109-415: The Primary Chronicle , shortened from the common Russian Primary Chronicle ( Church Slavonic : Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ , romanized: Pověstĭ vremęnĭnyxŭ lětŭ , commonly transcribed Povest' vremennykh let ( PVL ), lit. ' Tale of Bygone Years ' ), is a chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been originally compiled in or near Kiev in
218-584: A Monomakhovychi branch. According to Jaroslaw Pelenski , The 'Riurikide' dynasty and the ruling elite ... attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia ('the Rus' land') and the unifying notion of a ' Rus' people '. ... But 'Kievan Rus' ' was never really a unified polity. It was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and population groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial. This caused
327-648: A R(i)urikid dynasty for the purpose of "bolstering the Muscovite dynastic state". Although many later historians would accept the 16th-century Rus' churchmen's dynastic claim that the Danilovichi were descended from Rurik, they did not accept Prus as the ancestor of the Muscovite princes. Because of these issues, various scholars have instead named the dynasty the Volodimerovichi , descendants of grand prince Volodimer I of Kiev . The scholarly consensus
436-559: A descendant of Shuyskiy line of the Rurik dynasty, but he died without issue. The unstable period known as the Time of Troubles followed Feodor's death and lasted until 1613. In that year, Mikhail I ascended the throne, founding the Romanov dynasty that would rule until 1762 and as Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov until the revolutions of 1917 . Tsar Mikhail's father Patriarch Filaret of Moscow
545-513: A greater or lesser extent. The Russian Orthodox Church, which contains around half of all Orthodox believers, still holds its liturgies almost entirely in Church Slavonic. However, there exist parishes which use other languages (where the main problem has been a lack of good translations). Examples include: What follows is a list of modern recensions or dialects of Church Slavonic. For a list and descriptions of extinct recensions, see
654-604: A historical source has been strictly scrutinized by experts in the field. (See § Assessment and critique .) Tradition long regarded the first compilation as the work of a monk named Nestor ( c. 1056 – c. 1114), known to have written other works such as Life of the Venerable Theodosius . Writers of the time spoke of the Chronicle of Nestor , and of the author as Nestor "the Chronicler". Based on
763-673: A liturgical and literary language in all Orthodox countries north of the Mediterranean region during the Middle Ages , even in places where the local population was not Slavic (especially in Romania ). In recent centuries, however, Church Slavonic was fully replaced by local languages in the non-Slavic countries. Even in some of the Slavic Orthodox countries, the modern national language is now used for liturgical purposes to
872-516: A miscalculation found in the Short History of Nikephoros I of Constantinople . Moreover, a few sentences later, the text states: 'from the birth of Christ to Constantine, 318 years; and from Constantine to Michael, 542 years. Twenty-nine years passed between the first year of Michael's reign and the accession of Oleg, Prince of Rus'.' However, Constantine the Great acceded in 313, not 318, and
981-580: A more reliable English translation of the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle than how Cross translated the PVL. The 2001 German translation by Ludolf Müller has been called 'without doubt the best available rendering of the PVL into a modern language'. The 2015 Dutch translation by Hans Thuis (begun with Victoria van Aalst since 2000) was based on the main six textual witnesses, scholarly publications by Müller, Likhachev and Ostrowski, and by comparison to
1090-574: A number of ancestors accounts and documents. In compiling the Chronicle , some of Nestor's original sources definitely included but were not limited to: There probably were no "earlier local chronicles". The hypothesis that a local chronicle was written before the late 980s at the St Elias church in Kiev "has to remain an unproven speculation". Linguistically speaking, the Primary Chronicle
1199-668: A period of more than 700 years. Numerous princely families have claimed to trace their lineage to Rurik. They are one of Europe's oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches . The origins of the Rurikids are unclear, as its namesake Rurik , a Varangian prince who allegedly founded the dynasty in 862 through the " Calling of the Varangians ", is considered to be a legendary, mythical and perhaps even entirely fictional character by modern scholars. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky (1947) stated: '...no Kievan sources anterior to
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#17327723069041308-511: A pioneering textological analysis of the narrative in 1908. Dmitry Likhachev and other Soviet scholars partly revisited his findings. Their versions attempted to reconstruct the pre-Nestorian chronicle, compiled at the court of Yaroslav the Wise in the mid-11th century. The early part of the PVL features many anecdotal stories, among them: The chronology offered by the Primary Chronicle ( PVL )
1417-638: A political tool to justify rule. August Ludwig von Schlözer produced a German translation with commentary of the Povest' vremennykh let through 980 in five volumes ( Hecтopъ. Russische Annalen in ihrer Slavonischen Grund–Sprache . Göttingen, 1802–1809). In 1930, Harvard professor Samuel Hazzard Cross published an English translation of the Laurentian Codex's version of the PVL under the title The Russian Primary Chronicle. Laurentian Text. , which became very influential amongst American readers. Cross
1526-561: A population from Central Europe or the Iron Age Eurasian Steppe, and an East Asian component via Siberian geneflow to Northeastern Europe. Rurik and his brothers founded a state that later historians called Kievan Rus′ . By the middle of the twelfth century, Kievan Rus′ had dissolved into independent principalities , each ruled by a different branch of the Rurikid house. The dynasty followed agnatic seniority and
1635-636: A precursor state to the Grand Principality of Moscow and thus of the Russian Empire . Vsevolod's son Konstantin of Rostov was Prince of Rostov and the progenitor of various Rostov princely lines. Another son, Ivan Vsevolodich, was Prince of Starodub and progenitor of a number of extant lines, most notably the Gagarin line . Vsevolod's son Yaroslav II of Vladimir was the father of Alexander Nevsky , whose son Daniel of Moscow sired
1744-666: A principal town and religious and scholarly center of Great Moravia (located in present-day Slovakia ). There the first Slavic translations of the Scripture and liturgy from Koine Greek were made. After the Christianization of Bulgaria in 864, Saint Clement of Ohrid and Saint Naum of Preslav were of great importance to the Eastern Orthodox faith and the Old Church Slavonic liturgy in
1853-492: A result, the borrowings into Russian are similar to native Russian words, but with South Slavic variances, e.g. (the first word in each pair is Russian, the second Church Slavonic): золото / злато ( zoloto / zlato ), город / град ( gorod / grad ), горячий / горящий ( goryačiy / goryaščiy ), рожать / рождать ( rožat’ / roždat’ ). Since the Russian Romantic era and
1962-408: Is actually a set of at least four different dialects (recensions or redactions; Russian : извод , izvod), with essential distinctions between them in dictionary, spelling (even in writing systems), phonetics, and other aspects. The most widespread recension, Russian, has several local sub-dialects in turn, with slightly different pronunciations. These various Church Slavonic recensions were used as
2071-613: Is archaic and characteristic of written high style, while the other is found in common speech. In Russia, Church Slavonic is pronounced in the same way as Russian , with some exceptions: The Old Moscow recension is in use among Old Believers and Co-Believers . The same traditional Cyrillic alphabet as in Russian Synodal recension; however, there are differences in spelling because the Old Moscow recension reproduces an older state of orthography and grammar in general (before
2180-570: Is not meet for Christians to be given in marriage to pagans. If you are baptized, you shall have her to wife, inherit the kingdom of God, and be our companion in faith." The legend concludes with Vladimir's embrace of Christianity at the church of St. Basil in Korsun and his marriage to the Emperor's sister, Anna Porphyrogenita . For centuries after the Chronicle’s creation, the legend's factuality
2289-481: Is preserved in the Hypatian codex (see § Surviving manuscripts ). The organization, style, and narrative flow of the Primary Chronicle shows signs of compilation, different historical elements are brought together into a single cohesive historical account. Studies by Russian philologist Aleksey Shakhmatov and his followers have demonstrated that the PVL is not a single literary work but an amalgamation of
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#17327723069042398-591: Is sometimes at odds with that of other documents such as the Novgorod First Chronicle ( NPL ) and Byzantine literature . Sometimes the Primary Chronicle also contradicts itself, especially between narrative and chronological parts, which appear to have been written by two different authors. Several scholars including Aleksey Shakhmatov (1897), Mikhail Tikhomirov (1960), Ia. S. Lur’e (1970), and Constantin Zuckerman (1995) have concluded that
2507-566: Is that the Rus' people originated in what is currently coastal eastern Sweden around the eighth century and that their name has the same origin as Roslagen in Sweden (with the older name being Roden ). According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus ' , like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden ( *Ruotsi ), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" ( rods- ) as rowing
2616-645: Is the use of Ґ in the Rusyn variant. Г is pronounced as h and Ґ is pronounced as G. For example, Blagosloveno is Blahosloveno in Rusyn variants. Typographically, Serbian and Ukrainian editions (when printed in traditional Cyrillic) are almost identical to the Russian ones. Certain visible distinctions may include: The variant differences are limited to the lack of certain sounds in Serbian phonetics (there are no sounds corresponding to letters ы and щ, and in certain cases
2725-549: Is thus an interpolation inserted into the text by an editor, perhaps guessing at the author's name. From the 1830s to around 1900, there was fierce academic debate about Nestor's authorship, but the question remained unresolved, and belief in Nestorian authorship persisted. The internal evidence of the PVL and the known works of Nestor often contradict one another, while the contents barely coincide in places where they seemingly should, so modern scholars have concluded that Nestor
2834-464: Is vibrant with Christian themes and biblical allusions, which are often said to reflect the text’s monastic authorship. Aleksandr Koptev remarks that the Chronicle belongs to the genre of Christian literature . In the introduction, the chronicler explores the biblical origin of the Slavic people, and traces their heritage back to Noah. On numerous occasions throughout the text, the chronicler discusses
2943-592: Is written in Old East Slavic , with strong Old Church Slavonic (early South Slavic) elements. Although these two languages were quite similar up to the early 12th century, with few phonological, morphological and lexical differences at that point, scholars have noted a general pattern of religious passages and moral teachings featuring strong Old Church Slavonic elements, whereas entries on events in specific years are dominated by Old East Slavic elements. Nevertheless, there are no clear linguistic boundaries between
3052-543: The Primary Chronicle (early twelfth century), knew of Riurik. In tracing the ancestry of Kievan princes they usually stopped with Igor .' As an example, Hilarion of Kiev 's Sermon on Law and Grace (1050s), praising Volodimer I of Kiev , only goes back to his father Sviatoslav I and grandfather Igor of Kiev. Even if Rurik did exist, scholars have long doubted or rejected his paternity of Igor. The connections between Rurik, Oleg and Igor, as attested in
3161-470: The Primary Chronicle and Novgorod First Chronicle , are tenuous at best; in all other cases, these two chronicles base any particular ruler's legitimacy on the fact that their father or grandfather previously "sat on the throne in Kiev", and never refer back to Rurik. Legitimacy in the Kievan Chronicle is also heavily based on a ruler being descended from his father and grandfather, with
3270-399: The izgoi principle. The house underwent a major schism after the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, dividing into three branches on the basis of descent from three successive ruling Grand Princes : Iziaslav (1024–1078), Sviatoslav (1027–1076), and Vsevolod (1030–1093). In addition, a line of Polotsk princes assimilated themselves with the princes of Lithuania . In the 10th century
3379-601: The Chronicle just preceding the conversion of Volodimer , the Prince took possession of the Greek city of Korsun ( Chersonesus ) in the Crimean Peninsula , in an attempt to gain certain benefits from Emperor Basil . Following Vladimir's successful conquest of the city, he demanded that the Emperor's 'unwedded' sister be given up for marriage with him. Upon hearing the news from Korsun, emperor Basil responded that "It
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3488-435: The Chronicle , mentioned by Likhachov as essential to making sense of its narrative, stems from the facts that the text was initially compiled and edited by multiple authors with different agendas and that it had to be translated from Old East Slavic language, which proved to be an arduous task. Harvard linguist Horace G. Lunt (1988) found it important to "admit freely that we are speculating" when tales – such as Yaroslav
3597-682: The Chronicle . Unlike many other medieval chronicles written by European monks, the Tale of Bygone Years is unique as the only written testimony on the earliest history of East Slavic people. Its comprehensive account of the history of Rus' is unmatched in other sources, but important correctives are provided by the Novgorod First Chronicle . It is also valuable as a prime example of the Old East Slavonic literature . However, its reliability has been widely called into question and placed under careful examination by contemporary specialists in
3706-650: The Council of Liubech made some amendments to a succession rule and divided Ruthenia into several autonomous principalities that had equal rights to obtain the Kievan throne. Vsevolod's line eventually became better known as the Monomakhovichi and was the predominant one. The line of Sviatoslav later became known as Olegovychi and often laid claim to the lands of Chernihiv and Severia . The Izyaslavychi who ruled Turov and Volhynia were eventually replaced by
3815-857: The Czech Republic and Slovakia , Slovenia and Croatia . The language appears also in the services of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia , the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese , and occasionally in the services of the Orthodox Church in America . In addition, Church Slavonic is used by some churches which consider themselves Orthodox but are not in communion with the Orthodox Church, such as
3924-681: The Daniilovichi of Moscow ; by the 15th century, Ivan III threw off the control of the Golden Horde and assumed the title of sovereign of all Russia. Ivan IV was crowned as the tsar of all Russia, where the Rurik line ruled until 1598, following which they were eventually succeeded by the House of Romanov . As a ruling house, the Rurikids held their own for a total of 21 generations in male-line succession, from Rurik ( d. 879 ) to Feodor I of Russia ( d. 1598 ),
4033-918: The First Bulgarian Empire . The success of the conversion of the Bulgarians facilitated the conversion of the East Slavs . A major event was the development of the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria at the Preslav Literary School in the 9th century. The Cyrillic script and the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, also called Old Bulgarian , were declared official in Bulgaria in 893. By the early 12th century, individual Slavic languages started to emerge, and
4142-609: The Latin alphabet (a method used in Austro-Hungary and Czechoslovakia) just contain the letter "i" for yat. Other distinctions reflect differences between palatalization rules of Ukrainian and Russian (for example, ⟨ч⟩ is always "soft" (palatalized) in Russian pronunciation and "hard" in the Ukrainian one), different pronunciation of letters ⟨г⟩ and ⟨щ⟩ , etc. Another major difference
4251-810: The Montenegrin Orthodox Church and the Russian True Orthodox Church . The Russian Old Believers and the Co-Believers also use Church Slavonic. Church Slavonic is also used by Greek Catholic Churches in Slavic countries , for example the Croatian , Slovak and Ruthenian Greek Catholics, as well as by the Roman Catholic Church (Croatian and Czech recensions). In the past, Church Slavonic
4360-765: The Ostrog Bible of Ivan Fedorov (1580/1581) and as въ началѣ бѣ слово in the Elizabethan Bible of 1751, still in use in the Russian Orthodox Church. Rurikid Princely titles The Rurik dynasty , also known as the Rurikid or Riurikid dynasty , as well as simply Rurikids or Riurikids , was a noble lineage allegedly founded by the Varangian prince Rurik , who, according to tradition, established himself at Novgorod in
4469-413: The Primary Chronicle about the specifics of the story, "hence their paradoxical statement 'the people of Novgorod are of Varangian stock, for formerly they were Slovenes. ' " However, archaeological evidence such as " Frankish swords, a sword chape and a tortoiseshell brooch" in the area suggest that there was, in fact, a Scandinavian population during the tenth century at the latest. A genetic study on
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4578-545: The Principality of Volhynia were eventually crowned kings of Galicia and Volhynia and ruled until 1323. The Romanovychi displaced the older line of Izyaslavychi from Turov and Volhynia as well as Rostyslavychi from Galicia. The last were two brothers of Romanovychi, Andrew and Lev II , who ruled jointly and were slain trying to repel Mongol incursions. The Polish king, Władysław I the Elbow-high , in his letter to
4687-557: The Rus Primary Chronicle an outstanding work of literature with an untrustworthy story and concluded that "there is absolutely no reason to continue basing our knowledge of the past on its content." Paul Bushkovitch (2012) from Yale University writes “the author was serving his rulers, identifying princes and people and leaving historians with a muddle virtually impossible to sort out.” He also mentions that there are discrepancies when overlapping Scandinavian history with
4796-574: The Rus Primary Chronicle was more concerned with exploring the religious significance of the events rather than conveying to the reader the information about how it actually happened. As a result, a sizable portion of the text was directly borrowed from earlier works that contained a religious undertone like some Byzantine sources, and most notably, the Bible . The protagonists are frequently identified with biblical personages and so are ascribed certain relevant qualities and deeds that did not necessarily match
4905-518: The Tale of Bygone Years as a literary creation that fell under heavy influence of the Church and the State. Dmitry Likhachov famously wrote in his 1950 critique of the Rus Primary Chronicle , "No other country in the world is cloaked in such contradictory myths about its history as Russia, and no other nation in the world interprets its history as variously as do the Russian people." The need to interpret
5014-537: The ruins of Chersonesos , archaeologists unearthed the foundations of three churches and determined that the one containing the richest findings was allegedly used for the baptism of the Kievan Prince. The unearthed material evidence proved sufficient to pinpoint the real location of the legend's events with reasonable accuracy. In the early 1860s, the Eastern Orthodox Church began construction of The Saint Vladimir Cathedral in Chersonesos , which has been destroyed on three separate occasions after first being erected and
5123-421: The 1110s. Tradition ascribed its compilation to the monk Nestor beginning in the 12th century, but this is no longer believed to have been the case. The title of the work, Povest' vremennykh let ("Tale of Bygone Years") comes from the opening sentence of the Laurentian text : "These are the narratives of bygone years regarding the origin of the land of Rus', the first princes of Kiev, and from what source
5232-428: The 1560 Book of Royal Degrees by Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow , according to which the reigning Danilovichi house of the Grand Duchy of Moscow (Muscovy) was part of a "Rurikid dynasty", which not only traced back all the way to the legendary Rurik, but was purportedly descended from a certain Prus, a supposed kinsman of Augustus Caesar . According Ostrowski (2018), the Rus' churchmen developed this concept of
5341-436: The 1650s). The most easily observable peculiarities of books in this recension are: A main difference between Russian and Ukrainian recension of Church Slavonic as well as the Russian " Civil Script " lies in the pronunciation of the letter yat (ѣ). The Russian pronunciation is the same as е [je] ~ [ʲe] whereas the Ukrainian is the same as и [i] . Greek Catholic variants of Church Slavonic books printed in variants of
5450-458: The 1661 Paterik of the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves , late 17th-century writers began to assert that Nestor "the Chronicler" wrote many of the surviving Rus' chronicles , including the Primary Chronicle , the Kievan Chronicle and the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle , even though many of the events they described took place in the 12th and 13th century, long after Nestor's death c. 1114. Another reason given for belief in Nestorian authorship
5559-534: The 1760s, Lomonosov argued that Church Slavonic was the so-called "high style" of Russian, during the nineteenth century within Russia, this point of view declined. Elements of Church Slavonic style may have survived longest in speech among the Old Believers after the late-seventeenth century schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian has borrowed many words from Church Slavonic. While both Russian and Church Slavonic are Slavic languages, some early Slavic sound combinations evolved differently in each branch. As
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#17327723069045668-411: The 9th- and 10th-century dates mentioned in the PVL were not added to the text until the 11th century, unless directly copied from the Chronicle of George the Monk . The historical period covered in the Tale of Bygone Years begins with biblical times , in the introductory portion of the text, and concludes with the year 1117 in the chronicle's third edition. Russian philologist Aleksey Shakhmatov
5777-422: The Byzantine years of the world 6368–6370 (AD 860–862): The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves. There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against another. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us and judge us according to
5886-410: The Earth: The Varangians , the Swedes , the Normans , the Rus , and others were named as descendants of Japheth. In the very beginning, humanity was united into a single nation, but after the fall of the Tower of Babel , the Slavic race was derived from the line of Japheth, “since they are the Noricians, who are identified with the Slavs.” According to the so-called "Korsun legend", presented in
5995-457: The German translation of Trautmann (1931), the English translation of Cross & Sherbowitz-Wetzor (1930, 1953), the Russian translation of Likhachev (1950), and the German translation of Müller (2001). Church Slavonic language Church Slavonic is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus , Bulgaria , North Macedonia , Montenegro , Poland , Ukraine , Russia , Serbia ,
6104-479: The Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, English, and Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds , the Slavs, the Krivichians , and the Ves' then said to the people of Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us." They thus selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them all
6213-401: The Pope wrote with regret: "The two last Ruthenian kings, that had been firm shields for Poland from the Tatars, left this world and after their death Poland is directly under Tatar threat." Losing their leadership role, the Rurikids, however, continued to play a vital role in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the later Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Most notably, the Ostrogski family held
6322-437: The Rurikid house to effectively dissolve into several sub-dynasties ruling smaller states in the 10th and 11th centuries. These were the Olgoviches of Severia who ruled in Chernigov , Yuryeviches who controlled Vladimir-Suzdal , and Romanoviches in Galicia-Volhynia . The Olgoviches descended from Oleg I of Chernigov , a son of Sviatoslav II of Kiev and grandson of Yaroslav the Wise. They continued to rule until
6431-406: The Russes and migrated. The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod ; the second, Sineus , at Beloozero ; and the third, Truvor , in Izborsk . On account of these Varangians, the district of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus'. The present inhabitants of Novgorod are descended from the Varangian race, but aforetime they were Slavs [преже бо бѣша Словѣни]. There is some ambiguity even in
6540-422: The Russian recension). Many, but not all, occurrences of the imperfect tense have been replaced with the perfect. Miscellaneous other modernisations of classical formulae have taken place from time to time. For example, the opening of the Gospel of John , by tradition the first words written down by Saints Cyril and Methodius , (искони бѣаше слово) "In the beginning was the Word", were set as "искони бѣ слово" in
6649-463: The Wise being more than just "a patron of Slavonic books" – are reconstructed and the logical incongruities of the text are faced. Polish historian Wladyslaw Duczko (2004) concluded that the compiler of the Primary Chronicle 'manipulated his sources in the usual way: information that was not compatible was left aside, while the elements that should be there but did not exist, were invented.' Russian historian and author Igor Danilevsky mentioned that
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#17327723069046758-407: The addition of letter ⟨ě⟩ for yat ) or in Glagolitic script. Sample editions include: Church Slavonic is in very limited use among Czech Catholics. The recension was developed by Vojtěch Tkadlčík in his editions of the Roman missal: Although the various recensions of Church Slavonic differ in some points, they share the tendency of approximating the original Old Church Slavonic to
6867-464: The article on the Old Church Slavonic language. The Russian recension of New Church Slavonic is the language of books since the second half of the 17th century. It generally uses traditional Cyrillic script ( poluustav ); however, certain texts (mostly prayers) are printed in modern alphabets with the spelling adapted to rules of local languages (for example, in Russian/Ukrainian/Bulgarian/Serbian Cyrillic or in Hungarian/Slovak/Polish Latin). Before
6976-401: The corpus of work of the great Russian authors (from Gogol to Chekhov , Tolstoy , and Dostoevsky ), the relationship between words in these pairs has become traditional. Where the abstract meaning has not commandeered the Church Slavonic word completely, the two words are often synonyms related to one another, much as Latin and native English words were related in the nineteenth century: one
7085-484: The early 14th century when they were torn apart by the emerging Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Moscow . The line continued through Oleg's son Vsevolod II of Kiev , grandson Sviatoslav III of Kiev , great-grandson Vsevolod IV of Kiev and great-great-grandson Michael of Chernigov , from whose sons the extant lines of the Olegoviches are descended, including the Massalsky, Gorchakov, Baryatinsky, Volkonsky and Obolensky, including Repnin. Vsevolod I of Kiev
7194-450: The eighteenth century, Church Slavonic was in wide use as a general literary language in Russia . Although it was never spoken per se outside church services, members of the priesthood, poets, and the educated tended to slip its expressions into their speech. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was gradually replaced by the Russian language in secular literature and was retained for use only in church. Although as late as
7303-402: The exception of two 5-generation lists. Before the mid-15th century, no historical source claims that Rurik founded a dynasty; the Hypatian Codex of c. 1425 began its list of knyazi of Kiev with "Dir and Askold", then "Oleg", then "Igor", up to 1240, and does not mention Rurik anywhere. It was not until the 16th century that Rus' churchmen developed an explicit tradition, described in
7412-438: The fall of the yers is fully reflected, more or less to the Russian pattern, although the terminal ъ continues to be written. The yuses are often replaced or altered in usage to the sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Russian pattern. The yat continues to be applied with greater attention to the ancient etymology than it was in nineteenth-century Russian. The letters ksi , psi , omega , ot , and izhitsa are kept, as are
7521-415: The field of the Old East Slavonic history. The first doubts about trustworthiness of the narratives were voiced by Nikolay Karamzin in his History of the Russian State (1816–26), which brought attention to Nestor's questionable chronology and style of prose. Building upon Karamzin's observations, further inquiries into the philology of the Rus Primary Chronicle shined more light on various weaknesses in
7630-421: The great-grandparents of Andrey and Yuriy, the first Shakhovskoy princes. This is possibly the most senior extant branch of the Rurikids, with many Shakhovskoys living outside of Russia after having fled during the Russian Revolution . The Yuryeviches were founded by Yuriy Dolgorukiy , the founder of Moscow and spread vastly in the north-east. Yuri's son Vsevolod the Big Nest was Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal ,
7739-427: The land of Rus' had its beginning". The work is considered a fundamental source for the earliest history of the East Slavs . The content of the chronicle is known today from the several surviving versions and codices, revised over the years, slightly varying from one another. Because of several identified chronological issues and numerous logical incongruities pointed out by historians over the years, its reliability as
7848-484: The lands of the Slavs, why the dynasty was the only legitimate one and why all the princes should terminate their internal fights and rule in peace and brotherly love.' In the year 1116, Nestor's text was extensively edited by the hegumen Sylvester who appended his name at the end of the chronicle. As Vladimir Monomakh was the patron of the village of Vydubychi (now a neighborhood of Kyiv) where Sylvester's monastery
7957-537: The legacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The Russian view sees the Principality of Moscow ruled by the Rurikid dynasty as the sole heir to the Kievan Rus' civilisation, this view is "resting largely on religious-ecclesiastical and historical claims" because Eastern Russian lands managed to establish themself as independent state that was ruled by the Rurikid dynasty until 16th century. This view started in Moscow as ruled by
8066-435: The letter-based denotation of numerical values, the use of stress accents, and the abbreviations or titla for nomina sacra . The vocabulary and syntax, whether in scripture, liturgy, or church missives, are generally somewhat modernised in an attempt to increase comprehension. In particular, some of the ancient pronouns have been eliminated from the scripture (such as етеръ /jeter/ "a certain (person, etc.)" → нѣкій in
8175-758: The liturgical language was modified in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and orthography according to the local vernacular usage. These modified varieties or recensions (e.g. Serbian Church Slavonic, Russian Church Slavonic , Ukrainian Church Slavonic in Early Cyrillic script, Croatian Church Slavonic in Croatian angular Glagolitic and later in Latin script , Czech Church Slavonic, Slovak Church Slavonic in Latin script, Bulgarian Church Slavonic in Early Cyrillic and Bulgarian Glagolitic scripts, etc.) eventually stabilized and their regularized forms were used by
8284-509: The local Slavic vernacular. Inflection tends to follow the ancient patterns with few simplifications. All original six verbal tenses, seven nominal cases, and three numbers are intact in most frequently used traditional texts (but in the newly composed texts, authors avoid most archaic constructions and prefer variants that are closer to modern Russian syntax and are better understood by the Slavic-speaking people). In Russian recension,
8393-537: The lost 12th-century Kievan Chronicle and 13th-century Galician–Volhynian Chronicle . The language of this work is the East Slavic version of Church Slavonic language with many additional irregular east-slavisms (like other east-Slavic codices of the time). Whereas the Laurentian (Muscovite) text traces the Kievan legacy through to the Muscovite princes, the Hypatian text traces the Kievan legacy through
8502-646: The narrative of the Primary Chronicle . For example, “archeological evidence does not fit the legends of the Primary Chronicle” such as: “in Scandinavia itself, there were no sagas of Viking triumphs and wars in Russia to match those recounting the conquest of Iceland and the British Isles”. The credibility of the Primary Chronicle should be taken with a grain of salt for its undertone of being
8611-497: The original Rurikid dynasty between the 1330s and the late 1560s. At the same time Ukrainian view of sole succession is based on continuity from the Kievan Rus and its subsequent Kingdom of Ruthenia , Lithuania-Ruthenia , Cossack Hetmanate . For that it had utilised mainly territorial, ethnodemographic, social, and institutional arguments. The predominant Ukrainian view had gradually changed over time. After decline of Kievan Rus rulers of Galicia-Volhynia claimed sole succession and
8720-671: The original of the chronicle as well as the earliest known copies are lost, it is difficult to establish the original content of the chronicle. The six main manuscripts preserving the Primary Chronicle which scholars study for the purpose of textual criticism are: The Laurentian Codex was compiled in Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal by the Nizhegorodian monk Laurentius for the Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1377. The original text he used
8829-433: The origins of Rurikids (Zhur et al. 2023) analysed "for the first time", remains belonging to Prince Dmitry Alexandrovich . The study found that Dmitry Alexandrovich and most of the "medieval and modern Rurikids", starting with Prince Yaroslav the Wise , belong to paternal haplogroup N-M231 (N1a) . The genetic results suggest that the formation of the Rurikid lineage included a population from eastern Scandinavia ( Öland ),
8938-436: The pagan Slavs in a condescending manner, saying “for they were but pagans, and therefore ignorant.” Later in the Chronicle , one of the most pivotal moments of the narrative is Vladimir the Great 's conversion to Orthodox Christianity , which ignited extensive Christianization of Kievan Rus' . The Primary Chronicle traces the history of the Slavic people all the way back to the times of Noah , whose three sons inherited
9047-526: The palatalization is impossible to observe, e.g. ть is pronounced as т etc.). The medieval Serbian recension of Church Slavonic was gradually replaced by the Russian recension since the early 18th century. Nowadays in Serbia, Church Slavonic is generally pronounced according to the Russian model. This is in limited use among Croatian Catholics. Texts are printed in the Croatian Latin alphabet (with
9156-458: The princes of Smolensk and Yaroslavl. The Shakhovskoys were founded by Konstantin "Shakh" Glebovich, Prince of Yaroslavl , and traces its lineage to Rostislav I of Kiev through his son Davyd Rostislavich . This branch also descends cognatically of Ivan I of Moscow , through the latter's daughter Evdokia Ivanovna Moskovskaya (1314–1342), who married Vasili Mikhailovich [ ru ] , Prince of Yaroslavl (died 1345). They were
9265-587: The readers to remember him in their prayers. Alternately, the real author may have been some other unnamed monk from the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves mentioned in the title, and Sylvester completed his work, or was a very early editor or copyist of the PVL. Wladyslaw Duczko (2004) argued that one of the central aims of the Chronicle's narrative is to 'give an explanation how the Rurikids came to power in
9374-438: The reality. Ukrainian historian Oleksiy Tolochko in 2015 upheld the conclusion reached by his many predecessors that the Chronicle’s contents are more or less fictional. Tolochko argued that some of the tales, like the story of the Rurikid clan's entry into Kiev, were invented "so as to produce a meaningful reconstruction of past events and include these well-known names" in the author's "historical scenario." Tolochko called
9483-479: The resulting sum of 318+542 years leads to another erroneous accession of Michael III, this time in 860. This then leads to an internal contradiction, when "Michael the Emperor" is said to have mounted a campaign against the Bulgars in 853–858 (6361–6366), which could not have happened before he became Byzantine emperor in 860 according to the latter accession date. Chronology of major events: The Primary Chronicle
9592-545: The rulers of the Halych principality. The Hypatian codex was rediscovered in Kiev in the 1620s, and a copy was made for Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozhsky. A copy was found in Russia in the 18th century at the Ipatiev Monastery of Kostroma by the Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin. Numerous monographs and published versions of the chronicle have been made, the earliest known being in 1767. Aleksey Shakhmatov published
9701-531: The ruling house of Moscow until the end of the 16th century; the princes of Moscow are often referred to as the Daniilovichi . Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible , the Muscovite branch used the title "Tsar of All Russia" and ruled over the Tsardom of Russia . The death in 1598 of Tsar Feodor I ended the rule of the Rurik dynasty. The dynasty was briefly revived in the person of Vasili IV of Russia ,
9810-691: The scribes to produce new translations of liturgical material from Koine Greek , or Latin in the case of Croatian Church Slavonic. Attestation of Church Slavonic traditions appear in Early Cyrillic and Glagolitic script . Glagolitic has nowadays fallen out of use, though both scripts were used from the earliest attested period. The first Church Slavonic printed book was the Missale Romanum Glagolitice (1483) in angular Glagolitic, followed shortly by five Cyrillic liturgical books printed in Kraków in 1491. The Church Slavonic language
9919-499: The text's composition. According to Dmitry Likhachov (1950), the chronicle exhibits the presence of plentiful "fillers" that were added post factum and, in effect, "destroyed the narrative's logical progression." According to Aleksey Shakhmatov (1916), some of the incongruities are a direct result of the fact that "the ruling Princes of Kiev had their own propagandists who rewrote the annals to make political claims that best suited their own purposes." Shakhmatov further described
10028-518: The title of Grand Hetman of Lithuania and strove to preserve the Ruthenian language and Eastern Orthodoxy in this part of Europe. It is thought that the Drutsk and related princely families may also descend from Roman the Great. The Rostislaviches were the line of Rostislav I of Kiev , another son of Mstislav I of Kiev, who was Prince of Smolensk and a progenitor of the lines descending from
10137-688: The title of ruler of all former Rus lands as was noted in Kievan and then Galician–Volhynian Chronicles . Following downfall of Galicia-Volhynia, monarchs of Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia and then Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth claimed sole succession as well, which in turn was supported by Ruthenian population and historians at the time. But that view had shifted by mid 17th century, especially after Pereiaslav Agreement and publication of Kievan Synopsis in 1674 that viewed people of Great Russia , Little Russia and White Russia as single All-Russian nation under leadership of Tsar. Though latter
10246-652: The two, as profane (secular) passages sometimes feature Old Church Slavonicisms, while devotional passages sometimes feature Old East Slavicisms. In the view of many modern linguistics, the authors (and editors) of the Primary Chronicle probably considered the language they wrote in to be one single language. However, this literary language likely differed significantly from the Old East Slavic spoken lingua franca in contemporary Kiev, which appears to have been an amalgamation of several Old East Slavic dialects, with relatively few Old Church Slavonic influences. Because
10355-448: The year 862. The Rurikids were the ruling dynasty of Kievan Rus' and its principalities following its disintegration . The Romanovichi ruled the southwestern territories, which were unified by Roman the Great and his son Daniel , who was in 1253 crowned by Pope Innocent IV as the king of Ruthenia . Galicia–Volhynia was eventually annexed by Poland and Lithuania . The northern and northeastern territories were unified by
10464-643: Was a codex (since lost) compiled in 1305 for the Grand Prince of Vladimir, Mikhail of Tver . The account continues until 1305, but the years 898–922, 1263–83 and 1288–94 are missing for reasons unknown. The manuscript was acquired by the famous Count Musin-Pushkin in 1792 and subsequently presented to the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg . The Hypatian Codex dates to the 15th century. It incorporates much information from
10573-919: Was a modified to "allot equal rights to the Kievan inheritance to the Three Slavic peoples , that is the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians ", but later elevated the Russian nation as the elder brother to give the others "needed guidance in revolutionary struggles and socialist construction." There are currently various extant branches of the Rurikids, for instance: the Houses of Shakhovskoy , Gagarin, and Lobanov-Rostovsky . Their representatives include Prince Dmitriy Mikhailovich Shakhovskoy (born 1934); Prince Dmitri Andreevich Gagarin (born 1934); and Prince Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky (born 1935),
10682-648: Was also used by the Orthodox Churches in the Romanian lands until the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as by Roman Catholic Croats in the Early Middle Ages . Church Slavonic represents a later stage of Old Church Slavonic , and is the continuation of the liturgical tradition introduced by two Thessalonian brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius , in the late 9th century in Nitra ,
10791-567: Was challenged, but eventually became predominantly accepted until History of Ruthenians was written at the break of the 18th and 19th centuries underlying foundation for separate Ukrainian historiography with later monolineal and exclusivist Ukrainian national theory being advanced by national historiography between the 1840s and the end of the 1930s. It was summarised most clearly by Mykhailo Hrushevsky in his History of Ukraine-Rusʹ laying foundation for current sole succession view. During Soviet times by 1930s prior All-Russian nation ideology
10900-473: Was descended from the Rurik dynasty through the female line. His mother, Evdokiya Gorbataya-Shuyskaya, was a Rurikid princess from the Shuysky branch, daughter of Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky . Tsar Mikhail's first wife Maria Dolgorukova was of Rurikid stock but their marriage produced no children. Volodimerovichi , grand princes of Kiev Russian and Ukrainian historians have debated for many years about
11009-574: Was not the author. A more likely candidate as author is Sylvester of Kiev , hegumen ( abbot ) of the St. Michael's Monastery in Vydubychi (a village near Kyiv ), who may have compiled several sources in the year 1116. This attribution is based on the fact that the Laurentian text ends on page 286, lines 1 to 7, with the colophon "I wrote down ( napisakh ) this chronicle", after which he requests
11118-669: Was renovated each time thereafter. The cathedral last faced destruction during the October Revolution and was not restored until the fall of the Soviet Union . It has been argued that by honoring Vladimir the Great and his contribution to the Eastern Orthodoxy, the cathedral serves the purpose of validating Russia's historical ties with the Crimean Peninsula, the accounts of which are preserved by
11227-458: Was situated, the new edition glorified Vladimir and made him the central figure of later narrative. This second version of Nestor's work is preserved in the Laurentian codex (see § Surviving manuscripts ). A third edition followed two years later, centered on Vladimir's son and heir, Mstislav the Great . The author of this revision could have been Greek, for he corrected and updated much data on Byzantine affairs. This revision of Nestor's work
11336-451: Was subject to extensive debate. Many historians, antiquarians , and archaeologists had attempted to determine the actual location of Vladimir's conversion by synthesizing textual evidence of the Chronicle with material evidence from Crimea. Their efforts became known in the realms of historical discipline as the “archaeology of the Korsun legend.” This search culminated under Archbishop Innokentii's diocesan administration (1848–57), when in
11445-432: Was the father of Vladimir II Monomakh , giving rise to the name Monomakh for his progeny. Two of Vladimir II's sons were Mstislav I of Kiev and Yuri Dolgorukiy . The Romanoviches (Izyaslavichi of Volhynia) were the line of Roman the Great , descended from Mstislav I of Kiev through his son Iziaslav II of Kiev and his grandson Mstislav II of Kiev , father of Roman the Great. The older Monomakhovychi line that ruled
11554-634: Was the first one to discover early on that the chronology of the Primary Chronicle opens with an error. The Laurentian text of the Chronicle says: "In the year 6360 (852), the fifteenth of the indiction, at the accession of the Emperor Michael, the land of Rus' was first named". It is thus claimed that the reign of Byzantine emperor Michael III began in this year, but Byzantine sources (such as 11th-century Greek historian John Skylitzes ' account ) point out that it began on 21 January 842. Shakhmatov (1897) demonstrated that an editor based himself on
11663-535: Was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen ( Rus-law ) or Roden , as it was known in earlier times. The name Rus ' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi . The Primary Chronicle gives the following account the " Calling of the Varangians ", dating it to
11772-465: Was the word нестера in the opening lines of the Khlebnikov Codex (discovered in 1809), which some readers took to refer to Nestor "the Chronicler". But as Ostrowski (1981) pointed out: 'The word нестера was added in the Khlebnikov Codex , and thus cannot be used as evidence for the name of the compiler of the PVL. The word is not found in any of the other five main versions of the PVL, and
11881-436: Was working on a revised edition when he died; it was completed and published by Georgetown University professor Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor in 1953. By the early 21st century, Primary Chronicle had become the common shortened English name for the text shared by the surviving five main manuscripts of the PVL. Nevertheless, Cross' translation was often found inaccurate, with Waugh (1974) writing that Perfecky (1973) had produced
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