Свод, сборник или хроника? (о характере древнерусских летописных памятников ХІ–ХІІІ вв.)
Redaction, Compilation, or Chronicle? (on the genre of Rus’ annalistic sources of 11th–13th century)

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to one of the main questions of the history of ancient Rus’ (namely — Southern Rus’) annalistic writing — the question of the typology and genre of survived annalistic texts and the logic of their development. The Author proposes to exceed the limits of the Alexey Shakhmatov’s conception of redactions («svody»), which contains highly debatable elements, presupposing the history of early annalistic as a series of redacting the original «narrative nucleus». Besides, the Author shows the need of revision of terminology in the field of studies of Rus’ annalistic, in particular of the term «annalistic compilation» («letopisnyi svod»). The analysis of the historiography makes possible to put forward another answer on the posed above question. According to our idea, the «Povest’ vremennykh let» (PVL) was neither simple compilation, nor «redacted compilation» («svod») in Shakhmatov’s meaning. PVL, in Author’s opinion, should be classified as a chronicle, written by the abt of Vydubichi Monastery, Sylvestr. We propose the model of development of Southern Rus’ historiography in 11th–13th centuries, due to which so-called Kiev and Halich-Volhynian Chronicles are regarded as three consecutive chroniclescontinuations of PVL, that of Kiev, Halich and Volhynia. By the way, it means that the Ipatian copy contains four (not three) works. This model operates with the real, not hypothetical texts, and inscribes Rus’ historiography to European context. The scheme «author’s chronicle with continuators» was well-known in Latin and Byzantine historiography. In the article, we set forth a new view on forming of the texts of such chronicles, PVL in particular. The heterogeneity of its texts and textual «seams» as well as self-contradictions we explain as reflection of neither various separate narratives, nor redactions («svody»), but of the complicated work of a single author, who wrote preliminary drafts, which then used in the final issue.

• Details
• Contents