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Primary Chronicle

St Nestor the Chronicler, tr. Cross, 1930

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The early belief that Nestor was the author or the compiler of the whole Povest as it stands has thus been generally abandoned by modern investigators, to be replaced by some scholars with the contention that he was the author of one of the sources from which the Povest, in its present form, is alleged to be derived. During the nineteenth century, as knowledge of the various chronicle texts and redactions and the study of their interrelation progressed, it was noted that the Povest contains not only certain contradictions with the attested works of Nestor, but also certain internal incoherences.¹ For example, Pereyaslavl appears among the list of Russian cities already prosperous in the time of Oleg (907), while an account of its foundation by Vladimir is set forth under 993. Under the year 1060, there appears an account of a successful raid by certain Russian princes upon the nomad Torks, who did not wait for the Russian attack, but “are fleeing to this day.” In 1080, however, it is related that these Torks in turn risked an attack in Russian territory which was avenged by Vladimir Monomakh under instructions from his father Vsevolod. In the brief mention of the passage of the Huns before Kiev under 898, the comment is made that they were nomads like the Polovcians. It should be noted that the first mention of the Polovcians as a menace occurs in 1055, though under 1061 the Chronicle says plainly that the Polovcians in that year made their first raid. In the narrative for 1044, reference is made to the fact that Prince Vseslav was born with a caul, which, at the recommendation of soothsayers present at his birth, he wore suspended from his neck “to this day,” as the Chronicle puts it. Vseslav, as it happens, died in 1101. It is also apparent that, while the Povest itself ends in 1110, the initial chronology is carried through to the death of Svyatopolk in 1113. And finally, students of the Povest speedily observed that all accounts of eyewitnesses and significant occurrences of the first person (except the expressions “отселе почнем и числа положим” and “но мы на преженье возъвратимся ... и по ряду положимъ числа” under 852) appear after 1050.

These observations, combined with analysis of the sections dealing with Theodosius and the Crypt Monastery as well as with the otherwise unknown Vasili’s narrative of the blinding of Vasilko, led to the belief that a portion of the Povest was written early in the second half of the eleventh century, while the remainder was composed toward the close of the same century or early in the twelfth.² Thus Kostomarov concluded that while Nestor had some share in the Primary Chronicle, it cannot in its entirety be ascribed to him. In view of the Sylvestrian signature, Kostomarov believed that Sylvester compiled a collection of separate narratives and traditions, to which he added the chronology, and in which he embodied a chronicle prepared in the Crypt Monastery at Kiev, of a portion of which Nestor was the author.³ Sreznevski (op. cit., p. 114) in the main accepted the view that Sylvester is the compiler, remarking that the prior of an outstanding monastery and an ecclesiastic of sufficient importance to be elevated in 1118 to the episcopate of Pereyaslavl would hardly be likely to indulge in the mere copying of an alien work. From the notion that the Povest as we have it is a compilation from earlier productions, it was but a step to efforts toward resolving the Povest into its components and determining their character. It is thus in this channel that study of the Povest has moved during the last fifty years.

The culmination of this analytic process is found in the studies of two Russian scholars, the late Professor A. A. Shakhmatov (1865–1920), and Professor V. M. Istrin. The former, one of the most brilliant philologists that Russia has produced, besides editing several important texts, devoted some forty articles to various phases of chronicle study, and embodied many of the results of his investigations in two works: Разыскания о Древнейших Русских Летописных Сводах (Investigations of the Oldest Russian Annalistic Compilations, Leningrad, 1908), and the Introduction to his text of the Povest (Повестъ Временных Лет. I, Вводная частъ, Текст, Примечания, Leningrad, 1916). In the latter work, Shakhmatov indicated that the second volume, concerned with a study of the sources of the Povest and a definition of the editorial functions of its compilers, was practically complete in manuscript. It is therefore to be hoped that the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. will supplement its extremely useful work upon the chronicles by a publication of this manuscript.

A clear distinction must, however, be drawn between the methods of Shakhmatov and those of his precursors. The first period in the study of the chronicles, exemplified by Tatishchev and Schlözer, was characterized by efforts to restore a “pure” text of what was contemporaneously viewed as a homogeneous work. The features of existing texts which, to the modern student, usually indicate the compilatory character of the chronicles, were first viewed as textual corruptions. As the study of the origin and the nature of the chronicle texts progressed, this early notion gave way to the conception of the Povest as the mechanical combination of diversified material on a chronological framework. This idea is well exemplified by the views of Kostomarov, Sreznevski, and Bestuzhev-Ryumin.⁴ Shakhmatov, however, proceeded to the comparative examination of all existing chronicle texts, in order to determine their interrelation and origin, and to reconstruct, if possible, the prototypes from which the various texts are derived, at the same time defining the process of evolution by which the extant texts have reached their present form. As Shakhmatov himself expressed it, a study of the most recent compilations leads up to a definition and a restoration of the more ancient redactions, and the analysis of the latter points to still earlier compilations as their sources.

As Shakhmatov’s studies form at present the starting point for any critical examination of the Russian chronicles in general, some detailed synopsis of his conclusions appears a necessity. The Povest itself is a compilation appearing at the beginning of the majority of all annalistic compilations dating from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century. The oldest compilations exhibit a fairly complete and homogeneous text, which is abbreviated or otherwise modified in later versions, while the older annals of Novgorod supplement data originating in Kiev with material related to the ancient history of the northern area. Sylvester’s signature constitutes absolute proof that the Povest was compiled in the second decade of the twelfth century to cover the course of events as far as 1111. On the other hand, the fact that the Povest as preserved deals very extensively with events relating exclusively to the Crypt Monastery is for Shakhmatov abundant proof that the Sylvestrian redaction is not the most primitive.

The Laurentian redaction, it will be recalled, contains under 1110 an account of a pillar of fire which appeared over the Crypt Monastery, followed by a short paragraph of pious comment upon its significance. The Hypatian redaction, however, includes not only this passage, but also the remainder of the pious commentary omitted by the Laurentian. Shakhmatov maintains that the mention of the portent, together with the comment thereon, was not found in the original Sylvestrian redaction of the Povest, but was added to it from the prototype of the text represented by the extant Hypatian redaction. The commentary on the portent in texts of the Hypatian group serves as introduction to the account of a successful raid upon the Polovcians executed by the Russian princes in March, 1111. It is thus clear, in Shakhmatov’s view, that the Povest was continued beyond its original compass during the second decade of the twelfth century. It so happens that the Hypatian redaction, from 1076 on, includes certain material relating to Vladimir Monomakh which does not figure in the Laurentian. Shakhmatov thus deduces from this evidence that, along with the Sylvestrian text, there also existed an additional primitive version of the Povest, differing from the former in certain features prior to 1111, and in the fact that it contained a continuation discussing contemporary events somewhat beyond that date. From other internal evidence, combined with the manifest change in tone in the Hypatian narrative from 1118 forward, Shakhmatov concludes that this new redaction, from which the Hypatian and kindred texts derive, was composed in that year. His opinion, therefore, is that the original Povest was compiled in 1111, the year after its close; that Sylvester, according to his colophon, prepared a somewhat modified redaction of it in 1116; and that in 1118 there was prepared in the Crypt Monastery still a third redaction, the prototype of the Hypatian group of texts.

It would appear something of a tour de force to explain this appearance of three versions of the same monument within seven years. Shakhmatov assumes that the basic (1111) redaction of the Povest was unduly friendly in tone to Svyatopolk, a prince whose rough, impulsive, and violent character presented a marked contrast to the temperament of Vladimir Monomakh, his pious, judicious, and intelligent successor. The Vydobichi Monastery, over the destinies of which Sylvester presided, had been founded by Vladimir’s father Vsevolod. Shakhmatov thus suggests that, in order to place the events of the last principate in their proper light, Vladimir Monomakh in 1116 instructed Sylvester to prepare a new redaction of the Povest, upon completion of which the basic text of 1111 disappeared from circulation. The transfer of official annalistic activity from the Crypt to another and a younger monastery, Shakhmatov thinks, must have been a severe blow to the pride of the older institution, in which a party may well have arisen favoring a policy of friendly understanding with Vladimir. One member of this party thus determined to prepare a new chronicle to replace the redaction eliminated by Sylvester’s text, and this third redaction is the hypothetical text of 1118 previously mentioned.

It is significant that while modern scholars generally tend to minimize Nestor’s connection with the Povest, Shakhmatov restores his standing by the assumption that he was the compiler of the basic text of 1111, which was suppressed in favor of Sylvester’s redaction of 1116. Shakhmatov believes that the title of the Povest originally contained the ascription to “Nestor, a monk of the Theodosian Crypt Monastery” which was omitted in the Sylvestrian redaction. While the second reviser (1118 text) succeeded in restoring the ascription to “a monk of the Theodosian Crypt Monastery,” the name of Nestor was banned, and the tradition of his quality as an annalist was retained only in the Paterikon (supra, p. 81), and in the Khlebnikovski chronicle text, which might, in Shakhmatov’s view, go back to a prototype in the preparation of which the old basic Povest of 1111 was employed. The obvious contradictions between the Povest and Nestor’s Life of Theodosius Shakhmatov minimizes by the contention that Nestor wrote the Life in the ’eighties of the eleventh century, and the Povest in 1111, and further, that he used an earlier hypothetical text, the oldest chronicle of the Crypt Monastery, which he hesitated to modify, just as Sylvester refrained from removing any discrepancies from the text of the Povest as he edited it.

Certain chronicle texts originating in Novgorod (the so-called First Novgorod Chronicle, younger series, and related texts) are based in the main, according to Shakhmatov, upon a compilation prepared at Novgorod about 1432. The latter compilation is derived, in Shakhmatov’s opinion, from a Novgorod ecclesiastical chronicle beginning only in the twelfth century, and therefore supplemented by a text of southern origin which he considers to have antedated the Povest. Shakhmatov’s reasons for believing that this southern chronicle is more primitive than the Povest lie in the absence of quotations from extraneous sources, e. g., Georgius Hamartolus, Nicephorus, the Russo-Greek treaties, the legends of SS Cyril and Methodius and of St Andrew, and various items of traditional material. One of the characteristics of this northern family of texts is an extensive introduction which does not appear in either the Laurentian or the Hypatian redactions.⁵ The Preface indicates the compiler’s intention to cover the period from Michael III to Alexius Comnenus (therefore 852–1081). It also contains sharp criticism of the reigning prince and his retainers, who are charged with injustice and avarice. Shakhmatov has no hesitation in attributing these remarks to John, Prior of the Crypt Monastery, writing in the ’nineties of the eleventh century, at the moment when relations between Prince Svyatopolk and the monastery are known to have been strained. He thus concludes that this primary or primitive annalistic compilation originating in the Crypt Monastery was composed about 1095, and extended only as far as the pious reflections concerning two defeats inflicted upon the Russian princes by the Polovcians at Trepol and on the Zhelan in May and July, 1093. At this point, Shakhmatov considers that the original contribution of Nestor to the preparation of the Povest begins. The primitive monastery compilation of 1095 was, according to Shakhmatov, Nestor’s basic source, which he revamped and supplemented with much diversified extraneous material. It is also possible, Shakhmatov thinks, that Nestor contributed some individual touches to the body of the Chronicle prior to 1093, especially in the account of the discovery of the relics of Theodosius in 1091. He is, in fact, inclined to the opinion that Nestor was the author of the whole passage, and was entrusted with the search for the relics on account of his authorship of the Life of Theodosius.

The functions of Sylvester in the preparation of his text under orders from Vladimir Monomakh, Shakhmatov believes to have been relatively restricted, and mainly confined to editorial corrections. He thus eliminated from the text whatever was unfriendly to Vladimir, and inserted many items of a partisan nature. Shakhmatov thus attributes to Sylvester the continuation of the opening chronological table to the death of Svyatopolk (1113). It will be remembered that Svyatopolk’s participation in the conspiracy against Vasilko constitutes the gravest blot upon his character. Shakhmatov supposes that Nestor, being well disposed toward Svyatopolk, made an effort to minimize the latter’s culpability by transferring most of the blame to David Igorevich. Sylvester, on the other hand, according to Shakhmatov’s suggestion, had recourse to the narrative of Vasili, apparently the intimate and the confessor of Prince Vasilko himself, in order to reestablish the facts.

To the editor of the 1118 text, whom Shakhmatov supposes to have been a monk of the Crypt Monastery intimate with Vladimir Monomakh’s son Mstislav, Prince of Novgorod, he attributes the insertion of the Testament of Vladimir. It should be noted here that, while the hypothetical 1118 redaction is classed by Shakhmatov as the prototype of the Hypatian and related texts, it is not in the texts of this redaction that the Testament is preserved, but in the Laurentian redaction, which obviously derives from the Sylvestrian tradition. Shakhmatov is thus obliged to take the position that the Testament was interpolated into the Laurentian from a text descended from the 1118 redaction.

Shakhmatov, in his Introduction to the Povest,⁶ which is summarized in the foregoing paragraphs, thus carries the textual history of the Povest back to a hypothetical compilation dating from 1095. This work does not, however, embody Shakhmatov’s conclusions as to the evolution of chronicle literature prior to this date, which he had already developed at length in his Investigations.⁷ The latter work sets forth his views on the beginnings of annalistic activity in Kiev and elsewhere. Shakhmatov believes that the establishment of the Kiev metropolitanate in 1039 inspired the composition, about the same date, of a chronicle text which he designates as the “most ancient Kiev compilation” (“древнейший Киевский свод”). For the period prior to the principate of Vladimir I, the compiler, in Shakhmatov’s opinion, used for his sources local traditions preserved in folk-songs and byliny, together with a few written narratives which dealt with Russian saints and events of ecclesiastical interest. From the reign of Yaroslav, the narrative is believed by Shakhmatov to rest on personal recollections of recent events, and from this point, Shakhmatov views the 1039 text as a thoroughly reliable source. The production of this work did not, he thinks, lead to any systematic annalistic activity at Kiev, but in 1073, according to Shakhmatov’s conclusions, a continuation of the 1039 text was prepared in the Crypt Monastery. This second text Shakhmatov designates as the “first compilation of the Crypt Monastery” (“первый Киевопечерский свод”). He considers its earlier portion to have been mainly a copy of the 1039 text, to which was perhaps added the account of Vladimir Yaroslavich’s expedition against Greece (1043). The later section, beginning with the account of the death of Yaroslav (1054), represents, according to Shakhmatov, an independent production of the compiler based on personal recollection and contemporary data. In view of the respectable amount of material dealing with the distant colony of Tmutorakan and with Rostislav, its prince, Shakhmatov attributes the preparation of the 1073 text to Nikon, a member of the Crypt community, who is known from another source⁸ to have spent some time in that area, where he founded a monastery, returning to Kiev about 1067. Shakhmatov thus attributes to Nikon the authorship of the article on the foundation of the Crypt Monastery appearing in the present Laurentian text under 1051. He considers, however, that in the text of 1073 this article appeared under 1062, the year in which the monastery was actually founded, though in later redactions the item was shifted back to 1051 to connect it with the death of the metropolitan Hilarion, and in deference to the tradition elsewhere set forth that the monastery was founded, not under Izyaslav, but somewhat earlier, in the principate of Yaroslav the Wise. The redaction of 1073 was later supplemented by the familiar account of the death of Theodosius and by annalistic accretions which carry its content to 1093. Then, about 1095, was prepared Shakhmatov’s so-called “primary compilation” (“начальный свод”), the immediate basis for the various redactions of the Povest as he classes them. Shakhmatov considers this compilation of 1095 to have been the first chronicle text of general Russian content, since he endeavors to show that it embodied not only previous compilations originating in Kiev, but also elements from the annals which he believes were kept at Novgorod during the eleventh century, and was likewise influenced by early Russian native and translated literature of the period.

A thorough critical treatment of Shakhmatov’s views would seriously exceed the practicable compass of the present introduction. They rest upon a remarkable knowledge of all published texts and of numerous MSS which a foreign student can scarcely hope to equal. On the other hand, it is apparent that they are at best a tissue of highly tempting hypotheses based upon a subjective and sometimes temperamental interpretation, not only of extant redactions, but also of the events they record. Shakhmatov’s method, reduced to its lowest terms, consists in working back through a series of hypothetical intermediates to an equally hypothetical archetype. In the presence of a consistent tradition as to the form of the Povest attested by two MSS of fair age, which give a fully adequate basis for the assumption that we are dealing here with a single homogeneous work, somewhat contracted or expanded according to local preferences wherever it was recopied as an introduction to local annals, Shakhmatov’s efforts to establish the existence of a complicated family of earlier texts fails to carry entire conviction. As Professor Brückner has recently remarked,⁹ practically no Old-Russian text of any importance is lost; it is thus extraordinary that all annalistic texts prior to 1116, if they really existed, should have disappeared save for the remnants restored by the ingenious and arbitrary mutilation of those that are preserved.

Professor V. M. Istrin’s method of dealing with the Povest problem is intimately related to that of Professor Shakhmatov, though his conclusions differ radically from those of his predecessor.¹⁰ Istrin has devoted a large amount of investigation to the Slavic translations of Byzantine historical works (particularly Malalas and Georgius Hamartolus), and his views are naturally tinged by this specialization. He rejects entirely Shakhmatov’s hypothetical primitive text of 1039. While Shakhmatov had presupposed a Bulgarian model for this text,¹¹ Istrin enlarges upon the reaction of foreign influence on the origins of the Russian annals. According to Istrin, a considerable body of Greek clergy must have accompanied the Greek metropolitan to Kiev about 1037. They brought with them, he believes, numerous Greek works, and, as noted in the Povest itself, the second half of Yaroslav’s principate (1037–1054) was characterized by increased literary activity, concentrated principally upon translation. Among the works thus translated, in Istrin’s view, was the Chronicle of Georgius Hamartolus with its continuation to 948. In consequence of its length and the difficulties of certain theological and dogmatic sections of the text, Istrin considers that this work speedily gave place (about 1050) to an abbreviated general history based largely on Hamartolus, and known as the Chronograph “according to the long text” (“по великому изложению”). This Chronograph, Istrin believes, was speedily supplemented by accounts of purely Russian events. The chronological framework for the latter was thus supplied by the Byzantine originals, which reckoned the dates by years from Creation, as is the case in the Povest. Istrin holds that the purely Russian material in the Chronograph was based partly on tradition and partly on written sources. This Russian material covered the calling of the Varangian princes, the accounts of Oleg’s and Igor’s raids on Constantinople (the latter being supplemented from Hamartolus and other Greek sources), and the narrative of Vladimir’s conversion, which concluded the Chronograph. About 1060, after the death of Yaroslav, Istrin maintains that the Russian portions of the narrative were divorced from the items of purely Byzantine reference, and thus arose the first redaction of the Povest, which Istrin considers to have embodied a supplementary account of the principates of Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise, along with an introduction designating 852 as the starting point of Russian history, while the chronological table showed the death of Yaroslav as the concluding point of the narrative. The omission of Byzantine items not vitally connected with Russian history resulted, in Istrin’s opinion, in the appearance of the so-called “empty years,” which occur with tolerable frequency in the first half of the Povest as it stands. Such, in Istrin’s view, was the primitive text of the Povest, closely resembling the extant Laurentian and Hypatian redactions as far as it went, and omitting only the extensive introduction now preceding the items for 852 in both these redactions and the lengthy account, now appearing as of 1051, which covers the foundation of the Crypt Monastery.

During the remainder of the eleventh century, the Povest was further extended, Istrin believes, by the entry of current events not necessarily added at regular intervals. Then, at the beginning of the second decade of the twelfth century, the prototype of the Povest, with its various continuations, was again carried forward to the death of Svyatopolk. Istrin considers that the author of this new and complete text was Nestor, who added the introduction, in the preparation of which he used the full text of Hamartolus. He also had at his disposal certain other literary works, such as the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius and Vasili’s account of the blinding of Vasilko. Sylvester’s function, in Istrin’s opinion, was limited to the preparation, in 1116, of a word-for-word copy of the Nestorian text. Istrin considers that Nestor’s original, retained in the Crypt Monastery, subsequently underwent the usual continuations and thus became the Kiev Chronicle now represented by the Hypatian redaction. Istrin assumes that Sylvester’s copy eventually lost its last pages, while his signature was written either on a special page or on the binding. This loss of a few pages accounts, in Istrin’s view, for the conclusion of the Laurentian redaction in 1110 and for the retention of the fuller text for that year in the Hypatian redaction. According to Istrin, Nestor did not introduce his name into the text of the Povest because he was not its author, but simply its continuator, and for the same reason Sylvester made no mention of Nestor in his own copy. The Povest thus remained anonymous, though the tradition of Nestor’s annalistic activity was preserved, and took definite form in the Paterikon, being likewise reflected in the appearance of Nestor’s name in the Khlebnikovski text.

In the absence of more substantial countervailing testimony than the hypotheses of Shakhmatov and Istrin, the Povest should for the present be viewed as a homogeneous work, the product of one author, preserved with minor variants in one generally prevalent redaction, and dating from about 1113. The fact that all eyewitness material follows the year 1050 renders it both possible and probable that one author only was occupied in its preparation, which extended over a period of one or more decades. The analogy of the chronological arrangement with and the important excerpts from Greek annalistic literature known to the compiler in translation indicates the likelihood that the imitation of Greek models was one of the principal factors in its production.¹² The constant emphasis laid, in the portion of the Povest from 1051 forward, upon the development of the Crypt Monastery, together with the personal references in the accounts of Theodosius, creates a strong presumption that the author of the text as we have it was a respected member of that community. While the thirteenth-century tradition of Nestorian authorship cannot be wholly disregarded, the divergencies between Nestor’s own works and the content of the Chronicle preclude its acceptance, and suggest the possibility that the similarity in subject-matter between Nestor’s writings and certain sections of the Povest inspired his association with the latter. It is entirely probable that some brief native records of historical events (particularly of ecclesiastical interest) may have been kept in Kiev as early as the last decade of the tenth century after the conversion of Vladimir. The Greek literary influence associated by Istrin in a considerably exaggerated degree with the establishment of the metropolitanate in 1037 may, in connection with the Povest, be admitted to the extent that familiarity with Greek annalistic works may well have inspired a monk of some learning to collect such early records and traditions as he could find, which, combined with supplementary material from Greek sources and — for the last century covered by the Povest — with personal observations and the recollections of contemporaries, compose the Povest in its present form. In fact, if the sources and chronology of the Povest are subjected to close analysis, such a definition of its origin is inevitable. The presence in the text of the narrative of the blinding of Vasilko and of the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh in no wise weakens this conception of its character. We have no means of determining the history of the text from the moment of its compilation to the date of the Laurentian MS. (1377). The presence of extensive variants in the Povest wherever it appears as a component of later annalistic compilations would imply that the chances for modification by successive scribes were extremely broad.

The Laurentian redaction as it stands appears (apart from the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh and some curtailment at its close) to reproduce the compilation of an otherwise unknown inmate of the Crypt Monastery who was, for his time, well educated and personally familiar with the course of political events from the later years of Yaroslav the Wise through the first decade of the twelfth century. The function of Sylvester in the evolution of the text is not altogether clear. It is manifestly impossible, however, to identify him with the original compiler of the Povest. All that may be said with any degree of certainty is that the Laurentian redaction appears to derive from a prototype prepared by Sylvester, perhaps for his personal use or for the information of his own monastic community, from the primitive compilation originating in the Crypt Monastery. However interesting more detailed hypotheses on the authorship of the Povest may be, none of those so far presented can be justified either from the Povest itself or from any other contemporary evidence. In the complete absence of direct testimony on this subject, conjectures of this nature constitute but a relatively insignificant contribution to the study of this venerable monument.

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