says: about seven you will know all the people, as you are my disciples, love one another." That “praise” to Yuri is not at all an obituary written immediately after his death, but a literary monument with a great perspective on the past, is immediately evident from his literary sources. It is all, as it were, woven from selections in the previous text of the same Laurentian Chronicle. The basis was the "praise" to Vladimir Monomakh read there under 1125, expanded with extracts from articles about Yuri's father, Prince Vsevolod, and his uncle, Andrei Bogolyubsky.

The mosaic selection of chronicle data applicable to Yuri about his ancestors: father Vsevolod, uncle Andrei and great-grandfather Vladimir Monomakh, in response to the negative characterization of him from the rewritten protograph, omitted at the beginning, is a literary device, in any case, not a contemporary. The task of historical rehabilitation would have been fulfilled by a contemporary, of course, in a different way. Only a biographer from another era could have had so few true facts about the person being rehabilitated. Of all the “praise”, after all, only the insert about Yuri’s construction activities can be recognized as a specific sign of this historical person, and even then the words “set many cities” mean not so much facts as a legend far removed from them, in time of occurrence. And everything else is just abstract signs of other people's book characteristics transferred to Yuri. And it is remarkable that this reception by Lavrenty is not limited to “praise”; it extends to the entire previous story about the invasion itself. Something, however, was introduced into it from the same chronicle even before Lawrence by the previous editors of this story.

There is every reason to attribute most of the timing of selections from stories about Polovtsian raids to the events of 1237 to Lawrence himself; even the author’s afterword, which once ended the narrative of the raid of 1093 by the Primary Kiev Code (“Behold, I am a sinner and many and often I anger God and often sin every day”), Lavrenty repeated in full, with only a characteristic addition: “ But now we will rise to the predicted one. The entire subsequent passage is again saturated with similar previous borrowings. It is based on the annalistic article of 1015 about the death of Boris and Gleb; but there is a borrowing from the article of 1206. As we can see, a new literary image is being built on a borrowed basis: Gleb’s lament for his father and brother grows in Yuri into a rhetorical lament about the church, the bishop and “about people” who are sorry above themselves and their family. The lament itself is borrowed from the story of the death of Vsevolod's wife, Yuri's mother.

Further processing of the protograph under the pen of Lavrenty resulted in the transfer to Yuri, who was sparingly presented there, of the features and signs of the main (originally) character, Rostov Vasilko, as well as Andrei Bogolyubsky and Vasilko's father, Konstantin (under 1175, 1206 and 1218). Lavrenty deliberately does not convey, however, the words of the protographer about the burial of Vasilko: “Do not be afraid to hear singing in a lot of weeping”; them, like the date, he dates lower to Yuri. And in place of these words taken from Vasilko - before his secular "praise" - Lavrenty again places something that refers not to Vasilko, but to Yuri: a detail about putting Yuri's head into the coffin, in the protograph, most likely, not read at all.

So, the entire literary work of Mnikh Lavrenty, within the article about Batu's army, is focused on one image of Prince Yuri. In order to remove from him the shadow imposed by the previous chronicle, the imaginary Lawrence showed a lot of ingenuity and diligence. It was hardly so simple to select everything that could be useful from separate pages and lines of ten chronicle articles (under 1015, 1093, 1125, 1175, 1185, 1186, 1187, 1203, 1206, 1218) about six different people; transferred their features to Yuri, under the pen of Lawrence, St. Boris and Gleb, Vladimir Monomakh and Andrei Bogolyubsky, Vsevolod and his princess, and finally, even Vasilko, who was killed at the same time as Yuri. At the same time, it is immediately clear that the goal that guided Lawrence’s pen was inextricably linked with his title “mniha”: to the semi-folklore style of military stories, which was inherent in the story in the protograph, Lavrenty with all decisiveness opposes the abstract rhetorical style of lives with prayers, “weeping” and "commendations". Not colloquial speech, but a book, not an echo of a song, but a quotation, characterize his taste and techniques. A quote from the previous content of the monument is, by the way, in Lavrenty's own afterword to the entire chronicle: the book writer also rejoices, having reached the end of books”; of the three likenesses of the "writer" one, in any case, Lavrenty also found in the chronicle he was copying: under 1231, one of his predecessors of the chroniclers asks in prayer, "yes ... directing, I will bring the ship of words into a quiet haven ".

The time when Lawrence's work was completed is known (from the same afterword) with accuracy: between January 14 and March 20, 6885 (1377). Gorodetsky". Lawrence's addition to quotes from an article of 1125 in "praise" to Prince Yuri (about "great dirty tricks on the lands" from the evil bloodsuckers of the Polovtsy and Tatars - "even here a lot of evil has been done"), hinting at something quite specific and recently only what happened "here", i.e., where Lavrenty worked, this postscript, dated, like the entire manuscript, from January - March 1377, shows that Lavrenty wrote the chronicle in Nizhny Novgorod: in a protracted strip of Tatar "dirty things to the lands "was around 1377 of the three cities of Bishop Dionysius, only Lower. In the same "praise" to Yuri, Lavrenty mentioned only the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation Monastery. For such a preference, the reason could only be that Lavrenty himself belonged to the brethren of this monastery. The story about the beginning of the monastery where the chronicle was compiled, even if in short form mere mention, was, as you know, the custom of Russian chroniclers for a long time.

It is known about the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation Monastery that it was indeed founded by Yuri Vsevolodovich, simultaneously with the Nizhny, in 1221, but, having fallen into decay later, was restored anew, just shortly before 1377. Coinciding with the heyday of the newly renovated Konstantin Vasilievich of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality, this restoration of the oldest of the monasteries of the new capital of the principality was not without the usual in such cases in ancient Rus' literary undertaking: a chronicle started up in the monastery.

In the vaults that reflected our regional chronicle of the XIV-XV centuries. (in the annals of Simeonovskaya, Yermolinskaya, Rogozhskaya, Nikonovskaya, etc.), there is a number of news that indicate that, indeed, the Nizhny Novgorod Annunciation Monastery was the focus of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod regional annals of the very era when one of its monks lived and worked, " writer" of the Laurentian Chronicle named after him.

And since the glorification of the person who built the monastery where this chronicle was kept was also a custom among Russian chroniclers for a long time, this, however, partly explains the increased attention of Lavrenty to Yuri Vsevolodovich. In the vault of Lawrence, the prince-builder, praised by him in 1377, belonged to the distant past. The very scope of "praise" to Yuri Vsevolodovich in the Laurentian Chronicle is too bold for the homegrown initiative of a simple "mnih". Prince Yuri, equated in the Ryazan vault with the "cursed" Svyatopolk, should be turned into a similar St. Gleb the Christ-lover and martyr; on the loser, who destroyed both his princely “root” and his principality, to transfer for the first time in the northeast, long before similar experiments on the ancestors of the Moscow princes, the dynastic reflection of the name of Monomakh - a simple monk would hardly have thought of and dared without appropriate directives from above. And that Lavrenty actually had such directives is evident again from his afterword, where he twice, in solemn terms, named his direct literary customers: Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich and Bishop Dionysius. The initiative of the latter should, of course, be attributed to all the bold originality of the independent annalistic work done by Lawrence.

The Kiev-Pechersk monk, abbot of one of the Nizhny Novgorod monasteries, Dionysius in 1374 was appointed bishop of the bishopric restored in the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality, which was in charge of the three main cities of the principality - Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod and Gorodets. In 1377, Dionysius achieved the establishment in the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality instead of a bishopric - an archdiocese, that is, he made Suzdal church independent of the Moscow metropolitan. In order to substantiate his claims to this independence, Dionysius conceived the compilation of an annalistic code, entrusting this matter to the monk Lawrence. From the same plan of Dionysius, the whole work of Lawrence on the literary portrait of Yuri himself is explained.

Byzantium recognized the right to be allocated to an archdiocese autonomous from the metropolitan for regions and lands with a certain historical and cultural prestige, in the sense that this prestige was then understood: the strength of secular power had to correspond to the strength and antiquity of the Christian cult, which could best be externally confirmed , in the eyes of Byzantium, private cults of local saints. In search of such prestige for his Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod land - before trying to turn it into an archdiocese - Dionysius had to turn Special attention on the patron of the main monasteries and temples in this land, the builder of one of its cities and the first of the princes who owned all three cities at once. It is not for nothing that there are so many features in the features given by Lawrence to Prince Yuri that could impress just the Greeks: as a dynast of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes, he is presented to them as the second Monomakh, a relative of the Byzantine Basils; in his political failures, he is not only justified as a martyr, like St. Boris and Gleb, but also endowed with one specific virtue that they lacked: more devotion to the bishop than to his wife and children; and this is nothing more than a borrowing from the teachings of Patriarch Luke Chrysoverg to Andrei Bogolyubsky in that letter to him (1160), which was then constantly used in Rus' as the norm of princely-episcopal relations. Finally, Lawrence gave Yuri a hagiographic tinge, even with a direct mention of Yuri's relics.

The compilation of the Laurentian Chronicle is inextricably linked, as we see, with the establishment in Rus' at the initiative of Dionysius of the second archbishopric. And since the implementation of the project in 1382 was undoubtedly preceded by a relatively very long period of its reflection and comprehensive preparation, there is reason to recognize the compilation of the Laurentian Chronicle as one of the acts of this preparation. If, indeed, as one might think, the predecessor of Patriarch Nile, Patriarch Macarius, while negotiating with Dionysius between 1378 and 1379, called him to Byzantium even then, then to collect him there just at the indicated time, in 1377 and the hasty production of the Chronicler, which could be needed as a document in negotiations with the patriarch, could have been timed. And since the trip of Dionysius did not take place at that moment, but two years later, when the hastily prepared list could be whitewashed and supplemented, our Laurentian Chronicle remained at home.

How, however, did this brave Pecheryan's attempt to turn the all-Russian state that was taking shape at that time from the Moscow road to the Nizhny Novgorod road ended with her?

The role of Moscow could not be clear to contemporaries until 1380. The year of the Kulikovo victory should have clarified a lot. Returning from his diplomatic trip only two years later, Dionysius could not immediately but fully appreciate what had happened in his absence. This must explain the obvious change in his political orientation, starting from 1383: he again goes to Constantinople, but not on the business of the Suzdal archdiocese, but "on the administration of the Russian metropolis." This time, appointed to the metropolitan himself, Dionysius, on his way back to Kiev, is captured by Vladimir Olgerdovich and dies in 1384 in the “apprehension”, according to the chronicle, that is, in custody, having survived only a year of Dmitry Konstantinovich of Suzdal. The archbishopric he created died out by itself, as the political disintegration of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality. In the same year, when one of the still resisting Suzdal princes, “fathers”, Moscow governors were catching in the “Tatar places” and wilds, in Suzdal they accidentally found immured in the wall taken out by Dionysius in 1382 from Tsargrad “The Passion of the Lord” - silver a bow with images of several holidays and an inscription, in some ways reminiscent of the final postscript of Lawrence. “The divine passions,” the inscription says, “transferred from Constantinople by the humble Archbishop Dionysius to the holy archbishopric of Suzdal, Novgorod, Gorodets... under the holy Patriarch Nile, under Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich.” The same as Lavrenty's list of cities in the title of Dionysius, the same name of Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich "great", as if Moscow does not exist. The find was triumphantly transferred to Moscow like a trophy. A similar fate awaited the Chronicler Lavrenty: also intended, according to the plan of its compilers, to challenge Moscow for its primacy, it served, however, almost to strengthen its own Moscow chronicle tradition: at least Muscovites quickly adopted what was new in it in a purely literary attitude. Like the hagiographic revision of the article of 1239 by Lavrentiy from Suzdal, the compiler of one of the Moscow collections also makes his own hagiographic additions to it from the life of his Moscow princely patron, Alexander Nevsky. In the form of a kind of collection of his own princely lives, Tver begins at the same time to build its own chronicle. Abraham's Smolensk reference imitates Lawrence in the afterword. Finally, the entire Laurentian Chronicle as a source is used by the compilers of large all-Russian collections of Photius and his successors.

The Laurentian Chronicle is the most valuable monument of ancient Russian chronicle writing and culture. The latest and highest quality edition of her text is the publication of 1926-1928. , edited by Acad. E. F. Karsky. This work has long since become a bibliographic rarity, and even its phototype reproduction, undertaken in 1962 under the supervision of Acad. M. N. Tikhomirov (circulation 1600 copies), could not satisfy the needs of historians, linguists, cultural workers and ordinary readers interested in Russian history. Reissue of Volume I Complete collection Russian chronicles, carried out by the publishing house "Languages ​​of Russian Culture", is intended to fill this gap.

The manuscript is stored in the National Library of Russia under code number F. p. IV. 2. The parchment codex, in a small "ten", on 173 sheets, was written mainly by two scribes: the first scribe copied ll. 1 vol. - 40 about. (first 8 lines), the second - ll. 40 vol. (starting from the 9th line) - 173 vol. The only exceptions are ll. 157, 161 and 167: they are inserted, violate the natural order of the line and have spaces at the end, which indicates the inability of the scribe to proportionally distribute the text on the sheet area. Text on ll. 157-157 rev., 167-167 rev. rewrote the third scribe (however, his handwriting is very similar to the handwriting of the first scribe), and on ll. 161-161 rev. - the second scribe, but it was continued (from the end of the 14th line of the sheet turnover) by the third scribe. The first 40 sheets of the manuscript are written in one column, the next - in two columns.

The main (second) scribe named himself in a postscript to ll. 172 rev. - 173: it was the monk Lavrenty, who rewrote the chronicle in 1377 for the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, with the blessing of the Bishop of Suzdal Dionysius. By the name of the scribe the chronicle received in scientific literature the name of Lavrentievskaya.

At present, omissions are found in the manuscript of the Laurentian Chronicle: between ll. 9 and 10 are missing 6 sheets with the text of 6406-6429, after l. 169-5 sheets with the text of 6771-6791, after l. 170-1 sheet with articles 6796-6802 The content of the lost sheets can be judged from the Radzivilovskaya and Troitskaya chronicles similar to those of Lavrentievskaya.

There is another opinion in the literature - not about the mechanical, but about the creative nature of the work of Lavrenty and his assistants on the chronicle in 1377. Some researchers suggest, in particular, that the story of the Batu invasion of Rus' was revised as part of the Laurentian Chronicle. However, an appeal to the Trinity Chronicle, regardless of the Lavrentiev one that transmits them as a common source, does not confirm this opinion: Troitskaya in the story of the events of 1237-1239. coincides with the Laurentian. Moreover, all specific features stories about the Batu invasion as part of the Laurentian Chronicle (ideological orientation, literary methods of the compiler) organically fit into the historical and cultural background of the 13th century. and cannot be taken outside the chronological framework of this century. A careful study of the features of the text of the story about the Batu invasion of Rus' as part of the Laurentian Chronicle leads to the conclusion that it was created in the early 80s. 13th century

Little is known about the fate of the Laurentian Chronicle manuscript itself. On the polluted 1, you can make out the entry “The Book of the Rozhesvensky Monastery of Volodimer Skago”, which is not very confidently dated to the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century. But in the XVIII century. the manuscript ended up in the collection of the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral, where a copy was made of it in 1765 at the Novgorod Seminary (stored in the BAN under the code 34.2.32). In 1791, among other manuscripts, the Laurentian Chronicle was sent from Novgorod to Moscow and came to the Chief Procurator of the Synod, gr. A. I. Musin-Pushkin. In 1793, AI Musin-Pushkin published Vladimir Monomakh's Teachings on this manuscript, and at the beginning of the 19th century, the count presented the manuscript as a gift to Emperor Alexander I, who transferred it to the Public Library. In any case, this happened before 1806, since on September 25, 1806, the director of the library, A.N. Olenin, presented a copy of the Laurentian Chronicle to Count S.S. 1 was made by the hand of A. N. Olenin, the manuscript itself was rewritten by the archaeographer A. I. Ermolaev - it should be noted that paper with the dates 1801 and 1802 was used).

The record that the manuscript of the Laurentian Chronicle belonged to the Vladimir Nativity Monastery served as the basis for the assumption that the monk Lavrentiy wrote in Vladimir and that his work remained in the possession of the Nativity Monastery. Meanwhile, clear traces of finding the Laurentian Chronicle in the 17th century are found. in the Nizhny Novgorod Caves Monastery, where it was directly used in compiling a special Caves chronicler. The Caves chronicle is known to us in two lists: 1) RSL, f. 37 (collected by T. F. Bolshakov), No. 97, 70-80s. XVII century; 2) State Historical Museum, coll. Moscow Assumption Cathedral, No. 92, con. 17th century If we take into account that Dionysius, prior to his appointment as a bishop, was the archimandrite of the Pechersky Monastery specifically, and that in this monastery the chronicle of Laurentius was preserved until the 17th century, it can be reasonably assumed that the Grand Duke's code was rewritten in 1377 in the Nizhny Novgorod Pechersky Monastery by local monks.

When publishing the Laurentian Chronicle, the Radzi Vilov Chronicle was used in various interpretations.

The Radzivilov Chronicle is stored in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg under the code 34.5.30. Manuscript in 1, on 251 + III sheets. The chronicle is located on ll. 1-245, the watermarks of this part of the manuscript - three views of the bull's head - are reproduced in N. P. Likhachev's album under Nos. 3893-3903 (but the reproduction is not entirely accurate). On ll. 246-250 rpm additional articles were rewritten in a different handwriting and on different paper (“The Tale of Danilo the Humble Hegumen, who walks like his feet and eyes”, “The Word of St. Dorotheus, Bishop of Tours, about the 12 apostle saints”, “The Word of St. Epiphanius, the legend of the prophets and prophetesses” ), filigree - two types of a bull's head under a cross - are reproduced in N. P. Likhachev's album under Nos. 3904-3906. “Judging by the paper, the time of writing the Radzivilov list should most likely be attributed to the last decade of the 15th century,” N. P. Likhachev came to this conclusion. We believe that the date can be significantly refined. According to the observations of N.P. Likhachev, sign No. 3864 from the documents of 1486 is “completely similar in type to the signs of the annals.” If we talk about signs No. 3896-3898, then they literally coincide with the signs of the Book of 16 Prophets (RSL, f. 304 / I, No. 90) - according to our updated data (in the album of N. P. Likhachev, the signs of the Book of the Prophets are reproduced under No. No. 1218-1220 with distortions The book of the prophets was written by Stefan Tveritin from October 1, 1488 to February 9, 1489. Thus, the paleographic data make it possible to narrow the dating interval to 1486-1488. A. V. Chernetsov’s observations are characterized by the same linguistic features as the main text, and which can be attributed to 1487. 3 Taken together, the above results make it possible to date the Radzivilov Chronicle around 1487. Additional articles on folio 246 -250 rev. (which, by the way, differ in the same linguistic features as the text of the chronicle) can be attributed to the 90s of the XV century.

The Radzivilov Chronicle is front (decorated with more than 600 miniatures), and this determines its outstanding significance in the history of Russian culture. At present, the version about the Western Russian origin of the Radzivilov Chronicle, in the contact zone of the Belarusian and Great Russian dialects, most likely in Smolensk, seems to be the most reasonable (A. A. Shakhmatov, V. M. Gantsov). An analysis of the stylistic features of miniatures (which have experienced significant Western European influence) and their content inclines to the same opinion.

The nature of the postscripts in the margins of the chronicle shows that the manuscript was created in an urban environment in which the veche orders of ancient Russian cities, their freedoms and privileges were approved. Later entries late XVI- early 17th century in the Old Belarusian language testify that the manuscript at that time belonged to representatives of the petty gentry, residents of the Grodno district. At the end of the manuscript there is an entry that the chronicle was donated by Stanislav Zenovevich to Prince Janusz Radziwill. Therefore, around the middle of the XVII century. the chronicle from small holders passed into the possession of the highest stratum of the Belarusian nobility. Through the mediation of Prince Boguslav Radziwill, who had close family ties with the Prussian magnates, in 1671 the chronicle entered the Königsberg Library. Here, in 1715, Peter I got acquainted with it and ordered to make a copy of it (now: BAN, 31.7.22). In 1761, when Russian troops occupied Koenigsberg, the chronicle was taken from the Koenigsberg library and transferred to the Library of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

The Radzivilovskaya chronicle brings the presentation up to 6714, and due to the fact that the sheets were mixed up in the original, the events from the end of 6711 to 6714 turned out to be set out earlier than the news of 6711-6713. According to the study of N. G. Berezhkov, articles 6679-6714. in the Radzivilov Chronicle (as well as in the Lavrentiev Chronicle) are designated according to the ultra March style, therefore, 6714 is translated as 1205.

A comparison of the Laurentian Chronicle with the Radzivilov Chronicle and the Chronicler of Perey glorifying Suzdal shows that a similar text of these chronicles continues right up to 1205 (6714 in ultra-March dating). Following the end common source in Lavrentievskaya, the date of 6714 is repeated, but already in the March designation, and then follows a text that differs significantly from the Chronicler of Pereyaslavl of Suzdal; Radzivilovskaya, on the other hand, breaks off at the article of 1205. Therefore, it can be assumed that a certain stage in the history of Vladimir chronicle writing is connected with 1205. At the same time, from the observations of A. A. Shakhmatov over articles for the 70s. 12th century it follows that the Lavrentievskaya was based on an earlier version of the code of 1205 (in the Radzivilovskaya and the Chronicler of Pereyaslavl of Suzdal, tendentious additions of the name of Vsevolod the Big Nest to the news about his brother Mikhalka were made).

The possibility of reconstructing the Trinity Chronicle was substantiated by A. A. Shakhmatov, who discovered that the Simeon Chronicle from the very beginning (but it begins only from 1177) to 1390 is similar to the Trinity Chronicle (judging by the quotes of N. M. Karamzin). Capital work on the reconstruction of the Trinity Chronicle was undertaken by M. D. Priselkov, but in the light of recent discoveries of new ancient Russian chronicle monuments, the reconstruction of the Trinity Chronicle should be revised and refined.

The Trinity Chronicle, by the nature of its news, is obviously compiled at the Moscow Metropolitan See, but the chronicler's predilection for the inner life of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery identifies the hand of a monk of the Sergius Monastery. An analysis of the stylistic manner and ideological orientation of the work of the archer makes it possible to more accurately determine the personality of the compiler of the annalistic code of 1408 - he turned out to be an outstanding writer Medieval Rus' Epiphanius the Wise, who, being a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, acted as secretary of Metropolitan Photius Simeon Chronicle under 6909; the inscription was published by Acad. A. S. Orlov in "Bibliography of Russian inscriptions of the XI-XV centuries." Ed. Acad. Sciences of the USSR, 1936, pp. 81-82. Shakhmatov A. A. A note on the place of compilation of the Radzivilov (Kenigsberg) chronicle list. M., 1913; Gantsov V. M. Peculiarities of the language of the Radzivilov (Koenigsberg) chronicle list // IORYAS, 1927, v. 32, p. 177-242.

Laurentian Chronicle: textual analysis. Who corrected what and why?

Why do we turn specifically to the Laurentian Chronicle, and not to any other? The answer is simple: this chronicle (annalistic code) is the earliest of all the surviving chronicles known today. It highlights a part that is traditionally considered to be even more ancient, recorded in the XI-XII centuries. This part has been translated into modern Russian. It was published separately under the title The Tale of Bygone Years. It is referred to when writing about the history of Rus'. This chronicle most of all attracts historians of different eras. Most of it has been written about her. And, of course, more will be written. But for all that, there is one significant drawback: when studying the chronicle, they most often use not the original, but the text of the Old Russian language already translated into a printed version with a breakdown of sentences, words according to meaning and punctuation marks. In this case, the printed version is somewhat different from the original chronicle. It is also proposed to conduct a textual analysis of the copy electronic version Chronicle, much closer to the original.

First, a few words about the chronicle itself. What do we know about the Laurentian Chronicle today? The fact that it was rewritten, according to the entry on folio 172, by a monk

Lawrence in 1377 in Suzdal at the direction of the Suzdal prince Dmitry Konstantinovich and with the blessing of Bishop Dionysius of Vladimir. Although there are suggestions about the writing of the chronicle under the leadership of Lavrenty in the Nizhny Novgorod Caves Monastery. The basis for such conclusions was the similarity of the Laurentian chronicle with the chronicle of the Caves chronicler, created in the same Nizhny Novgorod, in separate parts. And it is also assumed that two different handwriting of the Laurentian Chronicle testifies to two scribe monks.

We also know that the first date from which the chronicle becomes known is 1765. Then a copy is made of it in the Novgorod Seminary and sent to Moscow. Until that moment, the chronicle, as it turned out, was kept in the archives of the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral. The reason for the interest in the chronicle, I think, was the public speech of the German historian A.L. Schlözer (1735–1809) the year before. In order to study our history, Schlozer lived in Russia for six years from 1761 to 1767. As early as 1768, a book appeared in Germany under his surname: “The experience of analyzing Russian chronicles (concerning Nestor and Russian history)”. As the name suggests, Schlözer got acquainted with the Laurentian Chronicle in the period up to 1765. In his conclusions, he proceeded from the positions of two other German historians G.Z. Bayer (16941738) and G.F. Miller (1705–1783). Both worked at the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts, where they were invited after the opening of the Academy in 1724. Both of them were actively engaged in research into the question of the beginning of Russian statehood. The first in 1735 published an article "On the Varangians". The second spoke in 1749 with a dissertation "On the origin of the name and people of Russia." Both referred to the Nestor Chronicle, as the Tale of Bygone Years was then called. An article from the annals about the calling of the Varangians under their pen becomes the main evidence of the alleged inability of the Russian people to independence. The main postulate: the savagery of the Russian barbarians continued until the arrival of the Germanic Varangians, led by the Swedish (and the Swedes are one of the Germanic tribes) Prince Rurik and his brothers at the invitation of the Novgorodians themselves.

Since then, all these three German historians of the XVIII century. are called the founders of the Norman theory of the origin of Russian statehood. Although not everything is so clear. For example, the same Schlozer was extremely critical of the legend of the Varangians.

August Schlözer built his conclusions on the basis of comparative analysis. According to his observations, the first pages of many Russian temporary books have been torn out. Alteration of the chronicles was carried out quite recently during the time of Tatishchev, in the middle of the 18th century. Moreover, the scribes dared to alter even the titles. But a real revolution in the time-keeping took place around the sixteenth century. At that time, not only in Russia, but also in Bohemia, Poland, and Prussia, they began to work fervently in order to "fill the void in their ancient histories with nonsense, often contrary to human reason" 123 . At the same time, a stupid fashion began in Germany, writes the German Schlozer, to bring their noble families out of Italy. Chronicles were rewritten under new trends. Power and bit books appeared everywhere. They include princes, boyars, dukes, and so on. arranged according to the degrees of nobility and ranks. This division was mostly conditional and subjective. The case reached the point of complete absurdity. Military discipline was violated in the army. Subordinates refused to obey the orders of less well-born superiors. Then Bit books began to burn. But in some places in distant monasteries they have been preserved, and now they are presented to the public as historical evidence.

It's funny to read in the Russian Book of Degrees, Schlozer writes further, that Rurik (as according to Schlozer) is a descendant of the Roman August in the 14th tribe. Tales about three brothers and three sisters are composed all over the world and especially in Europe. The story in the annals about the calling of the brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor is the same fairy tale as the biblical tale about the flood and the separation of peoples and languages, about the foundation of Kiev again by the three brothers Kiy, Schok and Khoriv, ​​about the coming of the Apostle Andrew to the Kiev mountains. I consider the entire “most ancient history of Rus' until the death of Yaroslav in 1054 to be built on fairy tales and the mistakes of scribes” (Ibid., p. 648). The Russians, they are the Normans, who once came out, long before the fabulous Rurik, from Sweden and made up one people with the Novgorodians (Slovenes) and the Chud (Finns). Therefore, there are many Scandinavian names and titles in the annals. Such a conclusion is made by Schlözer in conclusion.

Not everything can be agreed with him. But this is not worth focusing on right now. In this case, we are interested in his critical approach to the annals of Nestor. But even more - the tasks assigned to them. Schlözer urged to investigate suspicious words, lines, to determine whether they really belong to Nestor himself or, after all, to the scribe. As a result, it is possible to figure out where the historical truth is and where is fiction, and to carry out the correct grammatical and historical interpretation of words that have several meanings. Perhaps, in justification of his German colleague Muller, Schlözer says with extreme caution that, in fact, he is not the first to doubt the existence of Rurik. Muller was the first. Maybe that's why Muller was not allowed to make a speech at the Academy of Sciences before Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in 1747? asks Schlozer. Like it or not, it doesn't matter. But in the criticism of Schlözer, they began to focus on his interpretation of the Scandinavian names and names, the position on the unity of the Swedish and Novgorod peoples, instead of actually "carrying out the correct grammatical interpretation of words and finding out where the historical truth is and where the fiction is."

There are no other reports until 1765, about two hundred and fifty years, about the Laurentian Chronicle.

Ivan Vasilyevich (Grozny) will have to admit his belonging to the Rurik dynasty. The revision of all the available chronicle material carried out under him showed the awkwardness of the situation. I wanted to descend from the Roman emperors, but it looked ridiculous. The search for historical chronicles caused unrest in monastic circles and aroused public interest in the chronicles. The content of the Laurentian Chronicle becomes known to foreign nationals visiting Moscow. Summary The Austrian diplomat Sigismund Herberstein, already mentioned, retells the initial Russian history according to the Laurentian Chronicle in his Notes on Muscovy. Therefore, in the version of the court chroniclers of Ivan the Terrible, Rurik himself becomes a descendant of the Roman Augusts. In the eyes of Ivan the Terrible, this is still better than deriving one's family from the Belskys, or the Shuiskys, or the Zakharyins, which meant nominally becoming equal with them in the rights to the throne. In this regard, Ivan the Terrible adhered to the idea of ​​his royalty by divine chosenness. At the same time, some shortcomings were revealed in the use of persons involved in the census of church books and other archival documents.

Has reached us scandalous story around the name of Maxim the Greek. In 1525 he was accused of deliberately distorting the meaning of the liturgical books. Maxim Grek tried to shift the responsibility to those with whom he did parallel translation - Dmitry Gerasimov and Vlas Ignatov. Invited from Greece not long before, Maxim Grek did not really know the Russian language yet. In turn, Gerasimov and Ignatov did not know Greek. The translation of the Psalter, which they were assigned, was carried out first from Greek into Latin, and then from Latin into Russian. Latin was their intermediary language, a kind of international language. All three of them, although to varying degrees, knew him. But he was not native to them. In this case, the transfer through the third knee does not guarantee quality. Mistakes are inevitable. But the problem turned out to be much broader than it seemed. It's not about the quality of translated literature. She showed the state of literacy in Rus' as a whole. If we know that there were literacy schools at the monasteries, then we do not know that Greek and latin languages. Interpreters were in great demand. The same Dmitry Gerasimov was from Livonia, where they spoke German. That's why he knew German. He has already mastered Latin on his own.

In addition to literacy, the example of Maxim Grek also demonstrates the principle of forming translators. Rarely sent abroad to study. More often they were invited to their place with the conviction that over time a foreigner would definitely master the Russian language. Thus, in Russian monasteries there were many not only Greeks from Athos, but also Germans, Dutch, Swedes. Mature people went to Rus', with a certain amount of knowledge, a mindset and, often, with purposeful missionary tasks. XIV - beginning of the XV century. - time of attempts to connect the Orthodox and Catholic churches. The activities of Catholic missionaries were encouraged in every possible way by the Pope. Not all of them returned for various reasons. The same Maxim the Greek, already excommunicated and exiled to the Joseph-Volotsky Monastery, constantly asked the tsar to have mercy and let him go home, but he was destined to die in Russia. Still, he was close to the royal court and they didn’t want Europe to know about both good and bad deeds in Rus'.

The Laurentian Chronicle was republished in 1872, 1926, 1961, 1997. In 1950, The Tale of Bygone Years was published as a separate edition with translation. In all these editions, titles were placed under the text, suggesting the abbreviation of words; footnotes provided letter designations for words with corrections found in parallel lists of the annals; Explanations were given at the end of the texts. In any case, it was not a copy of the original, that is, in a typographical way, it was impossible to transfer superscript edits, add words, or any signs on the sheet. And comments always have a certain amount of subjectivity.

At the dawn of the flowering of photography, attempts were made to publish the chronicle in a phototype way. But even she did not convey a color picture of parchment.

There was not enough brightness to see scuffs, corrections of letters in words, and so on. Many generations of historians had to be content with the conclusions of academicians A.A. Shakhmatov, M.D. Priselkov and other scientists who had direct access to the original Laurentian Chronicle. And today, references to Shakhmatov and Priselkov are often used, although some of their conclusions are already outdated.

Only in June 2012, an electronic copy of the Laurentian Chronicle appeared on the website of the Russian National Library, of sufficient quality and close to the original. It is already possible to distinguish letters on it in places of scuffs, although not in all, the condition of the parchment itself: blots on it, stitched seams, white spots, and so on.

Today we can look through an electronic copy of the Laurentian Chronicle on the Internet. This means that we have the opportunity to independently compare its information with other data from archaeographic, paleographic and other studies.

The textual analysis of the chronicle offered to the reader in this case is carried out using sociological methods of working with documents. Research always begins with a problem statement, goals and objectives. Here they are formulated as follows. In the Norman question about the beginning of the formation of statehood in Rus', the quite officially established point of view (official because the beginning of statehood dates back to 862) comes from the recognition in various variations of the entry in the Tale of Bygone Years of the legend of the existence of a foreign prince Rurik. The very attitude to the Norman theory easily fits into the Procrustean bed of "floating ideology" in four hypostases:

1. When denying the Norman theory as a whole, the existence of Rurik and his company in the person of a squad of Scandinavian mercenaries is recognized in particular; the legend itself about the calling of the Varangians is recognized on the basis of similar legends in other European countries.

2. When denying, in particular, the role of the personality of Rurik himself, the participation of Rurik's squad is recognized as a prerequisite for resolving the internecine strife of the Russian princes in the dispute for the primacy of possession of the Kiev table, in fact, as described in the annals.

3. When recognizing the Norman theory as a whole, in particular, the role of the Normans in subsequent events in the formation of Russian statehood is denied on the basis of the objectivity and regularity of historical processes in the format of the theory of development and change of socio-economic formations.

4. When recognizing in particular the personality of one Rurik, he is generally assigned the role of embryonic participation in the formation of a great-power princely dynasty, as, in fact, this is described in the annals: Rurik appears with his brothers, then the brothers die, he inherits everything alone, then he dies himself. About any of his deeds, whether public or private - the birth of children, marriage, the death of his wife, as in the biographies of other princes - and even some phenomena of a natural nature during his reign as a prince, similar to those in the biographies of other princes - nothing says. Rurik in the annals disappears through one page of complete omissions as suddenly as he suddenly appears, under article 879: “Rurik died and, having transferred his reign to Oleg, his kinsman, he gave him his son Igor, for he was still very small."

In this division of the Norman theory lies the main contradiction - the desire to get away from the influence of Normanism on historical processes in Russia and, at the same time, to preserve the “acquired”, once accustomed view of two ruling dynasties in Russia: the Ruriks and the Romanovs. The goal, based on this contradictory attitude to the Norman theory, is to find out how organically or, conversely, inorganically, Rurik and Rurikovich are inscribed in the annals.

In relation to the legend itself, there are several opinions with a version that represents the real basis of the events of the middle of the 9th century. to the denial of such and the version about interspersing the legend of Rurik at a later time during the reconstruction of the chronicle. In the previous sections, it was shown that the real conditions for the appearance of the Normans on Russian soil in the middle of the 9th century. did not have. This will be discussed in the next section with the involvement of more detailed archaeological data. It remains to be assumed that the legend of Rurik was introduced into the chronicle by analogy with similar legends in other countries, either by the first chronicler in the 11th century, or by later scribes.

The main task is to clarify the question: when and who benefited from the appearance in the Laurentian Chronicle, dated 1377, of the legend of Rurik. This cannot be done without the involvement of additional sources, of course. But the right of primacy in this matter remains with the annals. Therefore, the object of study is the Laurentian Chronicle - its text, the parchment on which it is written, the design on the sheet, etc. The subject is the features, patterns that appear in repeated marks on the sheets, scuffs, numbering, edits, transfers, etc. .

For the convenience of perceiving the material, the analysis is multilevel. At the first stage, first an external examination of the chronicle is carried out, then a thorough reading of it in order to identify recurring features acceptable for analysis. At the second stage, the identified features are grouped for sampling into separate blocks. In the third section, brief explanations are given. The fourth presents the results of the samples. At the fifth stage, conclusions are drawn for each block of the sample. At the sixth stage, all the results obtained are summarized.

Now in order. First stage: description of the chronicle. An external examination of the electronic copy of the chronicle reveals numerous abrasions with the presence of white, probably greasy spots, on which ink letters were not written. In some places there are torn corners of the sheets and traces of stitched seams on parchment sheets are noticeable. In the text itself, attention is drawn to the use of three types of ink: brown, black and red, as well as two types of handwriting with a change in ink from brown to black, charter and half charter. According to the text of the chronicle, numerous edits are noticeable in the form of adding individual letters above the line; adding words under the last line of the page; omissions of places for adding dates, lines without text, there are many drawn letters and symbolic signs. In some places, the text is highlighted in red ink in seven or more lines. Not all of the above will be included in the sample. What is important are those features that make it possible to determine specific results. For example, torn or worn corners and white spots can be attributed to accidental damage to parchment. They will be ignored. On the other hand, sheets with stitched seams will be included in the sample, because here one can see a systematic approach in the formation of manuscript notebooks.

The second stage: the selection of features and patterns. We group all the features of interest to us into sample blocks. There were twelve of them in total: 1) damaged parchment; 2) use of red ink; 3) lined text; 4) use of drawn letters and symbols; 5) numbering; 6) editing individual words, adding words in the margins of the last line of the sheet, spelling the word "summer" in dates; 7) letters of special use; 8) distortion of names; 9) possible semantic inconsistencies in the text on the sheets and between the sheets; 10) changes, corrections, additions made by proofreaders and modern translators to the text; 11) omissions of dates (years); 12) indicator words.

The third stage: brief explanations of the sample.

1. Parchment (or parchment) was made from the skins of young domestic animals: lambs, calves, piglets. Because he did not break in the bends. It was a rather laborious process using chalk powder, flour, milk and sharp objects to remove fat and meat. To give the product elasticity, the skin was stretched, dried and polished. The quality largely depended on the skill and patience of the master. Excessive effort when scraping or pulling could result in rips or excessive finesse upon drying and, in general, damage to the practically finished product. The leaf format was determined by the skin area of ​​a young individual. The edges have been trimmed. One can imagine the amount of material used for one book, for example, the Laurentian Chronicle of 173 sheets, if the production of one sheet required the skin of one lamb. It is not surprising that the holes formed during the processing were skillfully mended. In the picture of the annals, such seams are clearly visible. Sometimes there are several such seams on one sheet. In general, out of 173 sheets, 32 have damage of this nature. For us, the distribution of these sheets according to the text of the annals is important.

2. The most noticeable on the pages of the chronicle, as well as a regular book, are places highlighted in some way, whether in bold or bright print, with sketches. The Laurentian Chronicle uses red ink to mark such places. In Rus', for the manufacture of red ink, the powder of carminous insects, the distribution of which is typical for Central Asia, was used as the main ingredient.

Any person who takes up a pen should be aware that the reader will pay attention, first of all, to the lines or letters highlighted in red ink. Consequently, the chronicler had to single out events, years, and persons that were important from his point of view. It can be assumed that in the process of presenting the material, the writer or copyist either deviated from the rules he had already conceived, or developed them, introducing new elements into the external outlines. In this case, a certain system should be traced. The opposite shows the differences in author's styles. Consistency or lack of system in the use of red ink in the designation of significant places is the most important indicator in determining the authorship of the annals.

The system ones include highlighting the years in red ink in combination: “In the summer + year + the first letter of the next word.” This goes throughout the text, except for folios 157 and 167, where the dates are not highlighted in red ink, but only underlined in red ink in a black frame. Relatively systemic, one can call the red ink highlighting of phrases: “that (same) summer”, “that (same) summer”, “that (same) winter”, etc. Relatively, because these phrases themselves begin to be used in the text not from the very beginning of the chronicle. Sometimes only the first letter is highlighted here, or it is not highlighted at all, or it is highlighted interspersed. And this cannot be called an intentional innovation of the author that arose in the process of writing. The same applies to the expressions: “for memory ...”, “months ... (called)”. The rare mention of the calculation of years by indications cannot be called systemic. It is non-systematic to highlight any significant events or natural phenomena, written in red ink in several lines, because comparison with any similar event or phenomenon will be subjective. Thus, indications, events, natural phenomena, highlighted in red ink, are not included in the sample. At the same time, the use of red ink is indicative in itself, and the lack of system is already a factor reflecting the author's predilections. Therefore, it is important to determine his attitude to the use of red ink in general and only then to the allocation of individual places, letters, numbers, signs, symbols. According to this principle, this block will consist of five samples.

3. Lined text. The indents from the edges were both practical and aesthetic. Smooth lines look and read better than "jumping" ones. Indents from the edges of the sheet from the side of the line of the intended addition to the notebook are necessary so as not to cover the text. And in order not to stain or greasy letters when turning pages, it was necessary to limit the text along the sheet from the edges of the page along the entire perimeter. These norms were dictated by practice. The horizontal line was made at regular intervals. The resulting frame had to be aligned with the dimensions on the subsequent sheet, which was achieved by puncturing with a needle or a knife edge. Thus, the frame had to contain a certain number of lines transmitted to the next sheet. In the text of the chronicle, only after the 40th leaf, the number of lines per page does not change. Up to the 40th sheet on separate pages, the gap between the top two lines is more externally visible than the others and, accordingly, one line on this page more. In fact, the mismatch in the number of lines on the page goes in whole blocks. Horizontally, the number of letters in a line written without pauses and punctuation marks, except for periods, must also be equal or diverge by several letters. However, in the text from the beginning to the end, the number of characters increases by about 8-10 characters. On separate sheets, 157 and 167, there are twice as many of them as at the beginning. However, the selection by the number of characters is limited to this. It doesn't make sense to single it out. Technical performance in itself cannot serve as a basis for any conclusions, but may be an additional help in the system of evidence or refutation of established theories. Therefore, the text line is included among the studied features of the Laurentian Chronicle.

4. Drawn letters, signs and symbols are the element of design that is most subject to creative influence. They may change stylistically or disappear if not included in the book's overall art strategy. But even if they are scattered in a chaotic manner throughout the text, the hand of the author is easily guessed in them. Translated religious literature served as an example for chronicles, teachings, and other secular writings. It especially required the allocation of separate places that separate the canonical terms by meaning, time, manner of execution, and so on. In historical chronicles, such separating elements were often annual, monthly dates, separate expressions such as: “that summer”, “that year”, “at the same time”, etc. In the Laurentian Chronicle, the first letter of such an expression or the entire expression were written in red ink and most often on a new line.

The initial letters of these words loomed beautifully, outlined. Here an individual style of performance was revealed. But here, too, preferences are visible in the choice of the object of selection and the frequency of application. These latter can no longer be attributed to the creative search of the author or copyist. They constitute that feature by which one can distinguish the manner of writing of one author from another. In the Laurentian Chronicle, there are painted letters four lines high, others are smaller and in the middle of the lines. They stand out with their intricate configuration and red ink. Separately, it is worth paying attention to the symbols in the annals. The symbols include the wave sign horizontally and once the same sign, intertwined vertically, neatly and beautifully drawn in the form of a swastika with curved edges. These characters, tall drawn letters and separately the letters "C" and "B" will be used in the sample.

5. Numbering. Today, the need to number arises for everyone who is faced in their work with writing, collecting information, and so on. on sheets of writing paper in A4 size. Unless there is no need to put numbers on the pages in common notebooks. Separate sheets can be confused, lost. They are fastened, hemmed, numbered. For greater convenience in finding the right place in books, essays of the abstract type, they came up with a description on the last page of the content by sections and paragraphs, indicating page numbers.

In the 12th-14th centuries, during the period of the formation of literary skills, the system of ordinal designation of pages was only taking shape. Formally, one chronicler could use different ways of numbering pages in one book: alphabetic, Arabic or Latin systems. On the one hand, it could differ in the manner of execution, for example, on sheets 2 and 3, the numbers in the upper part are not in the center, but closer to the left side; he could be different commitments in a specific monastic book workshop - put numbers above or below the text, as can be seen from the numbering of decimal pages, but, on the other hand, with all this, it should not have repetitions, a single handwriting should be preserved. However, in the annals, many erasures are found precisely in the places where sheet numbers are affixed, and at the same time, starting from the tenth, all decimal sheets, except for the hundredth, are duplicated four times. For analysis, not only the numbering itself is important, but also the presence of these abrasions. Unfortunately, not all of them can be identified. The ancient scribes were sometimes very skilled in their work. Traces of their "creativity" are poorly captured, but they can be represented according to the intended trend. In addition to the peculiarities of numbering, erasing, the selection of this block includes individual words in the corners of the sheets, which can serve as a kind of autographs of scribes, as well as peculiar marks in the margins in the form of crosses and plus signs.

6. Editing individual words, adding words in the margins of the last line, spelling the word "summer" in dates.

The Laurentian Chronicle of 1377 was written in accordance with the then accepted grammar, that is, without punctuation marks and separating spaces between words and sentences. In some cases, to highlight the semantic meaning of a separate segment of the text, a dot or three dots were used, placed in the center between the letters. Sometimes a new sentence opens after the name of the year with a capital letter and red ink. But basically, the medieval reader had to distinguish words by meaning on their own.

The Russian proverb “What is written with a pen cannot be cut down with an ax” dates back to the times when there were no printing presses and people wrote on parchment with goose quills. The word “feather” is the key here, and the word “cut down” takes on a figurative meaning: something that is difficult to fix. On parchment, unnecessary letters or words were scraped off with a knife. And with the same knife they drew the frames that have already been mentioned. The knife was held by the first chronicler, and the scribe, and the proofreader. It was far from always possible to scrape the right place cleanly. But still there were traces in the form of scuffs. Although, as in the case of the numbering in the electronic version, it is difficult to identify all the places of scuffs, and they are mainly in the margins above and below the text.

There are no strikethroughs or special corrections in the annals. Only in a few cases, one or two words were added above the line, emphasizing the emotionality of what is happening, but in no way affecting ideological content. In one place on the 13th sheet, “or the owner of the Rusyn” is written twice. Someone noticed this and highlighted it in square brackets. More often there are additions of words in the last line of the page, as if word wrapping is impossible. Even more text edits of individual words with the addition of letters above the line. Sometimes there are more than sixty per sheet (or thirty per page). Moreover, not all misspelled words on the same pages are corrected.

It would be easier to rewrite the text again than to attach a sheet with a similar number of corrections to chronicle. But it seems that the editing was carried out by some other editor and at a later time. Is there any consistency in these edits? Certainly there is. In this case, consistency refers to the repetition of edits of the same words with the same errors. At the same time, it should be understood that these are precisely errors, and not the rules of the grammatical system that were then tacitly accepted. For example, the word "Lord" was written without vowels - "gspd". However, the letter “s” and sometimes “p” often drop out of the same word, and the editor enters “s” at the top. And this is already a mistake.

In itself, the number of edits, which tells us the number of errors on the page, is an additional touch to the personality of the author or copyist. A mistake can be called accidental due to inattention, but a repeated mistake already expresses a person's attitude to the described object. One can understand the typical mistake of a schoolboy who misses the letter “d” in the word “heart” (and in the text of the chronicle, by the way, there are many such mistakes), but writing the words “city” and “brother” without the last letters will be far from typical even for a schoolchild . Even more surprising are the omissions by the monks, namely, the authors of the annals Nestor, Sylvester, Lavrenty, represented themselves as monks, individual letters in words that seemed to set the teeth on edge in their everyday life - “s” in the word “cross”, “x” in the word “sin ”, etc. Another factor, besides the consistency in the frequency of edits, is the occurrence in different parts of the chronicle of the repetition of various system errors. The initial part of the chronicle is characterized by edits to the word "speech", where the letter "h" falls out, for the last pages - editing the word "prince" without the letter "z".

In this case, for the most convenient perception by the reader of the material, the sample will be presented in a simplified version. It seems inappropriate to paint every error page by page. For analysis, to the already named words "cross", "sin", "speech", "hail", "brother", "prince" we add the word "having created", as well as derivatives from it and words with "Ti", where the missing letter The "t" fits into the word itself, rather than being added at the top. In addition, the sample includes words in which the soft sign at the end of the word is immediately corrected to a hard sign.

7. Letters of special use. Acquired skills and passions, moderation and prudence (or lack thereof) are some of the qualities that define a person's personality. Sooner or later, to one degree or another, they manifest themselves in everyday affairs, communication with others, specific actions. You can't hide your own individuality in public. Individuality is especially noticeable at the moment when a person trusts his thoughts to a sheet of paper (or parchment). And handwriting here may not be in the first place. These can be repetitions of any turns of speech or even particles separated from the word, like (in our case, on the example of the Laurentian Chronicle) “qi”: “... asamtsi ...” (102v.), “... qi want me ...” (126) , “... we eat qi, not princes…” (134) Sometimes individuality is manifested in a special spelling of individual letters.

Linguists find in the use of our ancient Slavs a sound scale expressed in more than 50 initial letters. Not all of them were equally used on the territory of Rus'. In the Laurentian Chronicle, four letters can be named that stand out in the text: W - o, from; V - y; S; 3 (with a tail in three knees) - h. The last three letters are less common. They replace the letters already used in the same words. Therefore, it is impossible not to notice it. Let's say the spelling of the letter "3" (with tails) turns into the letter "c" in the word "Alek(s)andr". A four-knee vertical line is perceived too catchy. Or the appearance of the letter "V" far from the first page in different words does not give this word additional meaning and therefore is not entirely explicable. At the same time, if we allow the change of the usual letter “y” to the Latin “V” with carelessly thrown tails up to the top line in all words where this letter can be used, then it would overshadow the entire text on the sheet with its presence. Maybe that's why the letter "V" occurs in different words on average two or three times per sheet, just to emphasize the individual peculiarity of the author (or scribe). The last three letters were included in the sample.

8. Distortion of names. The sample includes two names - Olga and Oleg. Perhaps, from the similarity of sound, a dynasty of female name- Olgovichi. This misunderstanding is revealed by a careful reading of the Laurentian Chronicle.

Names can change dramatically, and then it was accepted when they are given again at baptism. Names change depending on the traditions of the southern or northern part of Rus': Ivan - Ivanko, Vasily - Vasilko, etc. Names can be diminutive: Vanya, Vanyusha, Vasya, Vasenka. Names can be pronounced with an ironically rude tone: Vanka, Vaska. In any case, they are always recognizable, applicable in everyday life, literature. In the official documentation, the historical chronicle, the names are written in full. And so that there is no confusion with similar names of other people, the names of the fathers, the clan of grandfathers, that is, patronymics and surnames, are added, which are composed by belonging to someone or something. Any distortion of the name can cause discussions in the interpretation of certain events. Unfortunately, in the annals, name distortions are quite common. We will talk about the reasons for this in the part where generalizations and conclusions are made. Now let's say that not only the ancient chroniclers, but also modern translators sinned with this. For example, in the text of the chronicle the name is read Svendel, and in translation it is given Sveneld. For those who do not have the opportunity or desire to look into the original, there is a reason to look for analogies, draw historical parallels, and so on. In this case, we will limit ourselves to two names in the sample - Oleg and Olga.

Sheet 167v. The last sentence on this sheet: “Of course, having rejected Christ and be foolish ... (continued on the next sheet) nin, entering into the charm of the prophet Ahmed.”

9. Possible semantic inconsistencies in the text on sheets and between sheets. The Laurentian Chronicle repeatedly changed its owners and places of storage. It did not reach us with a complete set of sheets. It would be difficult to expect the opposite after so many centuries of oblivion, unexpected interest, intense public attention, obsequious research. It would be quite possible to expect even more loss of sheets, or places on the sheets that are greasy from frequent reading, or smeared ink from uncomfortable storage, compared with today's conditions. Suspect this allows the state of some sheets, for example 1,2,4. But even on them almost all the text is readable. The rest, with small blots, technical errors of parchment, do not particularly impede vision. Even, on the contrary, except for one obvious place, it is clear how the text is logically connected over the years, events. One gets the impression that the chronicle was created in a short period of time, as Lavrenty actually states on the last sheet, by one person (or two, since it is written in two handwritings or three, because sheets 157, 161, 167 stand out especially) and is a complete manuscript. However, in fact, in the text, especially between sheets, there are semantic inconsistencies. It is difficult to single them out, however, how difficult it is to understand: why, after the missing lines on one sheet, in the further text “the loss of a fighter is imperceptible”, that is, the text of the previous page, where there are many missing lines, coincides in meaning with the text of the next sheet. The task in this part of the sample is to identify similar places or at least some of them.

10. Making changes, corrections, additions by proofreaders and modern translators. In some cases, the events that fell out of the history of the Laurentian Chronicle were compensated from other chronicles. Thus, the events of 899–921 are transferred from the Radziwill Chronicle and the Trinity Chronicle to the Laurentian Chronicle. Sometimes in the translation some additions, clarifications are allowed. Such a practice is quite acceptable for restoring a complete picture of the historical past in educational and research literature, but such literary processing without appropriate footnotes and explanations in publications translated from the original text is completely unacceptable. For example, in the Laurentian Chronicle on sheet 25 we read: “And so Yaropolk was killed ... running from the yard to the Pechenegs, and two vacant and, going to his company.” The last words are difficult to understand, even more difficult to translate, therefore literary conjecture is used, and with a peremptory statement: “Varyazhko, seeing that Yaropolk was killed, fled from the courtyard of that terem to the Pechenegs and often fought with them subsequently against Vladimir. There are not many such places in the translation, but they occur, sometimes having a significant impact on the assessment of an event. The sample contains only a few of such indicative, in our opinion, episodes. They were not randomly sampled.

11. Missing dates. Many chronicles are similar to each other in style of presentation, coincide in content in certain places, and so on. The Laurentian Chronicle differs from others in its programmed sequence. In it, if there is no article under a certain year, then the year itself must be indicated. The chronicler in this regard adheres to a firm rule: if the year is indicated, but nothing is written under it, then nothing can be written, because the year is already indicated.

Otherwise, the scribe may have the opportunity to insert something of his own under an unspecified year. Therefore, the dates in the annals are distinguished with meticulousness almost all and in order in red ink. And those unspecified cause a lot of controversy and judgments. These years are given in the sample.

12. Words-indicators. The last block of the sample turned out to be the most capacious in terms of the amount of information. It would be possible to generalize something, as was done in similar cases in previous blocks of the sample, and thereby simplify the visual perception of the material presented. But in this case, the tasks are set depending on certain factors. After all, what are indicator words? In any message, story, no matter what volume, whether oral or written, we most often use words about those people or events that we consider the main ones and the essence of which we want to bring to the attention of the interlocutor. In oral conversation, one's attitude towards someone is already manifested in the intonations of speech, emotions, and facial expressions. The same thing happens in research activities: not only the facts of interest are studied, but also the persons who reported them. Such a person in our case is the author of the chronicle.

From the opening page of the Laurentian Chronicle, its first author highlights the phrase "Russian land" twice. Throughout the text of the chronicle, the words "Russian" and "land" are used together, as a kind of constant of the Russian spirit. The author of the chronicle always keeps in mind what the chronologically verified historical work was started for - the Russian land is strong due to the unity of multi-tribal peoples. Proceeding from the patriotic motivation, the “Russian land” becomes the subject of the story. Next to the concept of "Russian land", the expression "Russian prince" ("Russian princes") is often used. The grand ducal dynasty is the subject around which all the main historical events. But what's interesting? The word "Russian" is written differently in the annals: with one "s", through a soft sign - "ss", with two "ss". It could be assumed that the dynamics of the development of the Russian language can be traced in this way, if the transition from one form to another was more or less delimited in the text. However, it is not. In addition to the word “Russian”, according to the same principle, the word “Murom” gets into the sample. Here, as in the word "Russian", there are three spellings, which once again demonstrates to us the image of a chronicler.

These words could be included in another sample block, say, in the sixth, where the editing of individual words is given, or in the eighth, adding proper names to the distortion of personal names. However, they stand out in a separate block along with the other two words - Rurik and Gyurgi - because they look in a complex. The sample capacity falls the most on these two last words. If the sample of the first two is built on the basis of comparison, then certain factors are taken into account in the sample of the names of Rurik and Gyurgi: frequency of mention, frequency of change (especially the name of Gyurge - Yurge, George), inclination frequency (Gyurgevich, Gyurgevi son) and the degree of obsession (son of Gyurge, grandson Vladimir Monomakh, Gyurgia - the city, Gyurgia bishop, Gyurgia prince of Murom, Gyurgia father and his son Vsevolod Konstantinovich). Therefore, to generalize something, to reduce the volume would mean to lubricate the general idea of ​​both the personality of the chronicler himself and the object of the sample - the name of Gyurg.

Fourth stage. Sample.

Block 1. Damaged stitched parchment.

Tab. 1. Sheets are given by numbers

Block 2. Use of red ink.

Tab. 1. Highlighting in red ink events, phenomena line by line, except for the selected years, months and in memory of someone on separate sheets. The top line - the number of lines, below - the designation of the sheets

Tab. 2. Highlighting 4-line-high hand-drawn letters

Tab. 3. Isolation of individual letters: "B", "I", "P", "M", "C", etc., in initial words, in the margins, except for the expression: “In that summer (winter, spring, autumn, year, etc.)” and according to the scheme: “In summer + year + the first letter of the next word”

a) wave - 1 turn; 7 (after indicating the year - 861 - before the words: "expelled the Varangians across the sea ..."); 7rev.; 8 (after the words: "be more childish Velmi"); 8rev.;

b) swastika - 8 (after the words: “Be a childish Velmi” and indicating the years 880 and 881).

Rice. 2. Sign (one in the entire chronicle in the form of sharp four ends intertwining with a lock against the background of a shaded triangle) - 8 (on the margins after the year is indicated - 879 - and before the words: “I will die Rurik”).

Rice. 3. Curly letters "B" and "C" (the letter "B" with a lowered tail is included in the sample without taking into account similar spelling in dates):

43; 44; 45; 47rev.; 48; 50; 52; 55; 85; 88rev.; 94; 99; 100; 102; 104rev.; 105; Yubob.; 119; 120; 126rev.; 134; 143rev.

Block 5. Numbering.

Tab. 1. Visible wear

List 1. Numbering by location

a) top, centered to the right of the 1st-2nd line:

sheets 2 (closer to the left corner) 2; 3 (closer to the left

corner) 3; 4 4; 5 5; 6 6; 7 7; 8 8; 9-19; 20–41; 42-172;