Brief information about the chronicle of the Tale of Bygone Years. So let's begin this story

Scientists called " The Tale of Bygone Years “the initial, initial, part of our oldest chronicle, which sets out the fundamental data on our history. In the original it is called, of course, differently, which is quite accessible to everyone. Let's think about what the expression “temporary years” could mean? Are there other years that are not temporary? Space? Light ones? If not, if a thousand or a little less years ago there were no light years, spatial ones, then why did the chronicler define the years as belonging to time, if it simply did not happen otherwise? The expression, as we see, is completely meaningless: the definition of the word summer in translation is not required, it does not add anything to the meaning. But at first glance, the ignorant, it seems that the true name of the chronicle, “the tale of the times,” cannot be translated differently.

In the comments to the only existing translation, its author D.S. Likhachev writes that the word “temporary” means “past.” Why on earth does the word time mean past? This is an ignorant fabrication. Time is a theoretical, scientific quantity, the area of definition of physical processes (movement), and a year is a unit of measurement of time. Conventionally, from the point of view of reality, formally, years are mapped onto the events they define, i.e. action is a function of time, action is determined by time. Thus, years can be mapped onto events - so to speak, temporary, which is the word we see in the original: “temporary”. Between the letters N in the word “temporary” there is a dull vowel sound b, which, when the emphasis was transferred to it, became clearer to full, i.e. This word would have passed into modern language in the form of tenses. The difference between the words temporary and temporary is the same as between the adjective crow and the participle blued. The first simply means a property, and the second - the result of the action, bluing. Therefore, the combination of “time years” also contains the result of the action. Since now the participle of the temporary is not used, another word should be used in translation, equal in meaning, for example, News of the Converted Years, i.e. mapped to events. Note that in the original there is the word “story”, in plural, i.e. news, news. With the transition to the singular number, it would be necessary to emphasize in the translation the function, the circulation of years, which, in fact, constitutes the essence of the records by year - the Tale of the Conversion of Years.

Unfortunately, with the text of “The Tale of Bygone Years” the situation is exactly the same as with the title. Astonishing as it may seem, our ancient history is largely the ignorant invention of a few people...

“The Tale of Bygone Years” is the fundamental work of our history. It sets out two mutually exclusive theories of the origin of the Russian people, Slavic and Varangian, - not the Norman one, which relies only on ignorant speculation and the inability to draw a conclusion, but the Varangian one. The Slavic and Norman theories are frankly far-fetched and contradictory - internally illogical and contradictory to foreign historical sources. Moreover, they cannot exist without each other. These are two ignorant views of the same object - the population of Ukraine. Actually, the chronicle contains only the Varangian and Slavic theories, and the Norman theory was invented due to the ignorant identification of the Varangians and Germans in the chronicles. The essence of these theories will be revealed below.

Why is a new translation of The Tale of Bygone Years needed?

With translations by D.S. Likhachev, and we don’t have others, the same interesting story happened as with the wife of Julius Caesar, who turned out to be above the greasy suspicions of the mob. Even a first-year student is able to motivatedly define Likhachev’s translations from Old Russian as ignorant, but in the “literature” no one talks about this - this must not be accepted, since for some reason Likhachev is considered a great scientist, unattainable in his greatness... In a word , Caesar’s wife immediately comes to mind, and it is absolutely impossible to criticize her - unless, of course, you want to become like the greasy mob.

Likhachev knew nothing at all from the grammar of the Old Russian language, not even cases, as will be seen below; He did not even know the grammar of the modern language firmly. For example, in the translation of “The Tale of Bygone Years” there are very childish spelling errors - “Zavolochskaya Chud” and “senseful”. Is it necessary to explain that in modern language the correct words would be Zavolotskaya and smart? But this savagery was published in a Soviet edition, which had to be prepared very carefully, with the participation of opponents, an editor, a proofreader... Do the aforementioned childhood mistakes mean that there was no preparation?

Yes, some words from the original are used here, but overall this meaningless collection of words in no way reflects the essence of the above sentence.

To translate the above sentence and understand it, you need to understand four simple things, it couldn’t be simpler:

“Yako” can mean both in the sense of when and even if.
“Yako” formally introduces a definition, since in the text it comes with the participle – “as having.”
In the sentence “as if I create with words” there is an obvious error, since the infinitive cannot be the main predicate, i.e. It would be correct to say “I want to create” (I will create), and not “exactly.”
Definition in Old Russian language often separated from the designated member by other members: “Glory to bringing Boris Vyacheslavlich to court, and to the green papaya, for insulting Olgov, the brave and young Prince,” The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, i.e. “I’m in vain” can refer to the word “such.”

From here we get a literal translation of the above sentence, just verbatim:

If such a thing became magic, always seeing, like the prophetic Apollonius, who had frantic philosophical wisdom within himself, then he should have said: “I will do with a word what you want,” and not carry out his commands with an accomplishment.

If here, in a literal translation, something is not clear, then complaints should be directed either to the author of this thought, or to your ignorance of the harmful sorcery and the fight against it, right?

Compare the given literal translation with Likhachev’s translation: do they have much in common? Can Likhachev's text be called a translation if it has no relation to the original? For mercy, this is not even a retelling, but pure fiction. Alas, this is not the only case. This is not the exception, but the rule. Likhachev did not translate the text, but only expressed his opinion about what could be written here, and the opinion was deeply ignorant, not based on available grammatical facts and conclusions. Yes, but our history and science are based on this ignorant translation...

If you want to argue that historians should have read the original themselves, then just remember that you also read the above sentence yourself. And what? Was there much use? This is how historians read. The difficulties, we repeat, are objective.

In “The Tale of Bygone Years” many little details of the ancient Russian language were embodied, which, in terms of its syntax, has absolutely nothing to do with modern Russian. The syntax of the ancient language is very similar to modern English, it just comes down to literal coincidences, for example in the negation “no one can solve”, in the predicate “learning quickly”, corresponding to the modern English past continuous, and in independent participial phrases corresponding to the so-called. absolute participial phrase modern English grammar. Imagine a man who began translating modern English text, believing that here it’s just “ in English letters“It’s written and sometimes unfamiliar words come across... This is Likhachev with his translations.

Without even the most superficial understanding of the syntax of language, the connection and essence of the members of a sentence, Likhachev and his subordinates translated ancient Russian texts into modern language, and they were the only ones doing this. Even if we leave aside the ethics of such behavior of a narrow group of Soviet scientists, who dominated all translations and even philological works on ancient Russian literature (without Likhachev’s review, not a single book could be published), it should be noted that their activities, which brought them income and honor, was useless and meaningless for science and for society - monkey work. Yes, there are places in ancient Russian texts that even a completely ignorant person who knows nothing of grammar could translate correctly, for example, “and speech Oleg,” but in order to establish these places, you need to open the original text... In other words, every translation of Likhachev and his subordinates must be checked with the original. Sometimes, however, there is no need to open the original: even without it it is clear that the translation contains complete nonsense, complete nonsense (more examples below).

Translation contribution to science by academician D.S. Likhachev corresponds to the contribution of the notorious academician T.D. Lysenko - with the only difference that our science has long overcome Lysenko’s activity, but Likhachev’s translation activity has not yet. His translation activities fall under the definition of pseudoscience - inventions of one’s imagination, passed off as scientific solutions.

Norman theory in The Tale of Bygone Years

Many believe that the so-called. the Norman theory, the theory of building a huge and, most importantly, cultural ancient Russian state by wild Germans who had no culture at all, is already reflected in The Tale of Bygone Years, but this is only a consequence of an ignorant perception of the text, in particular in Likhachev’s translation, which, of course, is not a translation, but an ignorant fabrication:

Even without referring to the original, it is very clear where the complete nonsense is going on, in two places:

“Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, so are these.”
“And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. The Novgorodians are people from the Varangian family, but before that they were Slovenians.”

What does the sentence “The Varangians were called Rus, as others are called Swedes” mean? Did the author think about what he was writing? Here an essentially schizophrenic picture arises, a break in the mental image, two simultaneous meanings that exclude each other: from the text it is clear that, on the one hand, the Varangians are a people with given name, even the “Varangian clan” (people) will be remembered, but on the other hand, the Varangians are a community of Germanic peoples mentioned in the text (the same story, by the way, with the chronicle Slavs). Moreover, this is completely obvious: if the chronicler in the first case, speaking about the expulsion of the Varangians, understood by them the community of Germanic peoples, as just below, then why on earth did he call them Russians? The name of the community of Germanic peoples as Varangians was completely clear to the chronicler, as can be seen from the text, but he did not consider them Russians:

And when I went across the sea to the Varangians to Rus', I feared the name of the Varangians was Rus', as behold, the friends are called theirs, the friends are the Urmans, the Anglyans, the friends of the Gate, Tako and Si.

From the original it is very clear that the conjunction “sitse bo” - since (sitse means so, and the second member is formal, as, for example, in the almost modern conjunction once that - if) was omitted from the translation. The chronicler tried to explain that in this case the Russian word coincides with the German one, like “swie” - retinues, “urmane” - boletus mushrooms (to the word urman, forest), “anglyane” - inoglyady, “gate” - ready-made. This, of course, is not the most beautiful historical theory, but the idea is still clearly expressed:

And they went across the sea to the Varangians, to the Russians, since those Varangians were called Russian, just as other Varangians are called retinues, others Urmans, foreigners, others ready-made.

From here even without translation reasonable person, or more precisely, a person in his right mind would conclude that the Varangian-Russians can be neither Swedes, nor Normans, nor English, nor Goths, since all these peoples are mentioned in one sentence, i.e. they were different peoples in the eyes of the chronicler. Well, is it possible, based on this text, to deduce the Norman theory as the creation of the Russian state by the Swedes? It is quite obvious that in this case we are faced with both an anachronism in the word Varangians and its ancient meaning. An anachronism in relation to the time described is, of course, the explanations of the chronicler, who calls the community of Germanic peoples Varangians. The history of this word is extremely simple, and it’s simply a shame not to understand it. This word was borrowed from us by the Byzantine Greeks in the distortion Βάραγγοι (varangi, double gamma is read as in the word angel, ἄγγελος) and transferred to the Germanic mercenaries who came to serve Byzantium. From the Greeks, the new meaning ricocheted back and spread among us to the Germans in general... There is no doubt that the person who wrote the above passage knew not only the word Βάραγγοι, but also its new Russian meaning, a generalization, since he called the Germans in general Varangians.

This is the so-called Russian truth, law, and we are talking about some kind of military, since the company is mentioned - an oath with weapons. You can’t define them more precisely.

Neither Likhachev nor anyone else paid attention to this simplest logical contradiction only for the reason that he did not understand the text given. Yes, the words are all familiar, but the meaning escapes due to a misunderstanding of the syntax, in particular the conjunction “sitsie bo”. In the comments, Likhachev complained that the Normanists sought to find support for themselves in these words, but how could they not strive, God forbid, if it is clearly written in Likhachev’s translation that “the Novgorodians are of the Varangian family”? Think about what nonsense: “The Novgorodians are people from the Varangian family, but before they were Slovenians.” How did the Novgorodians change their nationality? Didn't this seem at least a little strange to the author of the translation? No, in his opinion, the Novgorodians formed the social support of the “Varangian clan” - “belonging to the organization of the clan”, and the Normanists were to blame...

To translate this sentence, you need to know what the second nominative case and the conjunction “ti” are. By the way, the double nominative is used in modern language, for example it was good man, which in form and syntactic connections is absolutely equal to the sentence “the Russian land was nicknamed the Novugorodians.” The difference between modern and ancient usage is that now the object in the first and second nominatives must be the same, and this is determined by meaning. Everything is very simple, much simpler than “belonging to an organization of the Varangian family”:

And if from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed Novgorodians, then people became Novgorodians from the Varangian family, and before there were Slavs.

In the sublime Hellenic language this is called irony - pretense, mockery of opinion in bringing it to the point of absurdity. The chronicler continues his brief comments in the same spirit, firmly believing that the Russians have no relation to the Germans. From here, by the way, we learn about the Novgorod origin of the ethnonym Russian, which, alas, is unknown to “modern science” due to the lack of translation of the chronicle.

“Modern science” has concluded that in our chronicle a “legend about the Varangian origin” of the Russians was created, but above we examined this legend in full and found that it was invented by our ignorant translators like Likhachev - if, of course, we understand the Varangians as Germans, as is usually the case understand. The strange thing is that the Varangian, but not the Germanic origin of the Russians is mentioned elsewhere in The Tale of Bygone Years, at the very beginning, in the description of the origin of peoples, where the Russians are mentioned twice:

There is no difference in spelling in the original. Wild from a modern point of view, the word “sit” should be understood in the sense of ass, sedentary. Alas, Likhachev’s “translation” consisted of a thoughtless rewriting of an ancient text, the grammatically difficult passages of which were presented on the basis of groundless inventions. Pay attention to the ignorant spelling “Zavolochskaya Chud”. That's right, we repeat, it will be Zavolotskaya, from word to word. In the chronicle, Ch is stated correctly (volok - to drag), but now this is not the twelfth century, the rules are different.

In the comments, Likhachev wrote: “Rus - A.A. Shakhmatov and some other researchers believe that Rus' was added to the list of peoples by a later chronicler - the one who created the legend about the Varangian origin of Rus'.” Let us assume that the chronicler created a legend and in its text put forward sincere objections against it, which we discussed above, but could he make an insertion into the chronicle that contradicts his opinion about the Slavic origin of the Russians, reflected in the above passage? This couldn't happen.

It is quite obvious that a certain ancient chronicler believed that there were two peoples with the name Russians, which is reflected in the above passage. Some of his Russians were among the Germanic-Roman peoples of Europe, and these were by no means the Swedes and Normans, mentioned nearby, and not even the Varangians, also mentioned in the list, but other Russians were in the Russian north, where ethnic Russians should be. Of course, there must have been some kind of connection between these two Russians, but, alas, there is nothing about it in the chronicle...

“Lovot” is actually Lovat, a trifle, and other mistakes are not particularly important.

If this had been read by a person with independent thinking, not our historian, bewildered by all sorts of theories, sometimes crazy ones like the Norman one, he would never have guessed that “the path from the Varangians to the Greeks” is the path from the Scandinavian Peninsula to the Black Sea and Byzantium. Where in the above text is the route from the Scandinavian Peninsula described? Even Likhachev wrote “there was a path from the Varangians to the Greeks” (of course, it needs to be capitalized, this is true), and then the path to the north along the Dnieper is described - the path to the north from the Greeks. In other words, “here” (there is no such word in the original) is within the Black Sea, from certain mountains on the Black Sea to certain Greeks on the same sea (they also lived in Crimea), and “from there” to the Dnieper and beyond . The passage describes a journey around Europe, from the Black Sea north along the Dnieper and back to the Black Sea along the ocean, which in the chronicler’s imagination merges with the “Varangian Sea.” The meaning of this description is not clear, but the Scandinavian Germans certainly have nothing to do with it. The Baltic Sea is called here the Varangian Sea in the above-mentioned later sense of the word Varangians - the German Sea, i.e. in relation to our prehistoric times, which the above passage describes, this is an anachronism. Nevertheless, many historians believe that since it is written “the path from the Varangians to the Greeks,” then it is certainly from the Germans to the Greeks, and therefore you can not pay attention to the other text... No, you couldn’t come up with a greater absurdity on purpose.

When considering the ancient Varangians, one should, of course, abstract from the ignorant identification of them with one or another Germanic people: there are no logical grounds for such an identification. There is no reason to doubt the existence of the Varangians, since in the same chronicle they are mentioned as a real people

Luda is not a cloak, but by the way, tin, i.e. chain mail, tinned, probably from rust. Accordingly, it is not difficult to understand the surprise of contemporaries who remembered Yakun: a blind man does not need chain mail, and chain mail does not need gold embroidery...

Here we already see a lie: nowhere, not in a single list of the Laurentian Chronicle and the Ipatiev Chronicle, is there a distorted word “slep” given by Likhachev - everywhere there is “slep”, even in the indicated edition it is noted in different readings: “In Laurel. and other blind lists,” Decree. cit., p. 137, i.e. The obvious misunderstanding is not calling Yakun blind, but the “conjecture” of modern science, which for no reason identified Yakun and Hakon. This is generally an excellent historical method: reality should not be deduced from the ancient text, but, on the contrary, the ancient text should be read on the basis of its own baseless fictions about the past. As for Eymund's saga, it is complete nonsense, such stupid and wild inventions that it is simply inconvenient to refer to them. In addition, in the text of Eymund’s saga available to us, no Hakon is mentioned (there, probably, “conjecture” is also done for correct “reading” - a scientific technique).

It can also be added that in the Ipatiev Chronicle the name Yakun is read as Akun. This is probably a coarsened Turkic combination Ak-kyun, White Sun (this soft Yu was persistently coarsened in our country: kuna, marten). Perhaps the Germanic name Hakon comes from here, from this combination, but Hakon and Akun are, of course, different faces. There is no reason to identify them - especially with reference to artistic nonsense, Eymund's saga. Such a reference is the same as a scientific reference to a feature film about American Indians (yes, it was also filmed on some basis of reality - just like Eymund’s saga was written).

There is no doubt that Akun, mentioned in the above passage, belonged to the very Varangians of the beginning of our chronicle - a people who had no ethnic relation to the Germans. They can be identified with the Avars, images of our chronicle, see Art. “Ancient Rus' and the Slavs,” especially since the names Avars and Varangians sound like they have the same root, Var. In other words, the Varangian theory of our chronicle has the right to exist - unlike the Norman and Slavic ones, which do not withstand even the most superficial criticism.

Slavic theory in The Tale of Bygone Years

Everyone has probably heard about the numerous Slavic tribes that have long lived in Eastern Europe, occupying vast territories, but almost no one knows that the source of his beliefs is just a few lines of the “Tale of Bygone Years”, and very, very dubious, outright false . Yes, of course, there are Christian medieval historical sources in which certain Slavs are mentioned, but they do not contain statements about the Slavic language, related to Russian, and about the belonging of this language, related to Russian, to many peoples, supposedly also related, coming from a single root. Moreover, for example, from Byzantine sources it is not difficult to conclude that the Slavs commemorated there in vain spoke a Germanic root language, see Art. "Ancient Rus' and the Slavs." Moreover, there is no independent evidence about the existence of the Slavic language and even the great teachers of the Slavic people, Cyril and Methodius, who allegedly gave the Slavs writing. All initial data is limited to our sources, contradictory statements in them, although it seems that the Byzantines could have known about the great and even saints of their compatriots Cyril and Methodius... No, they did not.

Cyril may have existed, it’s just that his name was not preserved in history, see the last part of the article about Rus' and the Slavs “Mother of Russian Cities”, and Methodius was frankly fictitious: there was such a Latin bishop, mentioned by Cosma of Prague in the “Czech Chronicle”, to which the liars equated the Byzantine Methodius. This lie is as stupid as it is blatant, but it has been successful for more than a century.

There is absolutely no logical reason to believe the chronicler's absurd statements that Russians and Slavs are one and the same. This statement, of course, contradicts other historical sources, in particular Muslim ones, but our “modern science” does not take this into account...

The Slavs in The Tale of Bygone Years appear in the same contradiction as the Varangians in the passage discussed above. On the one hand, the chronicler calls many peoples Slavs, and on the other hand, this many peoples had an ancestor named Slavs, a certain people who spoke an equal language to Russian. According to the authors of The Tale of Bygone Years, these people lived either in the Roman province of Noricum, which was in the upper bend of the Danube, where Munich is now, or in Illyria, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, opposite Italy.

It is impossible, of course, to believe in the described settlement of a people called Slavs in vast spaces measured by thousands of kilometers, from the upper reaches of the Danube to the Dnieper and from the Black Sea to the White, simply because this would require millions of people speaking, we emphasize, the same language . For the Slavic language to prevail over such vast territories, they had to be numerically and, most importantly, culturally superior to the local population, but the latter contradicts historical sources. Muslims, for example, describe the Danube Slavs as the most primitive social organization- with tax in kind, food and clothing, see Art. about Rus' and the Slavs, but at the same time the Russians note foreign trade all the way to China. This gap is so monstrous, an abyss, that only a madman is capable of talking about the origin of Russians from the Slavs, from dugouts with subsistence farming. And is it really possible that the migration of such huge masses of people, even in modern times, went unnoticed by all European historians, primarily Byzantine ones? Is it really so great in number did the cultured people manage to hide from the eyes of Byzantine and other historians? This can't be true.

An excellent example for comparison and understanding before our eyes is Rus'. Is it possible, even in delirium, to imagine that the Byzantine Greeks knew nothing about Rus'? No, this is completely unthinkable. Yes, but why then did they know nothing about the gigantic expansion of the Slavic empire, which included Rus' territorially? Well, on what other grounds, for what reasons, could a great people settle over vast territories or even spread their language there?

One can believe in the gradual and natural settlement of the Slavs down the Danube and in the departure of future Poles from the lower reaches of the Danube to the Vistula from oppression, but not in further massive resettlement to the expanses from the Black Sea to the White Sea. This is simply absurd, and there is not even a hint of confirmation of this information in European historical sources. Even in our sources on such a great occasion there are only a few general phrases.

The author of “The Tale of Bygone Years” very persistently connects together the settlement of the Slavic people and the spread of the Slavic language, however, for a person even superficially familiar with world history, there is no connection here: this is an extremely primitive view of history and, most importantly, invalid, not finding the actual confirmation. For example, do you think the Kazakhs and Turks come from a single people? No, of course, because they even have different races, but they speak languages of Turkic root, i.e. the spread of language in this case has nothing to do with the settlement of people and biological inheritance. Of course, language is spread by people, or rather by cultural empires, but such spread does not go unnoticed. For example, the same Turkic language with Far East The Huns brought it to Europe, and this is very well known, although there is no history or written sources left of the Huns. Yes, but why then is nothing known about the Slavs?

Of course, there were objections to the Slavic theory in ancient times. In particular, as can be concluded from the Tale of Bygone Years, there were people who questioned the Kiev origin of the Russians and defended, of course, the Novgorod origin. Since the apologists of the Slavs could not respond to criticism, ridicule was used. Here is a very entertaining parable, the mockery of the “Church Slavs” at their opponents, dedicated to the dispute about the place of origin of the Russians

Notice how much poison and impudence there is in the key idea of the story: Kyiv had only just been predicted by the apostle, and the Novgorodians were already steaming with might and main in their baths, to the wonder of the same apostle. This anecdote is a clear mockery of those people who claimed that Novgorod is older than Kyiv and Russians come from Novgorod.

Think about the monstrous, simply fantastic impudence: our “Church Slavs” even dragged a disciple of Christ into their nonsense, and without the slightest twinge of conscience.

It is worth noting that this anecdote is based on the above-discussed story about a hypothetical route around Europe, from which an ignorant person who did not know the size of Europe and the Varangian Sea could conclude that the route used in ancient times to Rome from the Black Sea could pass around Europe - through the Dnieper , the Baltic Sea and the ocean into the Mediterranean Sea, on the shores of which Rome is located. In other words, the anecdote about the Novgorodians who surprised the apostle is by no means folk wisdom, not folklore, but an essay based on facts from historical literature, i.e. scientific.

An anecdote about the Novgorodians testifies that the Slavic historical theory in Rus' had opponents, and the “Church Slavs” could not object to them, which is why they turned to ridicule... Yes, but how much is the ancient historical theory worth, which some of its contemporaries confidently rejected? Was it possible to unconditionally believe in these nonsense?

Varangian theory in The Tale of Bygone Years

Languages spread and are spreading through empires, cultural empires, through a built social structure that covered areas with a significant population, where people adopt a foreign language due to involvement in social relations, and non-literate peoples, as L.N. Gumilyov, changing the language is very easy. Yes, but where is the Slavic Empire in Europe? She was not there anywhere, that is. there was not a single valid reason for the spread of the Slavic language.

This simplest conclusion from world history - languages are spread by empires - is, of course, confirmed in our history. In the Tale of Bygone Years there is a mention of the Varangian Empire:

Also given above is the statement that the Varangians were Russians, and this is completely consistent with world history: this is how it should be. The Russian language should belong not to the Slavs, the Germans primarily, but specifically to the Varangians, and the Varangians are not in Kyiv, but in Novgorod, as we know from the analysis of the Varangian theory above.

We cannot, of course, admit that in Europe in the ninth century AD there was an unknown empire (especially among Muslims). But the empire, which died shortly before the birth of Rus' and did not leave its written history, was only one - the Avar Khaganate. Consequently, we are simply obliged to conclude that the Varangians are the Russian-speaking part of the Avars, named in the Russian language (this language could have been called differently - there is no information). What is curious is that a few words remain from the Avars, and all of them fit into the Russian language, see the third part of the article about Rus' and the Slavs “Avars and Rus'”. The connection between the Varangians and the Slavs, of course, can be traced, because the Danube Slavs lived under the rule of the Avar Kaganate. Accordingly, we are obliged to conclude that the Russian language was perceived by the Danube Slavs as one of the imperial ones, spread along the Danube within the Kaganate, and later to the Vistula with the fleeing Poles. This is fully consistent with the facts of world history and even looks banal - in contrast to the fantastic settlement of wild Slavs over vast territories, which is impossible to believe.

Correlate this with the Slavic theory, i.e. with the systematic development of the Slavs from the Flood to Kyiv itself, only a person bewildered by all sorts of “theories”, from stupid to downright insane, could. It is written very clearly that Oleg captured the enemy fortress, where people with non-Russian names - Askold and Dir - were defending, after which he declared the capital of the new state here. "Mother of Cities" is a translation of the Greek word metropolis (in the more common Catholic Greek language, metropolis, like Homer instead of Omir or hegemon instead of hegemon). The ownership of this fortress on the Dnieper by the enemy is determined from the work of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, from the ninth chapter of his book “On the Administration of Empires,” entitled “On the Dews departing with Monoxyls from Russia to Constantinople.”

The construction of Russian cities in Ukraine was also started by Oleg, as noted in the previous passage, but this cannot be understood from Likhachev’s ignorant translation: “That Oleg began to build cities.” The original says differently: “Behold, Oleg began to build cities,” Decree. cit., p. 14, which is literally translated into modern language: It was Oleg who began to build cities, i.e. It was he who began to build Russian cities in Ukraine, in the crushed Khazar empire, and not anyone else. Obviously, this is why Oleg was nicknamed the Prophetic: having captured a small Khazar fortress on the Dnieper, he proclaimed his capital here for further struggle against the Khazars, and soon a large Russian city arose here, surrounded by others... And the city was simply huge for those times, the largest, probably in Europe, with a population of probably tens of thousands of people. There are said to be four hundred churches in it alone.

Ideology in The Tale of Bygone Years

From an examination of the chronicle data, it is obvious that the Slavic theory, the theory of the origin of Russians from the Slavs in Kyiv and the Dnieper, is a blatant lie that contradicts not only historical sources, including the same “Tale of Bygone Years,” but also common sense itself. And the question arises, of course, for what purpose did the chronicler tell outright lies about the great cultural Slavs who did not exist?

Yaroslav the Wise, of course, is not some kind of Kotsel, but this is indescribable impudence, and from any, we repeat, point of view - both Greek and Latin.

Everyone can easily imagine how Christianity was established where this Kotsel ruled: the Germans came, cut some, tore others to bloody shreds, and then strictly explained that this was being done exclusively in the name of all the brightest and most beautiful things that humanity knows, - in the name of Christ. Ours, led by Vladimir, did almost the same thing, only instead of the Czechs there were Byzantine Greeks and our Christianity was not imposed, but accepted from the Greeks, see Art. "The Baptism of Rus'".

Vladimir provided the Greek emperors Vasily and Constantine with military assistance in the fight against the troublemaker Barda Phocas in exchange for the priests, after which, naturally, he expected what was promised. No, look for a fool for five Roman soldi, the Greeks did not send priests, they deceived. Then Vladimir got ready, came to Crimea and took the Greek Chersonese, demanding not only the priests, but also a Greek princess as his wife, the sister of Vasily and Constantine, as a penalty for delay with the priests. The Byzantine emperors had to give up the priests and the princess, whom our chronicle nevertheless commemorates in 988, although the baptism of Vladimir is attributed not to a political agreement, but to his great spiritual insight... This is also a blatant lie. Of course, liars cannot be called Christians: they are Christian political ideologists.

Since Vladimir snatched the Christian priests from the Greeks by brute force - by threatening to take Constantinople after he took the Greek Chersonesus, a small “canonical” inconvenience arose: it seems like Christianity was supposed to be spread by the apostles and ascetics, and torn from the Greeks by military force for political purposes...

The second terrible political problem of the new empire was the obvious fact that Christianity was widespread in Rus' - in the Russian north, of course - back in the time of Patriarch Photius, when the Bible was translated into Russian, long before Vladimir, who, however, was mentioned above Larion, without the slightest doubt, declared Yaroslav the Wise to be completely equal to the apostles and the sacred support of the existing power. Of course, this was not canonization in the strict sense, since in that sense we did not even have a Church, but Vladimir was clearly declared a saint. Larion’s Word on Law and Grace has reached us, where the “canonization” of Vladimir is expressed extremely clearly - it couldn’t be clearer. Actually, affirming the sacredness of existing power was the purpose of Larion’s appeal to the faithful. This task was exclusively political, and not spiritual (all authority is from God, said the Apostle Paul). The goal of Christianity is the salvation of souls, but not at all to educate them in the correct political conviction or love even for Christian power. Power has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul.

The affirmation of the sacredness of power is, of course, an ideology, an eternal ideology in the world, for any strong power asserts itself as sacred - any one. The only difficulty was to make the new empire sacred in the canonical sense, and most importantly - without threats and violence, in a Christian way. Of course, the Greeks, under torture or threats to raze Constantinople to the ground, would even confirm that Christ was born in Rus' and left Rus' to teach in Palestine, but who needed that? And was it only the Greeks who were required to recognize the sacredness of the new world empire?

The Slavs were born only because, apparently, it was necessary to canonize power in the new world empire. Sacred Christian books in Russian existed before Vladimir - they were declared Slavic, not Russian, to which the chronicler paid great attention, inventing the story quoted above. Christianity existed in Rus' before Vladimir - it was declared Slavic, not Russian. Everything was cut down according to the Slavs, first of all - history. The Russians with their sacred empire began with Saint Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles, or quite a bit earlier, and before Vladimir there were exclusively Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians.

What was good about the new approach to history in the “canonical” sense? Yes, if only because the Slavs never forcibly tore Christianity away from the Greeks - on the contrary, the Greeks strangled them and tore them to bloody shreds in the name of all the brightest and most beautiful that humanity knows - in the name of Christ. The Slavs never destroyed Constantinople and were generally meek and quiet, like lambs. No one in Byzantium would ever call the Slavs by the terrible name Ros from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, as the Greeks still call us Russians to this day - from the biblical name of Prince Ros Mosoh and Fauvel, this Gog and Magog, the messenger of the cruel Adonai the Lord, who came to fight from the north at the head of many nations. To this day, there is not a single text in Greek in which the Russians would be named correctly, from the root rus, and not the biblical ros (in fact, it is correct Rosh, but the Greeks did not have the Hebrew letter shin - Ш, it was replaced by WITH). And to understand the reason for this name, it is enough to read the words of Photius dedicated to our ancestors...

It seems that the reason for the birth of lies in our chronicle was not pride, as usually happens, the desire to exalt oneself by humiliating others, but, on the contrary, the desire to belittle oneself, to stoop to the lowest, in particular to the Slavs. Of course, a lie is a lie, but motives mean something, don't they?

A huge role in the falsification of history under the Slavs was probably played by the refusal of the Greek authorities to recognize our Church, which is why the Slavs were needed, to whom the Apostle Paul himself went to Illyricum - “a teacher to us Russians.” That's a strong word, isn't it? Why are all the Greek church hierarchs, and especially the secular authorities, against this? Nothing, empty space.

The Slavs were simply irreplaceable for ideology, and if they had not been in the Avar Kaganate at the time, they should even have been invented for the purpose of the triumph of ideology - the establishment of the sacredness of power in the state of Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir. Actually, history is ideology, always and everywhere, because the past is always and everywhere the foundation of the future. Historical works are not written in order to reveal to posterity the whole truth, as some naive people believe, but for contemporaries, in order to control the minds of contemporaries and, accordingly, the future. And astonishing as it may seem, historians sometimes succeed in mastering the future. For example, our minds are now dominated by such fierce obscurantists from centuries ago that it’s scary to even imagine them...

However, they were probably great righteous people: they didn’t eat meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, they didn’t commit fornication, and so on, according to the list. Well, if they lied somewhere, voluntarily or unwittingly, then it was not for the sake of sin, but from the best intentions - sacred, as it seemed to them. It may very well be that some of them themselves believed in their lies, considering it a strict conclusion, and the falsification of history just a “conjecture”, like the current ones. Well, you made a series of “conjectures” and came up with a bunch of nonsense, like Likhachev - is that really bad from a subjective point of view? And if Likhachev probably considered himself a scientist, then why should these past obscurantists think of themselves differently? How does their gigantic “conjecture” differ from the “conjecture” of Likhachev and others like him? Yes, nothing in the grand scheme of things: both are just history, that’s science.

History of creation

Old Russian literature developed after the adoption of Christianity and spanned seven centuries. Its main task is to reveal Christian values and introduce the Russian people to religious wisdom. “The Tale of Bygone Years” (“The Initial Chronicle”, or “Nester’s Chronicle”) is one of the oldest works of Russian literature. It was created at the beginning of the 12th century by the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the chronicler Nestor. In the title of the chronicle, Nestor formulated his task: “Behold the stories of the times, where did the Russian land come from, who began to reign first in Kyiv, and where did the Russian land come from.” The original “Tale...” has not reached us. There are currently several copies available. Of these, the most famous are two: a handwritten parchment collection of 1337 - stored in the State Public Library named after M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (Lavrentievskaya Chronicle) and a handwritten collection of the early 15th century - stored in the library of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation (Ipatiev Chronicle). The Laurentian Chronicle is named after its scribe, the monk Laurentius, who rewrote it for the Suzdal Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1337 and put his name at the end. The Laurentian Chronicle is a collection that includes two works: the Tale of Bygone Years itself and the Suzdal Chronicle, brought up to 1305. The Ipatiev Chronicle is named after its former storage location - the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. This is also a collection that includes several chronicles, including “The Tale of Bygone Years.” This document takes the narrative up to 1202. The main difference between the lists is at their end: the Laurentian Chronicle brings the story up to 1110, and in the Ipatiev List the story goes into the Kyiv Chronicle.

Genre, type of chronicle

Chronicle is one of the genres of medieval literature. IN Western Europe it was called "chronicles". Usually this is a description of legendary and real events, mythological ideas. Academician D.S. Likhachev said about this that ancient Russian literature there was one story - “ world history” and one topic is “the meaning of human life.” The chroniclers did not record private events in their records and were not interested in life ordinary people. As noted by D.S. Likhachev, “to be included in chronicles is a significant event in itself.” Russian chroniclers not only recorded events in chronological order, but also created a collection of written sources and oral traditions, and then made their generalizations based on the collected material. The result of the work was a kind of teaching.
The chronicle collection includes both brief weather records (that is, records of events that occurred in a certain year) and other texts of various genres (stories, teachings, parables, traditions, legends, biblical tales, treaties). The main thing in the chronicle is a story about an event that has a complete plot. There is a close connection with oral folk art.
“The Tale of Bygone Years” contains an account of the ancient history of the Slavs, and then of Rus', from the first Kyiv princes to the beginning of the 12th century. “The Tale of Bygone Years” is not only a historical chronicle, but at the same time an outstanding monument of literature. Thanks to the state view, breadth of outlook and literary talent of Nestor, “The Tale of Bygone Years,” according to D.S. Likhachev, was “not just a collection of facts of Russian history and not just a historical and journalistic work related to the urgent but transitory tasks of Russian reality, but an integral, literary history of Rus'.”
Subjects
“The Tale of Bygone Years” is the first all-Russian chronicle collection. It contains historical information about the life of Ancient Rus', records legends about the origin of the Slavs, their settlement along the Dnieper and around Lake Ilmen, the clash of the Slavs with the Khazars and Varangians, the calling of the Varangians by the Novgorod Slavs with Rurik at their head and the formation of the state of Rus'. The legends recorded in the “Tale of Bygone Years” represent practically the only source of information on the formation of the first ancient Russian state and the first Russian princes. The names of Rurik, Sineus, Truvor, Askold, Dir, and the prophetic Oleg are not found in other sources of that time, although attempts are made to identify some historical characters with the listed princes. The role of the first Russian princes (Oleg, Igor, Svyatoslav, Vladimir) in the fight against enemies, the formation of the Principality of Kyiv is the fundamental theme of The Tale of Bygone Years.
Among the chronicle texts: the story of Olga’s revenge on the Drevlyans (945-946); story about a young man and a Pecheneg (992); the siege of Belgorod by the Pechenegs (997) - the story of Oleg’s death by horse (912) occupies a special place.

The idea of the analyzed work

The main idea of “The Tale...” is the author’s condemnation of the strife between the princes and a call for unification. The Russian people are presented by the chronicler as equal among other Christian peoples. Interest in history was dictated by the urgent needs of the day; history was involved in order to “teach” the princes - contemporaries of political statesmanship, reasonable government. This prompted the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery to become historians. Thus, ancient Russian literature fulfilled the task of moral education of society, the formation of national self-awareness, and acted as a bearer of civic ideals.
The main characters of the Tale of Bygone Years
The heroes of the chronicles were primarily the princes. The Tale of Bygone Years tells about Prince Igor, Princess Olga, Prince Vladimir Monomakh and other people who lived in medieval Rus'. For example, the focus of one of the editions of the story is on events related to the activities of Vladimir Monomakh, which talks about Monomakh’s family affairs, information about the Byzantine emperors with whom Monomakh was related. And this is no coincidence. As you know, Vladimir Monomakh was the Great Prince of Kyiv in 1113-1125. He was known to the people as a patriot and an active defender of Rus' from the Polovtsians. Monomakh was not only a commander and statesman, but also a writer. In particular, he wrote “Instructions for Children.”
Among the first Russian princes, Nestor is attracted to Prince Oleg. Prince Oleg (? - 912) - the first Kiev prince from the Rurik family. The chronicle says that Rurik, dying, transferred power to his relative, Oleg, since Rurik’s son, Igor, was very small at that time. Oleg reigned in Novgorod for three years, and then, having recruited an army from the Varangians and the Chud, Ilmen Slavs, Meri, Vesi, and Krivichi tribes under his control, he moved south. Oleg took possession of Kiev by cunning, killing Askold and Dir, who reigned there, and made it his capital, saying: “This will be the mother of Russian cities.” Having united the Slavic tribes of the north and south, Oleg created a powerful state - Kievan Rus. There is a well-known legend associated with Oleg’s death in the chronicles. According to the chronicler, Oleg reigned for 33 years, from 879 (the year of Rurik’s death) to 912. He had outstanding talent as a commander, and his wisdom and foresight were so great that they seemed supernatural. Contemporaries nicknamed Oleg the Prophetic. The successful prince-warrior is nicknamed “prophetic”, i.e. a wizard (however, the Christian chronicler did not fail to emphasize that the nickname was given to Oleg by the pagans, “people of trash and lack of voice”), but he also cannot escape his fate. Under 912, the chronicle places a poetic legend connected, obviously, “with Olgova’s grave,” which “exists... to this day.” This legend has a complete plot, which is revealed in a laconic dramatic narrative. It clearly expresses the idea of the power of fate, which no mortal, and even the “prophetic” prince, can avoid.
The legendary Prince Oleg can be called the first Russian figure on a national scale. Many songs, legends and traditions were composed about Prince Oleg. The people sang of his wisdom, ability to predict the future, his talent as an excellent military leader, intelligent, fearless and resourceful.

Plot, composition of The Tale of Bygone Years

Oleg reigned for many years. One day he called the soothsayers to him and asked: “What am I destined to die from?” And the wise men answered: “You, prince, will accept death from your beloved horse.” Oleg was saddened and said: “If this is so, then I will never sit on it again.” He ordered the horse to be taken away, fed and taken care of, and took another for himself.
A lot of time has passed. One day Oleg remembered his old horse and asked where he was now and if he was healthy. They answered the prince: “Three years have passed since your horse died.”
Then Oleg exclaimed: “The Magi lied: the horse from which they promised me death died, but I am alive!” He wanted to see the bones of his horse and rode into an open field, where they lay in the grass, washed by the rains and bleached by the sun. The prince touched the horse’s skull with his foot and said, grinning: “Is it from this skull that I should die?” But then a poisonous snake crawled out of the horse’s skull and bit Oleg in the leg. And Oleg died from snake venom.
According to the chronicler, “all the people mourned him with great lamentation.”

Artistic originality of the work

“The Tale of Bygone Years,” telling about the place of the Russian people among other peoples of the world, about the history of its formation, introduces us to the atmosphere of an epic folk-song attitude towards Russian history. The Tale of Bygone Years contains both an epic image and a poetic attitude towards native history. That is why “The Tale of Bygone Years” is not only a work of Russian historical thought, but also of Russian historical poetry. Poetry and history are in inextricable unity in it. Before us is a literary work created on the basis of oral stories. It is to oral sources that The Tale of Bygone Years owes its magnificent, concise and expressive language. The historicism underlying ancient Russian literature presupposed a certain idealization of what was depicted. Hence the artistic generalization, the lack of depiction of the hero’s inner psychology, his character. At the same time, the author's assessment is clearly visible in the chronicle.
A special feature of “The Tale of Bygone Years” is its poetic style, unusual for that time. The style of the chronicle is laconic. Different speech includes frequent use of direct speech, proverbs and sayings. Basically, the chronicle contains Church Slavonic vocabulary, which is closely intertwined with spoken Russian. While reflecting reality, the chronicle also reflects the language of this reality, conveying the speeches that were actually spoken. First of all, this is the influence spoken language is reflected in the direct speech of the chronicles, but also indirect speech, the narration conducted on behalf of the chronicler himself, to a large extent depends on the living oral language of his time - primarily in terminology: military, hunting, feudal, legal, etc. These were the oral foundations on which the originality of The Tale of Bygone Years was based as a monument of Russian historical thought, Russian literature and the Russian language.
The meaning of the work “The Tale of Bygone Years”
Nestor was the first ancient Russian feudal historiographer who connected the history of Rus' with the history of Eastern European and Slavic peoples. In addition, a feature of the story is its direct connection with world history.
“The Tale of Bygone Years” is not only an example of ancient Russian literature, but also a monument to the cultural life of the people. Many poets widely used the plots of the chronicle in their work. A special place belongs to the famous “Song about the Prophetic Oleg” by A.S. Pushkin. The poet talks about Prince Oleg as an epic hero. Oleg made a lot of trips, fought a lot, but fate took care of him. Pushkin loved and knew Russian history, “the legends of the centuries.” In the legend about Prince Oleg and his horse, the poet was interested in the theme of fate, the inevitability of destined fate. The poem also conveys a proud confidence in the poet’s right to freely follow his thoughts, consonant with ancient idea the belief that poets are harbingers of a higher will.
The Magi are not afraid of powerful rulers, And they do not need a princely gift; Their prophetic language is truthful and free and friendly with the will of heaven.
The truth cannot be bought or circumvented. Oleg gets rid of, as it seems to him, the threat of death, sends away the horse, which, according to the magician’s prediction, should play a fatal role. But many years later, when he thinks that the danger has passed - the horse is dead, fate overtakes the prince. He touches the horse’s skull: “Meanwhile, the grave snake Hissing crawled out of the dead head.”
Told by A.S. Pushkin’s legend about the glorious Prince Oleg suggests that everyone has their own destiny, you cannot deceive it, and you need to love, take care of your friends and not part with them during your lifetime.

This is interesting

Writing appeared in Rus' along with the adoption of Christianity, when liturgical books came to us from Bulgaria and began to be distributed through rewriting. Although at that distant time the similarity between all the languages of the different Slavic tribes was incomparably greater than now, the Church Slavonic language nevertheless differed from colloquial or folk Russian both in relation to phonetics, and in relation to etymology and syntax. Meanwhile, our ancestors, as Christianity and literacy spread, became more and more familiar with this written language: they listened to it during worship, read church books in it and copied them. The very teaching of literacy in Ancient Rus' was carried out using Church Slavonic books. From this it is clear that the church- Slavic language should have had a strong influence on the speech of literate people of that time, and this influence was so great that when literature began to emerge in Rus' and when the first writers appeared, they based their book speech on the Church Slavonic language.
But on the other hand, the Russian folk, or colloquial, language, used for a long time in everyday life, was not supplanted by this introduced bookish language, but existed alongside it, and bookish people, no matter to what extent they assimilated Church Slavonic speech, unwittingly introduced into this speech elements of a living spoken language, and the further, the more and more this addition of Russian colloquial speech to the Church Slavonic language intensified. This addition of the Russian element to the written language in the literary works of the ancient period was expressed in relation to etymological forms, and in relation to the syntactic structure of the language, and even more so in relation to phonetics.
Thus, in the literary works of Old Russian literature, the languages of Church Slavonic and colloquial Russian are mixed, and therefore the literary language of Ancient Rus' can be called Slavic-Russian.
The language of the Nestor Chronicle is also Slavic-Russian and also represents a mixture of elements of both languages.
(Based on the book by P.V. Smirnovsky “History of Russian Literature”)

Likhachev D.S. Great legacy. Classic works of literature of Ancient Rus'. - M.: Sovremennik, 1980.
Likhachev D.S. Poetics of Old Russian Literature. - M.: Nauka, 1979-
Likhachev D.S. Russian chronicles and their cultural and historical significance. - M.; L., 1947.
Sturgeon E. Living Ancient Rus'. - M.: Education, 1984.
Rybakov B A Ancient Rus'. Tales. Epics. Chronicles. - K., 1963.
Smirnovsky P.V. History of Russian literature. Part one. Ancient and middle periods. - M., 2009.

After the flood, Noah's three sons divided the earth - Shem, Ham, Japheth. And Shem got the east: Persia, Bactria, even to India in longitude, and in width to Rhinocorur, that is, from the east to the south, and Syria, and Media to the Euphrates River, Babylon, Corduna, the Assyrians, Mesopotamia, Arabia the Oldest, Elimais, Indi, Arabia Strong, Colia, Commagene, all of Phenicia.

Ham got the south: Egypt, Ethiopia, neighboring India, and another Ethiopia, from which flows the Ethiopian Red River, flowing to the east, Thebes, Libya, neighboring Kyrenia, Marmaria, Sirtes, another Libya, Numidia, Masuria, Mauritania, located opposite Ghadir. In his possessions in the east are also: Cilicia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Mysia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Camalia, Lycia, Caria, Lydia, another Mysia, Troas, Aeolis, Bithynia, Old Phrygia and some islands: Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus and the river Geona, otherwise called the Nile.

Japheth inherited the northern and western countries: Media, Albania, Armenia Lesser and Greater, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Colchis, Bosporus, Meots, Derevia, Capmatia, the inhabitants of Tauris, Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Malosiya, Thessaly, Locris, Pelenia, which is also called Peloponnese, Arcadia, Epirus, Illyria, Slavs, Lichnitia, Adriakia, Adriatic Sea. They also got the islands: Britain, Sicily, Euboea, Rhodes, Chios, Lesbos, Kythira, Zakynthos, Cefallinia, Ithaca, Kerkyra, a part of Asia called Ionia, and the Tigris River flowing between Media and Babylon; to the Pontic Sea to the north: the Danube, the Dnieper, the Caucasus Mountains, that is, the Hungarian Mountains, and from there to the Dnieper, and other rivers: the Desna, Pripyat, Dvina, Volkhov, Volga, which flows east to the Simov part. In the Japheth part there are Russians, Chud and all sorts of peoples: Merya, Muroma, Ves, Mordovians, Zavolochskaya Chud, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Ugra, Lithuania, Zimigola, Kors, Letgola, Livs. The Poles and Prussians seem to be sitting near the Varangian Sea. The Varangians sit along this sea: from here to the east - to the borders of the Simovs, they sit along the same sea and to the west - to the lands of England and Voloshskaya. The descendants of Japheth are also: Varangians, Swedes, Normans, Goths, Rus, Angles, Galicians, Volokhs, Romans, Germans, Korlyazis, Venetians, Fryags and others - they adjoin the southern countries in the west and neighbor the tribe of Ham.

Shem, Ham and Japheth divided the land by casting lots, and decided not to enter into anyone’s brother’s share, and each lived in his own part. And there was one people. And when people multiplied on earth, they planned to create a pillar up to heaven - this was in the days of Nectan and Peleg. And they gathered in the place of the field of Shinar to build a pillar up to heaven, and near it the city of Babylon; and they built that pillar 40 years, and they did not finish it. And the Lord came down to see the city and the pillar, and the Lord said: “Behold, there is one generation and one people.” And God mixed up the nations, and divided them into 70 and 2 nations, and scattered them throughout the whole earth. After the confusion of the peoples, God destroyed the pillar with a great wind; and its remains are located between Assyria and Babylon, and are 5433 cubits high and wide, and these remains have been preserved for many years.

After the destruction of the pillar and the division of the peoples, the sons of Shem took the eastern countries, and the sons of Ham took southern countries The Japhethites took the west and northern countries. From these same 70 and 2 languages came the Slavic people, from the tribe of Japheth - the so-called Noriks, who are the Slavs.

After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where the land is now Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they settled. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Lutichs, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians.

In the same way, these Slavs came and sat down along the Dnieper and were called Polyans, and others - Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and others sat between Pripyat and Dvina and were called Dregovichs, others sat along the Dvina and were called Polochans, after a river flowing into the Dvina , called Polota, from which the Polotsk people took their name. The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmen were called by their own name - Slavs, and built a city and called it Novgorod. And others sat along the Desna, and the Seim, and the Sula, and called themselves northerners. And so the Slavic people dispersed, and after their name the letter was called Slavic.

When the glades lived separately in these mountains, there was a path from the Varangians to the Greeks and from the Greeks along the Dnieper, and in the upper reaches of the Dnieper - a drag to Lovot, and along Lovot you can enter Ilmen, the great lake; The Volkhov flows from the same lake and flows into the Great Lake Nevo, and the mouth of that lake flows into the Varangian Sea. And along that sea you can sail to Rome, and from Rome you can sail along the same sea to Constantinople, and from Constantinople you can sail to the Sea of Pontus, into which the Dnieper River flows. The Dnieper flows from the Okovsky forest and flows to the south, and the Dvina flows from the same forest and heads north, and flows into the Varangian Sea. From the same forest the Volga flows to the east and flows through seventy mouths into the Khvalisskoye Sea. Therefore, from Rus' you can sail along the Volga to the Bolgars and Khvalis, and go east to the inheritance of Sima, and along the Dvina to the land of the Varangians, from the Varangians to Rome, from Rome to the tribe of Khamov. And the Dnieper flows at its mouth into the Pontic Sea; This sea is known as Russian, - as they say, St. Andrew, Peter’s brother, taught it along its shores.

When Andrei taught in Sinop and arrived in Korsun, he learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was not far from Korsun, and he wanted to go to Rome, and sailed to the mouth of the Dnieper, and from there he went up the Dnieper. And it so happened that he came and stood under the mountains on the shore. And in the morning he got up and said to the disciples who were with him: “Do you see these mountains? The grace of God will shine on these mountains, there will be a great city, and many churches will be erected.” And having ascended these mountains, he blessed them, and put up a cross, and prayed to God, and came down from this mountain, where Kyiv would later be, and went up the Dnieper. And he came to the Slavs, where Novgorod now stands, and saw the people living there - what their custom was and how they washed and whipped themselves, and he was surprised at them. And he went to the country of the Varangians, and came to Rome, and told about how he taught and what he saw, and said: “I saw a marvel in the Slavic land on my way here. I saw wooden bathhouses, and they would heat them up, and they would undress and be naked, and they would douse themselves with leather kvass, and they would pick up young rods on themselves and beat themselves, and they would finish themselves off so much that they would barely get out, barely alive, and douse themselves with cold water, and This is the only way they will come to life. And they do this constantly, not being tormented by anyone, but torturing themselves, and then they perform ablution for themselves, and not torment.” Those who heard about this were surprised; Andrei, having been in Rome, came to Sinop.

The Glades lived separately in those days and were governed by their own clans; for even before that brethren (which will be discussed later) there were already glades, and they all lived with their clans in their own places, and each was governed independently. And there were three brothers: one named Kiy, the other - Shchek and the third - Khoriv, and their sister - Lybid. Kiy sat on the mountain where Borichev now rises, and Shchek sat on the mountain that is now called Shchekovitsa, and Khoriv on the third mountain, which was nicknamed Khorivitsa after his name. And they built a city in honor of their elder brother, and named it Kyiv. There was a forest and a large forest around the city, and they caught animals there, and those men were wise and sensible, and they were called glades, from them glades are still in Kyiv.

Some, not knowing, say that Kiy was a carrier; At that time, Kyiv had transportation from the other side of the Dnieper, which is why they said: “For transportation to Kyiv.” If Kiy had been a ferryman, he would not have gone to Constantinople; and this Kiy reigned in his family, and when he went to the king, they say that he received great honors from the king to whom he came. When he was returning, he came to the Danube, and took a fancy to the place, and cut down a small town, and wanted to sit in it with his family, but those living around did not let him; This is how the inhabitants of the Danube region still call the settlement - Kievets. Kiy, returning to his city of Kyiv, died here; and his brothers Shchek and Horiv and their sister Lybid died immediately.

And after these brothers, their clan began to hold a reign near the glades, and the Drevlyans had their own reign, and the Dregovichi had theirs, and the Slavs had their own in Novgorod, and another on the Polota River, where the Polotsk people were. From these latter came the Krivichi, sitting in the upper reaches of the Volga, and in the upper reaches of the Dvina, and in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, their city is Smolensk; This is where the Krivichi sit. The northerners also come from them. And on Beloozero he sits all over, and on Lake Rostov he meryas, and on Lake Kleshchino he also meryas. And along the Oka River - where it flows into the Volga - there are the Muroma, speaking their own language, and the Cheremis, speaking their own language, and the Mordovians, speaking their own language. Just who speaks Slavic in Rus': the Polyans, the Drevlyans, the Novgorodians, the Polochans, the Dregovichis, the Northerners, the Buzhanians, so called because they sat along the Bug, and then began to be called the Volynians. But here are other peoples who give tribute to Rus': Chud, Merya, Ves, Muroma, Cheremis, Mordovians, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Lithuania, Zimigola, Kors, Narova, Livs - these speak their own languages, they are from the tribe of Japheth and live in northern countries.

When the Slavic people, as we said, lived on the Danube, the so-called Bulgarians came from the Scythians, that is, from the Khazars, and settled along the Danube and were settlers in the land of the Slavs. Then the White Ugrians came and settled the Slavic land. These Ugrians appeared under King Heraclius, and they fought with Khosrov, Persian king. In those days there were also obras, they fought against King Heraclius and almost captured him. These obrins also fought against the Slavs and oppressed the Dulebs - also Slavs, and committed violence against the Duleb wives: it happened that when an obrin rode, he would not allow a horse or an ox to be harnessed, but he ordered three, four or five wives to be harnessed to a cart and to be driven - obrin, - and so they tortured the Dulebs. These obrins were great in body and proud in mind, and he destroyed them, they all died, and not a single obrin remained. And there is a saying in Rus' to this day: “They perished like obras,” but they have no tribe or descendants. After the raids, the Pechenegs came, and then the Black Ugrians passed by Kyiv, but this happened after - already under Oleg.

The Polyans, who lived on their own, as we have already said, were from a Slavic family and only later were called Polyans, and the Drevlyans descended from the same Slavs and were also not immediately called Drevlyans; Radimichi and Vyatichi are from the family of Poles. After all, the Poles had two brothers - Radim, and the other - Vyatko; and they came and sat down: Radim on the Sozh, and from him they were called Radimichi, and Vyatko sat down with his family along the Oka, from him the Vyatichi got their name. And the Polyans, Drevlyans, Northerners, Radimichi, Vyatichi and Croats lived in peace among themselves. The Dulebs lived along the Bug, where the Volynians are now, and the Ulichi and Tivertsy sat along the Dniester and near the Danube. There were many of them: they sat along the Dniester all the way to the sea, and their cities have survived to this day; and the Greeks called them “Great Scythia”.

All these tribes had their own customs, and the laws of their fathers, and legends, and each had their own character. The Polyans have the custom of their fathers being meek and quiet, being bashful before their daughters-in-law and sisters, mothers and parents; They have great modesty before their mothers-in-law and brothers-in-law; They also have a marriage custom: the son-in-law does not go for the bride, but brings her the day before, and the next day they bring for her - whatever they give. And the Drevlyans lived according to animal customs, lived like bestials: they killed each other, ate everything unclean, and they did not have marriages, but they kidnapped girls near the water. And the Radimichi, Vyatichi and northerners had a common custom: they lived in the forest, like all animals, ate everything unclean and dishonored themselves in front of their fathers and daughters-in-law, and they did not have marriages, but they organized games between the villages, and gathered at these games, on dances and all sorts of demonic songs, and here they kidnapped their wives in agreement with them; they had two and three wives. And if someone died, they held a funeral feast for him, and then they made a large log, and laid the dead man on this log, and burned him, and then, having collected the bones, they put them in a small vessel and placed them on poles along the roads, as they still do now. Vyatichi The Krivichi and other pagans followed the same custom, not knowledgeable of the law God's, but setting the law for themselves.

George says in his chronicle: “Every nation has either a written law or a custom, which people who do not know the law observe as the tradition of their fathers. Of these, the first are the Syrians living at the end of the world. They have as a law the customs of their fathers: not to engage in fornication and adultery, not to steal, not to slander or kill, and, especially, not to do evil. The same law applies to the Bactrians, otherwise called Rahmans or islanders; these, according to the behests of their forefathers and out of piety, do not eat meat or drink wine, do not commit fornication and do no evil, having great fear of God's faith. Otherwise, for their neighboring Indians. These are murderers, filth-makers, and wrathful beyond all measure; and in the interior regions of their country - they eat people there, and kill travelers, and even eat them like dogs. Both the Chaldeans and the Babylonians have their own law: to take mothers to bed, to commit fornication with the children of brothers and to kill. And they do every kind of shamelessness, considering it a virtue, even if they are far from their country.

The Gilii have a different law: their wives plow, and build houses, and do men’s work, but they also indulge in love as much as they want, not restrained by their husbands and without being ashamed; There are also brave women among them, skilled in hunting animals. These wives rule over their husbands and command them. In Britain, several husbands sleep with one wife, and many wives have an affair with one husband and commit lawlessness like the law of their fathers, without being condemned or restrained by anyone. The Amazons do not have husbands, but, like dumb cattle, once a year, close to spring days, they leave their land and marry the surrounding men, considering that time as a kind of triumph and great holiday. When they conceive from them in the womb, they will scatter from those places again. When the time comes to give birth, if a boy is born, then they kill him, but if it is a girl, then they will feed her and diligently raise her.”

So, with us now, the Polovtsians adhere to the law of their fathers: they shed blood and even boast about it, they eat carrion and all uncleanness - hamsters and gophers, and take their stepmothers and daughters-in-law, and follow other customs of their fathers. We, Christians of all countries where they believe in the Holy Trinity, in one baptism and confess one faith, we have one law, since we were baptized into Christ and put on Christ.

As time passed, after the death of these brothers (Kiya, Shchek and Khoriv), the Drevlyans and other surrounding people began to oppress the glades. And the Khazars found them sitting on these mountains in the forests and said: “Pay us tribute.” The glades, having consulted, gave a sword from the smoke, and the Khazars took them to their prince and the elders, and told them: “Behold, we have found a new tribute.” They asked them: “Where from?” They answered: “In the forest on the mountains above the Dnieper River.” They asked again: “What did they give?” They showed the sword. And the Khazar elders said: “This is not a good tribute, prince: we got it with weapons that are sharp only on one side - sabers, but these have double-edged weapons - swords. They are destined to collect tribute from us and from other lands.” And all this came true, for they did not speak of their own free will, but by God’s command. So it was under Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, when they brought Moses to him and the elders of Pharaoh said: “This is destined to humiliate the land of Egypt.” And so it happened: the Egyptians died from Moses, and first the Jews worked for them. It’s the same with these: first they ruled, and then they rule over them; so it is: the Russian princes still rule the Khazars to this day.

In the year 6360 (852), index 15, when Michael began to reign, the Russian land began to be called. We learned about this because under this king Rus' came to Constantinople, as it is written about in the Greek chronicles. That is why from now on we will start and put numbers. “From and to the flood 2242 years, and from the flood to Abraham 1000 and 82 years, and from Abraham to the exodus of Moses 430 years, and from the exodus of Moses to David 600 and 1 year, and from David and from the beginning of the reign of Solomon to the captivity of Jerusalem 448 years" and from the captivity to Alexander 318 years, and from Alexander to the birth of Christ 333 years, and from christmas to Constantine there are 318 years, from Constantine to Michael this is 542 years.” And from the first year of the reign of Michael to the first year of the reign of Oleg, the Russian prince, 29 years, and from the first year of the reign of Oleg, since he sat down in Kyiv, to the first year of Igor, 31 years, and from the first year of Igor to the first year of Svyatoslavov 33 years, and from the first year of Svyatoslavov to the first year of Yaropolkov 28 years; and Yaropolk reigned for 8 years, and Vladimir reigned for 37 years, and Yaroslav reigned for 40 years. Thus, from the death of Svyatoslav to the death of Yaroslav 85 years; from the death of Yaroslav to the death of Svyatopolk 60 years.

But we will return to the former and tell what happened in these years, as we have already begun: from the first year of the reign of Michael, and arrange it in order of the year.

6361 (853) per year.

Per year 6362 (854).

6363 (855) per year.

6364 (856) per year.

6365 (857) per year.

6366 (858) per year. Tsar Michael went with his soldiers to the Bulgarians along the coast and by sea. The Bulgarians, seeing that they could not resist them, asked to baptize them and promised to submit to the Greeks. The king baptized their prince and all the boyars and made peace with the Bulgarians.

Per year 6367 (859). The Varangians from overseas collected tribute from the Chuds, and from the Slovenians, and from the Meris, and from the Krivichi. And the Khazars took from the field, and from the northerners, and from the Vyatichi, a silver coin and a squirrel from the smoke.

Per year 6368 (860).

Per year 6369 (861).

6370 (862) per year. They drove the Varangians overseas, and did not give them tribute, and began to control themselves, and there was no truth among them, and generation after generation rose up, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: “Let’s look for a prince who would rule over us and judge us by right.” And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, so are these. The Chud, the Slovenians, the Krivichi and all said to the Russians: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." And three brothers were chosen with their clans, and they took all of Rus' with them, and they came and the eldest, Rurik, sat in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, in Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. Novgorodians are those people from the Varangian family, and before they were Slovenians. Two years later, Sineus and his brother Truvor died. And Rurik alone took over all power and began to distribute cities to his husbands—Polotsk to one, Rostov to another, Beloozero to another. The Varangians in these cities are the Nakhodniki, and the indigenous population in Novgorod are the Slovenes, in Polotsk the Krivichi, in Rostov the Merya, in Beloozero the whole, in Murom the Muroma, and Rurik ruled over them all. And he had two husbands, not his relatives, but boyars, and they asked to go to Constantinople with their family. And they set off along the Dnieper, and when they sailed past, they saw a small city on the mountain. And they asked: “Whose town is this?” They answered: “There were three brothers” Kiy” Shchek and Khoriv, who built this town and disappeared, and we sit here, their descendants, and pay tribute to the Khazars.” Askold and Dir remained in this city, gathered many Varangians and began to own the land of the glades. Rurik reigned in Novgorod.

6371 (863) per year.

Per year 6372 (864).

Per year 6373 (865).

Per year 6374 (866). Askold and Dir went to war against the Greeks and came to them in the 14th year of the reign of Michael. The tsar was at that time on a campaign against the Hagarians, had already reached the Black River, when the eparch sent him the news that Rus' was marching on Constantinople, and the tsar returned. These same ones entered the Court, killed many Christians and besieged Constantinople with two hundred ships. The king entered the city with difficulty and prayed all night with Patriarch Photius in the Church of the Holy Mother of God in Blachernae, and they carried out the divine robe of the Holy Mother of God with songs, and soaked its floor in the sea. At that time there was silence and the sea was calm, but then a storm and wind suddenly arose, and they stood up again huge waves, scattered the ships of the godless Russians, and washed them to the shore, and broke them, so that few of them managed to avoid this misfortune and return home.

Per year 6375 (867).

6376 (868) per year. Vasily began to reign.

Per year 6377 (869). The entire Bulgarian land was baptized.

Per year 6378 (870).

Per year 6379 (871).

Per year 6380 (872).

Per year 6381 (873).

Per year 6382 (874).

Per year 6383 (875).

Per year 6384 (876).

Per year 6385 (877).

Per year 6386 (878).

Per year 6387 (879). Rurik died and handed over his reign to Oleg, his relative, giving his son Igor into his hands, for he was still very small.

Per year 6388 (880).

Per year 6389 (881).

Per year 6390 (882). Oleg set out on a campaign, taking with him many warriors: the Varangians, the Chud, the Slovenians, the Meryu, the whole, the Krivichi, and he came to Smolensk with the Krivichi, and took power in the city, and installed his husband in it. From there he went down and took Lyubech, and also imprisoned his husband. And they came to the Kyiv mountains, and Oleg learned that Askold and Dir reigned here. He hid some soldiers in the boats, and left others behind, and he himself began, carrying the baby Igor. And he sailed to the Ugrian Mountain, hiding his soldiers, and sent to Askold and Dir, telling them that “we are merchants, we are going to the Greeks from Oleg and Prince Igor. Come to us, to your relatives." When Askold and Dir arrived, everyone else jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir: “You are not princes and not of a princely family, but I am of a princely family,” and showed Igor: “And this is the son of Rurik.” And they killed Askold and Dir, carried him to the mountain and buried Askold on the mountain, which is now called Ugorskaya, where Olmin’s court is now; Olma placed Saint Nicholas on that grave; and Dirov’s grave is behind the Church of St. Irene. And Oleg, the prince, sat down in Kyiv, and Oleg said: “Let this be the mother of Russian cities.” And he had Varangians, and Slavs, and others who were called Rus. That Oleg began to build cities and established tribute to the Slovenes, and Krivichi, and Meri, and established that the Varangians should give tribute from Novgorod 300 hryvnia annually for the sake of preserving peace, which was given to the Varangians until the death of Yaroslav.

Per year 6391 (883). Oleg began to fight against the Drevlyans and, having conquered them, took tribute from them by black marten.

Per year 6392 (884). Oleg went against the northerners, and defeated the northerners, and imposed a light tribute on them, and did not order them to pay tribute to the Khazars, saying: “I am their enemy” and there is no need for you (to pay them).

Per year 6393 (885). He sent (Oleg) to the Radimichi, asking: “Who are you giving tribute to?” They answered: “The Khazars.” And Oleg said to them: “Don’t give it to the Khazars, but pay me.” And they gave Oleg a cracker, just like they gave it to the Khazars. And Oleg ruled over the glades, and the Drevlyans, and the northerners, and the Radimichi, and fought with the streets and Tivertsy.

Per year 6394 (886).

Per year 6395 (887). Leon, the son of Vasily, who was called Leo, and his brother Alexander reigned, and they reigned for 26 years.

Per year 6396 (888).

Per year 6397 (889).

Per year 6398 (890).

Per year 6399 (891).

6400 (892) per year.

6401 (893) per year.

Per year 6402 (894).

Per year 6403 (895).

6404 (896) per year.

6405 (897) per year.

Per year 6406 (898). The Ugrians walked past Kyiv along the mountain, which is now called the Ugric Mountain, came to the Dnieper and became vezhas: they walked the same way as the Polovtsians do now. And, coming from the east, they rushed through the great mountains, which were called the Ugric Mountains, and began to fight with the Volokhs and Slavs who lived there. After all, the Slavs sat here before, and then the Voloks captured the Slavic land. And after the Ugrians drove out the Volokhs, inherited that land and settled with the Slavs, subduing them; and from then on the land was nicknamed Ugric. And the Ugrians began to fight with the Greeks and captured the land of Thracia and Macedonia all the way to Seluni. And they began to fight with the Moravians and Czechs. There was one Slavic people: the Slavs who sat along the Danube, conquered by the Ugrians, and the Moravians, and the Czechs, and the Poles, and the Glades, which are now called Rus'. After all, it was for them, the Moravians, that the letters called Slavic letters were first created; The same charter is held by both the Russians and the Danube Bulgarians.

When the Slavs were already baptized, their princes Rostislav, Svyatopolk and Kotsel sent to Tsar Michael, saying: “Our land is baptized, but we do not have a teacher who would instruct us and teach us and explain the holy books. After all, we do not know either Greek or Latin; Some teach us this way, and others teach us differently, so we don’t know either the shape of the letters or their meaning. And send us teachers who could interpret for us the words of the books and their meaning.” Hearing this, Tsar Michael summoned all the philosophers and conveyed to them everything that the Slavic princes had said. And the philosophers said: “In Seluni there is a man named Leo. He has sons who know the Slavic language; His two sons are skilled philosophers.” Hearing about this, the king sent for them to Leo in Selun, with the words: “Send your sons Methodius and Constantine to us without delay.” Hearing about this, Leo soon sent them, and they came to the king, and he said to them: “Behold, the Slavic land sent ambassadors to me, asking for a teacher who could interpret the sacred books for them, for this is what they want.” And the king persuaded them and sent them to the Slavic land to Rostislav, Svyatopolk and Kotsel. When (these brothers) arrived, they began to make up Slavic alphabet and the Apostle and the Gospel translated. And the Slavs were glad that they heard about the greatness of God in their language. Then they translated the Psalter and Octoechos and other books. Some began to blaspheme the Slavic books, saying that “no people should have their own alphabet, except the Jews, Greeks and Latins, according to the inscription of Pilate, who wrote on the cross of the Lord (only in these languages).” Hearing about this, the Pope condemned those who blaspheme the Slavic books, saying: “Let the word of Scripture be fulfilled: “Let all nations praise God,” and another: “Let all nations praise the greatness of God, since the Holy Spirit has given them to speak.” If anyone scolds the Slavic letter, let him be excommunicated from the church until he corrects himself; These are wolves, not sheep, they should be recognized by their actions and beware of them. “You, children, listen to the divine teaching and do not reject the church teaching that your mentor Methodius gave you.” Constantine returned back and went to teach the Bulgarian people, and Methodius remained in Moravia. Then Prince Kotzel installed Methodius as bishop in Pannonia on the table of the holy Apostle Andronikos, one of the seventy, a disciple of the holy Apostle Paul. Methodius appointed two priests, good cursive writers, and translated all the books completely from Greek into Slavic in six months, starting in March and finishing on the 26th day of October. Having finished, he gave worthy praise and glory to God, who had given such grace to Bishop Methodius, Andronicus’ successor; for the teacher of the Slavic people is the Apostle Andronicus. The Apostle Paul also went to the Moravians and taught there; Illyria is also located there, to which the Apostle Paul reached and where the Slavs originally lived. Therefore, the teacher of the Slavs is the Apostle Paul, and we, Rus', are from the same Slavs; Therefore, for us, Rus', Paul is a teacher, since he taught the Slavic people and appointed Andronicus as bishop and governor of the Slavs. But the Slavic people and the Russians are one; after all, they were called Rus from the Varangians, and before there were Slavs; Although they were called Polyans, their speech was Slavic. They were nicknamed Polyans because they sat in the field, and the language they shared was Slavic.

Per year 6407 (899).

6408 (900) per year.

6409 (901) per year.

6410 (902) per year. Tsar Leon hired the Ugrians against the Bulgarians. The Ugrians, having attacked, captured the entire Bulgarian land. Simeon, having learned about this, went against the Ugrians, and the Ugrians moved against him and defeated the Bulgarians, so that Simeon barely escaped to Dorostol.

6411 (903) per year. When Igor grew up, he accompanied Oleg and listened to him, and they brought him a wife from Pskov, named Olga.

6412 (904) per year.

6413 (905) per year.

6414 (906) per year.

6415 (907) per year. Oleg went against the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv; He took with him many Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds, and Krivichi, and Meryu, and Drevlyans, and Radimichi, and Polans, and Northerners, and Vyatichi, and Croats, and Dulebs, and Tivertsy, known as interpreters: these were all called Greeks "Great Scythia". And with all these Oleg went on horses and in ships; and there were 2000 ships. And he came to Constantinople: the Greeks closed the Court, and the city was closed. And Oleg went ashore and began to fight, and committed many murders to the Greeks in the vicinity of the city, and broke many chambers, and burned churches. And those who were captured, some were dissected, others were tortured, others were shot, and some were thrown into the sea, and the Russians did many other evils to the Greeks, as enemies usually do.

And Oleg ordered his soldiers to make wheels and put ships on wheels. And when a fair wind blew, they raised sails in the field and went to the city. The Greeks, seeing this, were frightened and said, sending to Oleg: “Do not destroy the city, we will give you the tribute you want.” And Oleg stopped the soldiers, and they brought him food and wine, but did not accept it, since it was poisoned. And the Greeks were afraid and said: “This is not Oleg, but Saint Dmitry, sent to us by God.” And Oleg ordered to give tribute to 2000 ships: 12 hryvnia per person, and there were 40 men in each ship.

And the Greeks agreed to this, and the Greeks began to ask for peace so that the Greek land would not fight. Oleg, moving a little away from the capital, began negotiations for peace with the Greek kings Leon and Alexander and sent Karl, Farlaf, Vermud, Rulav and Stemid to their capital with the words: “Pay me tribute.” And the Greeks said: “We will give you whatever you want.” And Oleg ordered to give his soldiers for 2000 ships 12 hryvnia per rowlock, and then give tribute to Russian cities: first of all for Kyiv, then for Chernigov, for Pereyaslavl, for Polotsk, for Rostov, for Lyubech and for other cities: for according to In these cities sit the great princes, subject to Oleg. “When the Russians come, let them take as much allowance for the ambassadors as they want; and if merchants come, let them take monthly food for 6 months: bread, wine, meat, fish and fruits. And let them give them a bath as long as they want. When the Russians go home, let them take food, anchors, ropes, sails and whatever else they need from the Tsar for the journey.” And the Greeks obliged, and the kings and all the boyars said: “If the Russians do not come for trade, then let them not take their monthly allowance; Let the Russian prince, by decree, prohibit the Russians who come here from committing atrocities in the villages and in our country. Let the Russians who come here live near the church of St. Mammoth, and send them from our kingdom, and write down their names, then they will take their monthly allowance - first those who came from Kyiv, then from Chernigov, and from Pereyaslavl, and from other cities . And let them enter the city only through one gate, accompanied by the king’s husband, without weapons, 50 people each, and trade as much as they need, without paying any fees.”

Kings Leon and Alexander made peace with Oleg, pledged to pay tribute and swore allegiance to each other: they themselves kissed the cross, and Oleg and his husbands were taken to swear allegiance according to Russian law, and they swore by their weapons and Perun, their god, and Volos, the god of cattle, and established peace. And Oleg said: “Sew sails for Rus' from fibers, and for the Slavs from coprine,” and so it was. And he hung his shield on the gates as a sign of victory, and left Constantinople. And the Russians raised sails of grass, and the Slavs raised their sails, and the wind tore them apart; and the Slavs said: “Let’s take our thicknesses; the Slavs were not given sails made of pavolok.” And Oleg returned to Kyiv, carrying gold, and willows, and fruits, and wine, and all sorts of ornaments. And they called Oleg the Prophetic, since the people were pagans and unenlightened.

6417 (909) per year.

Per year 6418 (910).

6419 (911) per year. Appeared in the west big star in the form of a spear.

Per year 6420 (912). Oleg sent his men to make peace and establish an agreement between the Greeks and Russians, saying this: “A list from the agreement concluded under the same kings Leo and Alexander. We are from the Russian family - Karla, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudy, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid - sent from Oleg, the Grand Duke of Russia, and from everyone who is at hand him, - the bright and great princes, and his great boyars, to you, Leo, Alexander and Constantine, the great autocrats in God, the Greek kings, to strengthen and certify the long-term friendship that existed between Christians and Russians, at the request of our great princes and by command, from all the Russians under his hand. Our Lordship, desiring above all in God to strengthen and certify the friendship that constantly existed between Christians and Russians, decided fairly, not only in words, but also in writing, and with a firm oath, swearing with their weapons, to confirm such friendship and certify it by faith and according to our law.

These are the essence of the chapters of the agreement regarding which we have committed ourselves by God's faith and friendship. With the first words of our agreement, we will make peace with you, Greeks, and we will begin to love each other with all our souls and with all our good will, and we will not allow any deception or crime to occur from those under the hands of our bright princes, since this is in our power; but we will try, as much as we can, to maintain with you, Greeks, in future years and forever an unchanging and unchanging friendship, expressed and committed to a letter with confirmation, certified by an oath. Likewise, you, Greeks, maintain the same unshakable and unchanging friendship for our bright Russian princes and for everyone who is under the hand of our the bright prince always and in all years.

And about the chapters concerning possible atrocities, we will agree as follows: let those atrocities that are clearly certified be considered indisputably committed; and whichever they do not believe, let the party that seeks to swear that this crime will not be believed; and when that party swears, let the punishment be whatever the crime turns out to be.

About this: if anyone kills a Russian Christian or a Russian Christian, let him die at the scene of the murder. If the murderer runs away and turns out to be a rich man, then let the relative of the murdered man take that part of his property that is due by law, but let the murderer’s wife also keep what is due to her by law. If the escaped murderer turns out to be indigent, then let him remain on trial until he is found, and then let him die.

If someone strikes with a sword or beats with any other weapon, then for that blow or beating let him give 5 liters of silver according to Russian law; If the one who committed this offense is poor, then let him give as much as he can, so that let him take off the very clothes in which he walks, and about the remaining unpaid amount, let him swear by his faith that no one can help him, and let him not this balance is collected from him.

About this: if a Russian steals something from a Christian or, on the contrary, a Christian from a Russian, and the thief is caught by the victim at the very time when he commits the theft, or if the thief prepares to steal and is killed, then it will not be recovered from either Christians or Russians; but let the victim take back what he lost. If the thief gives himself up voluntarily, then let him be taken by the one from whom he stole, and let him be bound, and give back what he stole in triple the amount.

About this: if one of the Christians or one of the Russians attempts (robbery) through beatings and clearly takes by force something belonging to another, then let him return it in triple amount.

If a boat is thrown by a strong wind onto a foreign land and one of us Russians is there and helps save the boat with its cargo and send it back to the Greek land, then we carry it through every dangerous place until it comes to a safe place; If this boat is delayed by a storm or has run aground and cannot return to its place, then we, Russians, will help the rowers of that boat and see them off with their goods in good health. If the same misfortune happens to a Russian boat near the Greek land, then we will take it to the Russian land and let them sell the goods of that boat, so if it is possible to sell anything from that boat, then let us, the Russians, take it (to the Greek shore). And when we (we, Russians) come to the Greek land for trade or as an embassy to your king, then (we, Greeks) will honor the sold goods of their boat. If any of us Russians who arrived with the boat happen to be killed or something is taken from the boat, then let the culprits be sentenced to the above punishment.

About these: if a captive of one side or another is forcibly held by Russians or Greeks, having been sold into their country, and if, in fact, he turns out to be Russian or Greek, then let them redeem and return the ransomed person to his country and take the price of those who bought him, or let it be The price offered for it was that of servants. Also, if he is captured by those Greeks in war, still let him return to his country and his usual price will be given for him, as already said above.

If there is a recruitment into the army and these (Russians) want to honor your king, no matter how many of them come at what time, and want to stay with your king of their own free will, then so be it.

More about the Russians, about the prisoners. Those who came from any country (captive Christians) to Rus' and were sold (by the Russians) back to Greece, or captive Christians brought to Rus' from any country - all of these must be sold for 20 zlatnikov and returned to Greek land.

About this: if a Russian servant is stolen, either runs away, or is forcibly sold and the Russians begin to complain, let them prove this about their servants and take him to Rus', but the merchants, if they lose the servant and appeal, let them demand it in court and, when they find , - they will take it. If someone does not allow an inquiry to be carried out, he will not be recognized as right.

And about the Russians serving in the Greek land with the Greek king. If someone dies without disposing of his property, and he does not have his own (in Greece), then let his property return to Rus' to his closest younger relatives. If he makes a will, then the one to whom he wrote to inherit his property will take what was bequeathed to him, and let him inherit it.

About Russian traders.

About various people going to the Greek land and remaining in debt. If the villain does not return to Rus', then let the Russians complain to the Greek kingdom, and he will be captured and returned by force to Rus'. Let the Russians do the same to the Greeks if the same thing happens.

As a sign of the strength and immutability that should be between you, Christians, and Russians, we created this peace treaty with Ivan’s writing on two charters - your Tsar’s and with our own hand - we sealed it with an oath of the honorable cross and the holy consubstantial Trinity of your one true God and given to our ambassadors. We swore to your king, appointed by God, as a divine creation, according to our faith and custom, not to violate for us and anyone from our country any of the established chapters of the peace treaty and friendship. And this writing was given to your kings for approval, so that this agreement would become the basis for the approval and certification of the peace that exists between us. The month of September 2, index 15, in the year from the creation of the world 6420.”

Tsar Leon honored the Russian ambassadors with gifts - gold, and silks, and precious fabrics - and assigned his husbands to show them the church beauty, the golden chambers and the wealth stored in them: a lot of gold, pavoloks, precious stones and the passion of the Lord - a crown, nails , scarlet and the relics of the saints, teaching them their faith and showing them the true faith. And so he released them to his land with great honor. The ambassadors sent by Oleg returned to him and told him all the speeches of both kings, how they concluded peace and established an agreement between the Greek and Russian lands and established not to break the oath - neither to the Greeks nor to Rus'.

And Oleg, the prince, lived in Kyiv, having peace with all countries. And autumn came, and Oleg remembered his horse, which he had previously set out to feed, having decided never to mount it. For he asked the magicians and wizards: “What will I die from?” And one magician said to him: “Prince! From your beloved horse, on which you ride, will you die from it?” These words sank into Oleg’s soul, and he said: “I will never sit on him and see him again.” And he ordered to feed him and not to take him to him, and he lived for several years without seeing him, until he went against the Greeks. And when he returned to Kyiv and four years had passed, in the fifth year he remembered his horse, from which the wise men predicted his death. And he called the elder of the grooms and said: “Where is my horse, which I ordered to feed and take care of?” He answered: “He died.” Oleg laughed and reproached that magician, saying: “The magicians say wrong, but it’s all a lie: the horse died, but I’m alive.” And he ordered him to saddle his horse: “Let me see his bones.” And he came to the place where his bare bones and bare skull lay, got off his horse, laughed and said: “Should I take this skull from this?” And he stepped on the skull with his foot, and a snake crawled out of the skull and bit him on the leg. And that’s why he got sick and died. All the people mourned him with great lamentation, and they carried him and buried him on a mountain called Shchekovitsa; His grave exists to this day and is known as Oleg’s grave. And all the years of his reign were thirty and three.

It is not surprising that magic comes true from sorcery. So it was during the reign of Domitian that a certain sorcerer named Apollonius of Tyana was known, who went around and performed demonic miracles everywhere - in cities and villages. Once, when he came from Rome to Byzantium, those living there begged him to do the following: he drove out many snakes and scorpions from the city so that they would not harm people and curbed the rage of horses in front of the boyars. So he came to Antioch, and, begged by those people - the Antiochians, who were suffering from scorpions and mosquitoes, he made a copper scorpion, and buried it in the ground, and placed a small marble pillar over it, and ordered the people to take sticks and walk around the city and call out, shaking those sticks: “Be a city without a mosquito!” And so the scorpions and mosquitoes disappeared from the city. And they asked him about the earthquake that threatened the city, and, sighing, he wrote the following on the tablet: “Alas for you, unfortunate city, you will be shaken a lot and you will be burned by fire, the one who will mourn you will mourn on the banks of the Orontes.” About (Apollonius) this and great Anastasius City of God said: “The miracles created by Apollonius are even still being performed in some places: some - to drive away four-legged animals and birds that could harm people, others - to hold back river streams that have broken out of their banks, but others to death and to the detriment of people, although to curb them. Not only did the demons perform such miracles during his lifetime, but also after his death, at his tomb, they performed miracles in his name in order to deceive pitiful people, who were often caught by the devil in them.” So, who will say anything about works created by magic temptation? After all, Apollonius was skilled in magical seduction and never took into account the fact that in madness he indulged in a wise trick; but he should have said: “With a word I only do what I wanted,” and not perform the actions expected of him. Everything happens by God's permission and by the creation of demons - by all such deeds our Orthodox faith is tested, that it is firm and strong, staying near the Lord and not being carried away by the devil, his ghostly miracles and satanic deeds perpetrated by the enemies of the human race and the servants of evil. It happens that some prophesy in the name of the Lord, like Balaam, and Saul, and Caiaphas, and even cast out demons, like Judas and the sons of Skevabel. Because grace repeatedly acts on the unworthy, as many testify: for Balaam was alien to everything - both righteous living and faith, but nevertheless grace appeared in him to convince others. And Pharaoh was the same, but the future was revealed to him too. And Nebuchadnezzar was a lawbreaker, but the future of many generations was also revealed to him, thereby testifying that many who have perverse concepts, even before the coming of Christ, perform signs not of their own free will to deceive people who do not know good. Such was Simon the Magus, and Menander, and others like him, because of whom it was truly said: “Do not deceive with miracles...”.

Per year 6421 (913). After Oleg, Igor began to reign. At the same time, Constantine, the son of Leon, began to reign. And the Drevlyans closed themselves off from Igor after Oleg’s death.

Per year 6422 (914). Igor went against the Drevlyans and, having defeated them, imposed on them a tribute greater than Oleg’s. That same year, Simeon of Bulgaria came to Constantinople and, having made peace, returned home.

Per year 6423 (915). The Pechenegs came to the Russian land for the first time and, having made peace with Igor, went to the Danube. At the same time, Simeon came, capturing Thrace; The Greeks sent for the Pechenegs. When the Pechenegs arrived and were about to march against Simeon, the Greek commanders quarreled. The Pechenegs, seeing that they were quarreling among themselves, went home, and the Bulgarians fought with the Greeks, and the Greeks were killed. Simeon captured the city of Hadrian, which was originally called the city of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon: for Orestes once bathed in three rivers and got rid of his illness here - that’s why he named the city after himself. Subsequently, Caesar Hadrian renovated it and named it Adrian after himself, but we call it Hadrian-city.

Per year 6424 (916).

Per year 6425 (917).

Per year 6426 (918).

Per year 6427 (919).

Per year 6428 (920). The Greeks installed Tsar Roman. Igor fought against the Pechenegs.

Per year 6429 (921).

Per year 6430 (922).

Per year 6431 (923).

Per year 6432 (924).

Per year 6433 (925).

Per year 6434 (926).

Per year 6435 (927).

Per year 6436 (928).

Per year 6437 (929). Simeon came to Constantinople, and captured Thrace and Macedonia, and approached Constantinople in great strength and pride, and created peace with Roman the Tsar, and returned home.

Per year 6438 (930).

Per year 6439 (931).

Per year 6440 (932).

Per year 6441 (933).

Per year 6442 (934). For the first time the Ugrians came to Constantinople and captured all of Thrace; Roman made peace with the Ugrians.

Per year 6444 (936).

Per year 6445 (937).

6446 (938) per year.

Per year 6447 (939).

Per year 6448 (940).

Per year 6449 (941). Igor went against the Greeks. And the Bulgarians sent news to the king that the Russians were coming to Constantinople: 10 thousand ships. And they came, and sailed, and began to fight the country of Bithynia, and captured the land along the Pontic Sea to Heraclius and to the Paphlagonian land, and they captured the entire country of Nicomedia, and burned the entire Court. And those who were captured - some were crucified, while others, standing in front of them, shot, grabbed, tied their hands back and drove iron nails into their heads. Many holy churches were set on fire, monasteries and villages were burned, and a lot of wealth was seized on both banks of the Court. When warriors came from the east - Panfir the Demestic with forty thousand, Phocas the Patrician with the Macedonians, Fedor the Stratelates with the Thracians, and high-ranking boyars with them, they surrounded Rus'. The Russians, after consulting, came out against the Greeks with weapons, and in a fierce battle they barely defeated the Greeks. The Russians returned to their squad in the evening and at night, getting into the boats, sailed away. Theophanes met them in boats with fire and began to shoot fire at the Russian boats with pipes. And a terrible miracle was seen. The Russians, seeing the flames, rushed into the sea water, trying to escape, and so those who remained returned home. And, having come to their land, they told - each to their own - about what had happened and about the fire of the rooks. “It’s as if the Greeks had lightning from heaven,” they said, “and, releasing it, they burned us; That’s why they didn’t overcome them.” Igor, having returned, began to gather many soldiers and sent them overseas to the Varangians, inviting them to attack the Greeks, again planning to go against them.

And the year is 6430 (942). Simeon went against the Croats, and the Croats defeated him, and died, leaving Peter, his son, as prince over the Bulgarians.

Per year 6451 (943). The Ugrians came to Constantinople again and, having made peace with Roman, returned home.

Per year 6452 (944). Igor gathered many warriors: Varangians, Rus, and Polyans, and Slovenians, and Krivichi, and Tivertsi - and hired the Pechenegs, and took hostages from them - and went against the Greeks in boats and on horses, seeking to avenge himself. Hearing about this, the Korsun people sent to Roman with the words: “Here come the Russians, without the number of their ships, they covered the sea with ships.” The Bulgarians also sent word, saying: “The Russians are coming and have hired the Pechenegs.” Hearing about this, the king sent to Igor the best boyars with a prayer, saying: “Do not go, but take the tribute that Oleg took, and I will add more to that tribute.” He also sent pavoloks and a lot of gold to the Pechenegs. Igor, having reached the Danube, called his squad together, began to hold council with them, and told them the Tsarev’s speech. Igor’s squad said: “If the king says so, then what else do we need - without fighting, take gold, and silver, and pavoloks? Does anyone know who to overcome: whether we or they? Or who is in alliance with the sea? We are not walking on land, but in the depths of the sea: death is common to all.” Igor listened to them and ordered the Pechenegs to fight the Bulgarian land, and he himself, taking gold and pavoloks for all the soldiers from the Greeks, returned back and came home to Kyiv.

Per year 6453 (945). Roman, Konstantin, and Stefan sent ambassadors to Igor to restore the former peace, and Igor spoke to them about peace. And Igor sent his husbands to Roman. Roman convened the boyars and dignitaries. And they brought the Russian ambassadors and ordered them to speak and write down the speeches of both on the charter.

“A list from the agreement concluded under the kings Roman, Constantine and Stephen, Christ-loving rulers. We are ambassadors and merchants from the Russian family, Ivor, ambassador of Igor, the Grand Duke of Russia, and general ambassadors: Vuefast from Svyatoslav, son of Igor; Iskusevi from Princess Olga; Sludy from Igor, nephew Igor; Uleb from Volodislav; Kanitsar from Predslava; Shikhbern Sfandr from Uleb's wife; Prasten Tudorov; Libiar Fastov; Make-up Sfirkov; Prasten Akun, Igor's nephew; Kara Tudkov; Karshev Tudorov; Egri Evliskov; Voist Voykov; Istr Aminodov; Prasten Bernov; Yavtyag Gunarev; Shibrid Aldan; Col Klekov; Steggy Etonov; Sfirka...; Alvad Gudov; Fudri Tuadov; Mutur Utin; merchants Adun, Adulb, Iggivlad, Uleb, Frutan, Gomol, Kutsi, Emig, Turobid, Furosten, Bruni, Roald, Gunastre, Frasten, Igeld, Turburn, Monet, Ruald, Sven, Steer, Aldan, Tilen, Apubexar, Vuzlev, Sinko , Borich, sent from Igor, the Grand Duke of Russia, and from every prince, and from all the people of the Russian land. And they are tasked with renewing old world, violated for many years by those who hate goodness and are hostile, and establish love between Greeks and Russians.

Our Grand Duke Igor, and his boyars, and all the Russian people sent us to Roman, Constantine and Stefan, to the great Greek kings, to conclude an alliance of love with the kings themselves, with all the boyars and with all the Greek people for all the years while the sun shines and the whole world is worth it. And whoever on the Russian side plans to destroy this love, then let those of them who have been baptized receive retribution from God Almighty, condemnation to destruction in afterlife, and those of them who are not baptized, may not have help either from God or from Perun, may they not be protected by their own shields, and may they perish from their swords, from arrows and from their other weapons, and may they be slaves in your entire afterlife.

And let the Russian Grand Duke and his boyars send as many ships as they want to the Greek land to the great Greek kings, with ambassadors and merchants, as is established for them. Previously, ambassadors brought gold seals, and merchants brought silver ones; Now your prince has commanded to send letters to us, the kings; those ambassadors and guests who will be sent by them, let them bring a letter, writing it like this: he sent so many ships, so that from these letters we will know that they came in peace. If they come without a letter and find themselves in our hands, then we will keep them under supervision until we inform your prince. If they do not give in to us and resist, then we will kill them, and let them not be exacted from your prince. If, having escaped, they return to Rus', then we will write to your prince, and let them do what they want. If the Russians do not come for trade, then let them not take the month. Let the prince punish his ambassadors and the Russians who come here so that they do not commit atrocities in the villages and in our country. And when they come, let them live near the church of St. Mammoth, and then we, the kings, will send your names to be written down, and let the ambassadors take a month, and the merchants a month, first those from the city of Kyiv, then from Chernigov, and from Pereyaslavl, and from other cities. Let them enter the city through the gate alone, accompanied by the Tsar’s husband without weapons, about 50 people each, and trade as much as they need, and go back out; Let our royal husband protect them, so that if one of the Russians or Greeks does wrong, then let him judge the matter. When the Russians enter the city, then let them do no harm and do not have the right to buy pavoloks for more than 50 spools; and if anyone buys those trails, then let him show it to the king’s husband, and he will put a seal on it and give it to them. And let those Russians who depart from here take from us everything they need: food for the journey and what the boats need, as was established earlier, and let them return safely to their country, and let them not have the right to spend the winter with Saint Mammoth.

If a servant runs away from the Russians, then let them come for him to the country of our kingdom, and if he ends up with Saint Mammoth, then let them take him; if it is not found, then let our Russian Christians swear according to their faith, and non-Christians according to their law, and then let them take their price from us, as was established before - 2 pavoloks per servant.

If one of our royal servants, or our city, or other cities, runs away to you and takes something with him, then let him be returned again; and if what he brought is all intact, then they will take two gold coins from him for the capture.

If anyone from among the Russians attempts to take anything from our royal people, then let the one who does this be severely punished; if he already takes it, let him pay double; and if a Greek does the same to a Russian, let him receive the same punishment that he received.

If you happen to steal something to a Russian from the Greeks or a Greek from the Russians, then you should return not only what was stolen, but also the price of what was stolen; if it turns out that the stolen property has already been sold, let him return its price twice as much and be punished according to the Greek law and according to the charter and according to the Russian law.

No matter how many captive Christians of our subjects the Russians bring, then for a good young man or girl, let ours give 10 zolotniks and take them, but if they are middle-aged, then let them give them 8 zolotniks and take it; if there is an old man or a child, then let them give 5 spools for him.

If the Russians find themselves enslaved by the Greeks, then, if they are prisoners, let the Russians ransom them for 10 spools; if it turns out that they were bought by a Greek, then he should swear on the cross and take his price - how much he gave for the captive.

And about the Korsun country. Let the Russian prince have no right to fight in those countries, in all the cities of that land, and let that country not submit to you, but when the Russian prince asks us for soldiers to fight, I will give him as many as he needs.

And about this: if the Russians find a Greek ship washed up somewhere on the shore, let them not cause damage to it. If anyone takes anything from him, or turns anyone from him into slavery, or kills him, he will be subject to trial according to Russian and Greek law.

If the Russians find the Korsun residents fishing at the mouth of the Dnieper, let them not cause them any harm.

And let Russians not have the right to winter at the mouth of the Dnieper, in Beloberezhye and near St. Elfer; but with the onset of autumn, let them go home to Rus'.

And about these: if the black Bulgarians come and begin to fight in the Korsun country, then we order the Russian prince not to let them in, otherwise they will cause damage to his country.

If an atrocity is committed by one of the Greeks - our royal subjects - you have no right to punish them, but according to our royal command, let him receive punishment to the extent of his offense.

If our subject kills a Russian, or a Russian kills our subject, then let the relatives of the murdered man apprehend the murderer, and let him be killed.

If the murderer runs away and hides, and he has property, then let the relatives of the murdered man take his property; If the murderer turns out to be poor and also hides, then let them search for him until he is found, and when he is found, let him be killed.

If a Russian hits a Greek or a Russian Greek with a sword, or a spear, or any other weapon, then for that lawlessness let the guilty person pay 5 liters of silver according to Russian law; if he turns out to be poor, then let them sell him everything that is possible, so that even the clothes in which he walks, let them be taken off him, and about what is missing, let him take an oath according to his faith that he has nothing, and only then let him be released.

If we, the kings, wish for you to have warriors against our opponents, let us write about it to your Grand Duke, and he will send us as many of them as we wish: and from here they will know in other countries what kind of love the Greeks and Russians have among themselves.

We wrote this agreement on two charters, and one charter is kept by us, the kings, - on it there is a cross and our names are written, and on the other - the names of your ambassadors and merchants. And when our royal ambassadors leave, let them take them to the Russian Grand Duke Igor and his people; and those, having accepted the charter, will swear to truly observe what we have agreed upon and what we have written on this charter, on which our names are written.

We, those of us who were baptized, swore in the cathedral church by the Church of St. Elijah in the presentation honorable cross and this charter to observe everything that is written in it, and not to violate anything from it; and if anyone from our country violates this - be it a prince or someone else, baptized or unbaptized - may he not receive help from God, may he be a slave in his afterlife and may he be slain with his own weapon.

And the unbaptized Russians lay down their shields and naked swords, hoops and other weapons to swear that everything written in this charter will be observed by Igor, and all the boyars, and all the people of the Russian country in all future years and always.

If any of the princes or Russian people, Christians or non-Christians, violates what is written in this charter, let him be worthy of dying from his weapon and let him be cursed from God and from Perun for breaking his oath.

And if for the good of Igor, the Grand Duke, he preserves this faithful love, may it not be broken as long as the sun shines and the whole world stands, in present times and in all future times.”

The ambassadors sent by Igor returned to him with the Greek ambassadors and told him all the speeches of Tsar Roman. Igor called the Greek ambassadors and asked them: “Tell me, what did the king punish you?” And the king’s ambassadors said: “The king, delighted with the peace, sent us; he wants to have peace and love with the Russian prince. Your ambassadors swore in our kings, and we were sent to swear in you and your husbands.” Igor promised to do so. The next day Igor called the ambassadors and came to the hill where Perun stood; and they laid down their weapons, and shields, and gold, and Igor and his people swore allegiance - how many pagans there were among the Russians. And Russian Christians were sworn in in the Church of St. Elijah, which stands above the Brook at the end of the Pasyncha conversation and the Khazars - it was a cathedral church, since there were many Christians - Varangians. Igor, having established peace with the Greeks, released the ambassadors, presenting them with furs, slaves and wax, and sent them away; The ambassadors came to the king and told him all the speeches of Igor, and about his love for the Greeks.

Igor began to reign in Kyiv, having peace with all countries. And autumn came, and he began to plot to go against the Drevlyans, wanting to take even greater tribute from them.

Per year 6453 (945). That year the squad said to Igor: “The youths of Sveneld are dressed in weapons and clothes, and we are naked. Come with us, prince, for tribute, and you will get it for yourself and for us.” And Igor listened to them - he went to the Drevlyans for tribute and added a new one to the previous tribute, and his men committed violence against them. Taking the tribute, he went to his city. When he was walking back, after thinking about it, he said to his squad: “Go home with the tribute, and I’ll come back and go again.” And he sent his squad home, and he himself returned with a small part of the squad, wanting more wealth. The Drevlyans, having heard that he was coming again, held a council with their prince Mal: “If a wolf gets into the habit of the sheep, he will carry out the entire flock until they kill him; so is this one: if we don’t kill him, he will destroy us all.” And they sent to him, saying: “Why are you going again? I’ve already taken all the tribute.” And Igor did not listen to them; and the Drevlyans, leaving the city of Iskorosten, killed Igor and his warriors, since there were few of them. And Igor was buried, and his grave remains near Iskorosten in Derevskaya land to this day.

Olga was in Kyiv with her son, the child Svyatoslav, and his breadwinner was Asmud, and the governor Sveneld was Mstishya’s father. The Drevlyans said: “We killed the Russian prince; Let’s take his wife Olga for our prince Mal and take Svyatoslav and do to him what we want.” And the Drevlyans sent best husbands of their own, twenty in number, in the boat to Olga, and landed in the boat near Borichev. After all, the water then flowed near the Kyiv Mountain, and people sat not on Podol, but on the mountain. The city of Kyiv was where now is the courtyard of Gordyata and Nikifor, and the princely court was in the city, where is now the courtyard of Vorotislav and Chudin, and the place for catching birds was outside the city; There was also another courtyard outside the city, where the courtyard of the domestic is now located, behind the Church of the Holy Mother of God; above the mountain there was a tower courtyard - there was a stone tower there. And they told Olga that the Drevlyans had come, and Olga called them to her, and told them: “Good guests have come.” And the Drevlyans answered: “They have come, princess.” And Olga said to them: “So tell me, why did you come here?” The Drevlyans answered: “The Derevskaya land sent us with these words: “We killed your husband, because your husband, like a wolf, plundered and robbed, and our princes are good because they protect the Derevskaya land - marry our prince Mala.” "". After all, his name was Mal, the prince of the Drevlyans. Olga told them: “Your speech is dear to me, I can no longer resurrect my husband; but I want to honor you tomorrow before my people; Now go to your boat and lie down in the boat, magnifying yourself, and in the morning I will send for you, and you say: “We will not ride on horses, nor will we go on foot, but carry us in the boat,” and they will carry you up in the boat.” and released them to the boat. Olga ordered to dig a large and deep hole in the tower courtyard, outside the city. The next morning, sitting in the tower, Olga sent for the guests, and they came to them and said: “Olga is calling you for great honor.” They answered: “We do not ride on horses or on carts, and we do not go on foot, but carry us in the boat.” And the people of Kiev answered: “We are in bondage; our prince was killed, and our princess wants for your prince,” and they were carried in the boat. They sat, majestic, with their arms on their feet and wearing great breastplates. And they brought them to Olga’s courtyard, and as they carried them, they threw them along with the boat into a pit. And, bending towards the pit, Olga asked them: “Is honor good for you?” They answered: “Igor’s death is worse for us.” And she ordered them to be buried alive; and covered them.

And Olga sent to the Drevlyans and told them: “If you really ask me, then send the best men to marry your prince with great honor, otherwise the Kyiv people will not let me in.” Hearing about this, the Drevlyans chose the best men who ruled the Derevskaya land and sent for her. When the Drevlyans arrived, Olga ordered a bathhouse to be prepared, telling them: “After you have washed, come to me.” And they heated the bathhouse, and the Drevlyans entered it and began to wash themselves; and they locked the bathhouse behind them, and Olga ordered it to be set on fire from the door, and then they all burned.

And she sent to the Drevlyans with the words: “Now I’m coming to you, prepare a lot of honey in the city where they killed my husband, so that I will cry at his grave and perform a funeral feast for my husband.” Having heard about this, they brought a lot of honey and brewed it. Olga, taking with her a small squad, went light, came to the grave of her husband and mourned him. And she commanded her people to fill up a high burial mound, and when they had filled it up, she ordered a funeral feast to be performed. After that, the Drevlyans sat down to drink, and Olga ordered her youths to serve them. And the Drevlyans said to Olga: “Where is our squad that they sent for you?” She answered: “They are coming after me with my husband’s retinue.” And when the Drevlyans became drunk, she ordered her youths to drink in their honor, and she went far away and ordered the squad to cut down the Drevlyans, and 5000 of them were cut down. And Olga returned to Kyiv and gathered an army against those who remained.

"The Tale of Bygone Years" as a historical source

Abakan, 2012

1. Characteristics of time in “The Tale of Bygone Years”

Researchers conducting source analysis and synthesis perfectly understand the complexity of the intellectual space in which cognition is carried out. It is important for him to determine the measure of real knowledge available to him. “The Tale of Bygone Years” is an outstanding historical and literary monument that reflected the formation of the ancient Russian state, its political and cultural flourishing, as well as the beginning of the process of feudal fragmentation. Created in the first decades of the 12th century, it has come to us as part of chronicles of a later time. In this regard, the importance of its presence in the history of writing chronicles is quite great.

The objectives of the study are to consider the characteristics of time as such, as well as the perception of the concept of time in the chronicle.

“The Tale of Bygone Years” is an ancient Russian chronicle created in the 1110s. Chronicles are historical works in which events are presented according to the so-called yearly principle, combined into annual, or “yearly” articles (they are also called weather records).

“Yearly articles,” which combined information about events that occurred during one year, begin with the words “In the summer of such and such...” (“summer” in Old Russian means “year”). In this regard, the chronicles, including the Tale of Bygone Years, are fundamentally different from the Byzantine chronicles known in Ancient Rus', from which Russian compilers borrowed numerous information from world history. In the translated Byzantine chronicles, events were distributed not by years, but by the reigns of the emperors.

The Tale of Bygone Years is the first chronicle whose text has reached us almost in its original form. Thanks to a thorough textual analysis of the Tale of Bygone Years, researchers have discovered traces of earlier works included in its composition. Probably the oldest chronicles were created in the 11th century. The hypothesis of A.A. received the greatest recognition. Shakhmatova (1864-1920), explaining the emergence and describing the history of Russian chronicles of the 11th and early 12th centuries. He resorted to the comparative method, comparing the surviving chronicles and finding out their relationships. According to A.A. Shakhmatov, around 1037, but not later than 1044, compiled the Kiev Chronicle, which told about the beginning of history and the baptism of Rus'. Around 1073, in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, the first Kiev-Pechersk chronicle was probably completed by the monk Nikon. It combined new news and legends with the text of the Most Ancient Code and with borrowings from the Novgorod Chronicle of the mid-11th century. In 1093-1095, it condemned the unreasonableness and weakness of the current princes, who were contrasted with the former wise and powerful rulers of Rus'.

The Tale of Bygone Years is alien to the unity of style; it is an “open” genre. The simplest element in a chronicle text is a brief weather record, which only reports an event, but does not describe it.

Calendar units of time in the Tale

The study of time calculation systems of the initial Russian chronicles is one of the most pressing tasks of Russian historical chronology. However, the results obtained in this direction over the past decades clearly do not correspond to the significance of the issues being addressed.

The point, apparently, is not only (and not even so much) in the “ungratefulness” of such work and its predominantly “rough” nature. A much more serious obstacle, in our opinion, is a number of fundamental differences in the perception of time and the units of its measurement by modern scientists and ancient Russian chroniclers.

The same applies to chronological material. Any chronicle record (including the date - annual, calendar, georthological) is of interest, first of all, as a “reliable” story about what, when and how it happened.

Preliminary textual and source studies must at the same time insure the scientist against the use of poor-quality information about the event of interest, which got into the text under study from unreliable or unverified sources. Solving the questions of “when, how and why this record was formed”, “determining the original type of record and studying its subsequent changes in the chronicle tradition” seemed to reliably clear the source text of later layers, both factual and ideological. In this way, “protocol” accurate information ended up in the hands of the historian (ideally). From this body of information, the historian with a pure heart“arbitrarily selects the records he needs, as if from a fund specially prepared for him,” which, in fact, was what all the procedures for preliminary criticism of the text were directed against.

Meanwhile, as has been repeatedly noted, the idea of authenticity for the people of Ancient Rus' was primarily associated with collective experience and social traditions. It was they who became the main filter in the chronicle for the selection of material, its evaluation and the form in which it was recorded by the chronicler.

The direct temporary instructions that accompanied the presentation were no exception in this regard. Researchers have already paid attention to the fact that direct dates in the chronicle could, like any other fragment of text, have a symbolic meaning in addition to the literal one. Such comments, however, concerned mainly the calendar part of the dates and were sporadic.

The appearance of direct dating indications in the chronicle text dates back to the mid-60s - early 70s. This is associated with the name of Nikon the Great. Until this time, according to experts studying ancient Russian chronicles, direct annual indications were a rare exception. More precisely, only 2-3 dates are usually mentioned, which were included in the Tale from earlier written sources. An example is the date of death of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich - July 15, 1015. The remaining dates - not only daily, but also annual - until the mid-60s of the 11th century, as most researchers believe, were calculated by Nikon.

However, the basis for such calculations is difficult to reconstruct.

Another striking example of direct dating indications is the chronological calculation placed in the Tale under the year 6360/852, immediately after the dated message about the beginning of the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III:

“In the same way, let us count the numbers, as from Adam to the Flood there are 2242 years; and from the flood to Avram 1000 and 82 years, and from Abram to the march of Moses 430 years; and from the descent of Moses to David, 600 years and 1; and from David and from the beginning of the kingdom of Solomon to the captivity of Jerusalem, 448 years; and from captivity to Alexander 318 years; and from Oleksandr to the Nativity of Christ 333 years: But we will return to the former and say that this is the time of this year, as before they began the first summer with Michael, and we will put the numbers in a row.”

The fact that almost any calendar date was considered in the context of its real or symbolic content can be judged even by the frequency of certain calendar references. Thus, in the Tale of Bygone Years, Monday and Tuesday are mentioned only once, Wednesday - twice, Thursday - three times, Friday - 5 times, Saturday - 9, and Sunday (“week”) - as many as 17!

Methods for working with temporary information

When compiling the chronicle, the chronological method was used. However, contrary to the theory of probability, events are unevenly distributed both in relation to months and in relation to individual numbers. For example, in the Pskov 1st Chronicle there is calendar dates(05.01; 02.02; 20.07; 01.08; 18.08; 01.09; 01.10; 26.10), which account for 6 to 8 events throughout the chronicle text. At the same time, a number of dates are not mentioned at all by the compiler of the code (03.01; 08.01; 19.01; 25.01; 01.02; 08.02; 14.02, etc.).

All such cases can have fairly substantiated explanations from the point of view of their eventful content, or the value relationship to the calendar part of the date. As for chronographic (annual) instructions, from the standpoint of common sense, they generally cannot have any other meaning other than the “external” designation of the year number of the event.

An example is the analysis of a text fragment conducted by A.A. Shakhmatov. the composition of the ancient Russian chronicles being studied. He used comparative textual analysis.

The main attention was focused on identifying the source that the chronicler used when calculating the years “from Adam.” It turned out to be a text close to the Slavic translation of “The Chronicler Soon” by Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, known in Rus' since the beginning of the 12th century. A comparative textual analysis of the surviving copies of “The Chronicler Soon” did not, however, make it possible to identify the original, which the chronicler directly used. At the same time, researchers have repeatedly emphasized that when compiling the chronological list in the Tale of Bygone Years, a number of errors were made when calculating periods.

They amounted to distortion of the digital part of the original text as a result of repeated “mechanical rewriting” or incorrect reading of the original.

Their appearance and accumulation inevitably led to a distortion of the total number of years. In the lists that have survived to our time, from the Creation of the World to the Nativity of Christ, it amounts to 5434 or, “after eliminating errors,” 5453.

Grouping of terms in the text of the chronicle

Grouping the dates given in this chronological list into the indicated periods gives a sequence of five time periods of approximately 1000 years each (the first period is double). This result seems quite satisfactory, since thousand-year periods in the Christian tradition were often equated to one divine day (cf.: “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years” - Psalm 89.5; 2 Pet. 3.8-9, etc.) or to one “century” (Kirik Novgorodets). The existing deviations from the thousand-year period are not yet entirely clear, but, apparently, they are also not without meaning. In any case, there is every reason to believe that the calculation of years under the year 6360, as it appears in the Tale of Bygone Years, leads the reader to an event that should complete the story, as well as earthly history in general - the second coming of the Savior.

However, the fact that the proposed interpretation of the first part of the chronological calculation of the year 6360 has the right to exist is indicated, in our opinion, by the accompanying phrase: “Then from now on, let’s put the numbers, and let’s put the numbers in a series.” Traditionally, it is perceived as the chronicler’s “promise” to conduct further narrative in strict chronological order.

For a medieval reader, it could also carry additional semantic load. The fact is that the word “number”, in addition to the usual meanings for modern people, in the ancient Russian language was also understood as “measure, limit”. The word “row” is defined as a row, an order (“in a row” - one after another, sequentially, continuously), improvement, as well as an order, a will, a court, an agreement (in particular, “put a row” - to conclude an agreement) .

The “new” title of the Tale, however, is not so clear. The phrase “time years” is usually translated as “about past years”, “ past years", "passing years". On this occasion D.S. Likhachev wrote: “The definition of “temporary” refers not to the word “story”, but to the word “years.”

Summarizing the analysis of time in the Tale of Bygone Years, it should be concluded that the very name of the chronicle, apparently, was in direct connection with the chronological calculation inserted in the second decade of the 12th century. in article 6360. This suggests that when analyzing direct time data, both in the calendar and chronographic parts, it is necessary to take into account their semantic content, which sometimes significantly exceeds, and even contradicts, the literal meaning.

2.Historical sources in The Tale of Bygone Years

The historical significance of the chronicle sources is important. This is a historical aspect that allows us to saturate Russian historical and educational literature. It is not for nothing that all textbooks on Russian history are equipped with quotes from this ancient chronicle monument. From time to time, fragments are published that most clearly characterize the ancient Russian state and society of the 9th-10th centuries. A historical source is a realized product of the human psyche, suitable for studying facts with historical significance. Distinguish between sources and studies. The historian uses not only sources, but also research. In this regard, it is important that research is a subjective concept of the main historical event. The author of the source directly describes the events, and the author of the study relies on existing sources.

The main tasks in considering historical sources are to analyze the methods of use by the author of the chronicle: phraseological, allegorical, symbolic, as the foundations of a moral worldview.

When writing the chronicle, documents from the princely archive were used, which made it possible to preserve the texts of the Russian-Byzantine treaties of 911, 944 and 971 to this day. Some of the information was taken from Byzantine sources.

Techniques for using sources

The chronicle also presents a type of detailed record, recording not only the “actions” of the prince, but also their results. For example: “In the summer of 6391, Oleg fought against the Derevlyans, and, having tortured them, imposed a tribute on them according to the black kun,” etc. Both a brief weather record and a more detailed one are documentary. They do not contain any tropes that embellish the speech. It is simple , is clear and concise, which gives it special significance, expressiveness and even majesty. The chronicler’s focus is on the event - “what happened in this summer.”

Reports about the military campaigns of the princes occupy more than half of the chronicle. They are followed by news of the death of the princes. Less often, the birth of children and their marriage are recorded. Then, information about the construction activities of the princes. Finally, reports on church affairs, which occupy a very modest place.

The chronicler uses the medieval system of chronology from the “creation of the world.” To convert this system to the modern one, it is necessary to subtract 5508 from the date of the chronicle.

The connection between the chronicle and folklore and epic description

The chronicler draws material about the events of the distant past from the treasury of folk memory. The appeal to the toponymic legend was dictated by the chronicler’s desire to find out the origin of the names of Slavic tribes, individual cities and the word “Rus” itself.

For example, the origin of the Slavic tribes Radimichi and Vyatichi is associated with the legendary people from the Poles - the brothers Radim and Vyatko. This legend arose among the Slavs, obviously, during the period of decomposition of the clan system, when an isolated clan elder, in order to justify his right to political dominance over the rest of the clan, creates a legend about his supposedly foreign origin. Close to this chronicle legend is the legend about the calling of princes, placed in the chronicle under 6370 (862). At the invitation of the Novgorodians, three Varangian brothers come from across the sea to reign and “rule” the Russian land with their families: Rurik, Sineus, Truvor.

The folklore nature of the legend confirms the presence of the epic number three - three brothers. The legend is of purely Novgorod, local origin, reflecting the practice of relations between the feudal city republic and the princes. In the life of Novgorod, there were frequent cases of the “calling” of a prince, who performed the functions of a military leader. Introduced into the Russian chronicle, this local legend acquired a certain political meaning. The legend about the calling of the princes emphasized the absolute political independence of the princely power from the Byzantine Empire.

The chronicles about the Slavic tribes, their customs, wedding and funeral ceremonies are filled with echoes of ritual poetry from the times of the tribal system. The first Russian princes were described in the chronicles using the techniques of oral folk epic: Oleg, Igor, Olga, Svyatoslav. Oleg is, first of all, a courageous and wise warrior. Thanks to his military ingenuity, he defeats the Greeks by putting his ships on wheels and sailing them across the land. He deftly unravels all the intricacies of his Greek enemies and concludes a peace treaty with Byzantium that is beneficial for Rus'. As a sign of the victory, Oleg nails his shield on the gates of Constantinople, to the greater shame of his enemies and the glory of his homeland. The successful prince-warrior is popularly nicknamed the “prophetic”, i.e., a wizard.

The chronicle news about Vladimir’s marriage to the Polotsk princess Rogneda, about his abundant and generous feasts held in Kyiv - the Korsun legend - goes back to folk tales. On the one hand, before us appears a pagan prince with his unbridled passions, on the other, an ideal Christian ruler, endowed with all the virtues: meekness, humility, love for the poor, for the monastic and monastic order, etc. The contrasting comparison of the prince between a pagan and a Christian prince, the chronicler sought to prove the superiority of the new Christian morality over pagan morality.

Compilers of chronicles of the 16th century. drew attention to the inconsistency of the first part of the story, about the Apostle Andrei’s visit to Kyiv, with the second, they replaced the everyday story with a pious legend, according to which Andrei leaves his cross in the Novgorod land. Thus, most of the chronicles dedicated to the events of the 9th - late 10th centuries are associated with oral folk art and its epic genres.

Through artistic descriptions and plot organization, the chronicler introduces the genre of narrative storytelling rather than simply recording information.

These examples show how the entertainment of the epic plot is built on the fact that the reader, together with the positive hero, deceives (often cruelly and insidiously in the medieval style) the enemy, who is unaware of his disastrous fate until the last moment.

Stories of folklore and epic origin also include the legend about the death of Oleg, which served as the basis for the plot of Pushkin’s “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”, the story about the young Kozhemyak who defeated the Pecheneg hero, and some others.

Apocryphal texts in the Tale

Apocrypha is characterized by an abundance of miracles and fantasy. Apocrypha for people who think. Primitivization is characteristic. Apocrypha - books of prohibited indexes, although they are written on biblical and evangelical subjects. They were brighter, more specific, more interesting, and attracted attention. Apocrypha - legendary religious works. The Apocrypha was classified as non-canonical, as heretical literature. Heresy - oppositional godparent movements.

Great value There are also articles by A.A. Shakhmatov devoted to the analysis of the Explanatory Paleia and the Tale of Bygone Years, where he touched on some apocryphal inserts. A very interesting and important attempt is the scientist’s attempt to trace the routes by which apocryphal literature came to Rus'.

Here there is clearly an attempt to accurately establish the apocryphal source of the chronicle's story about the division of lands by the sons of Noah by lot by direct comparison of the text. Accordingly, there is also the presence of an apocryphal text in the chronicle.

Old Testament influence on the Tale. So, for example, Svyatopolk, who killed his brothers according to the chronicle, is called “cursed” and “cursed” in it. Let us pay attention to the root of the word “cursed”; this root is “cain”. It is clear that this refers to the biblical Cain, who killed his brother and was cursed by God. Like Cain, doomed to wander and die in the desert, the chronicle Svyatopolk also died. There are many examples like this. Even in terms of stylistic features of the presentation of the text, the Bible and the Tale are similar in some points: more than once the Tale repeats a textual turn characteristic of the book of Joshua, referring to the fact that evidence of an event can be seen “to this day.”

However, not all plots of the story fit into the biblical texts. There are stories that are written on biblical themes, but do not agree with canonical Old Testament. One example of this is the chronicle story about Noah, who divided the earth after the flood between his sons: “After the flood, the first sons of Noah divided the earth: Shem, Ham, Apheth. And I am in Simovi... Khamovi is in the midday country... Afetu is in the midnight country and the West..."... “Now Ham and Afet, having divided the earth, cast lots - do not transgress anyone in the lot, brother. And each one is alive in his own part.”

It should be noted that the chronicles are works of complex composition. Includes monuments of different origin, content, and genres: original documents (for example, treaties between Rus' and the Greeks in 911, 944, 971), diplomatic and legislative acts from princely and monastic archives, information from the military (for example, “The Tale about the invasion of Batu"), political and church history, materials of a geographical and ethnographic nature, descriptions of natural disasters, folk legends, theological works (for example, the legend of the spread of faith in Rus'), sermons, teachings (for example, the Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh), words of praise (for example, Theodosius of Pechersk), hagiographic fragments (for example, from the life of Boris and Gleb), quotes and references to biblical stories and Byzantine chronicles, etc.

It is now clear that the chronicle collections were compiled at different times, in different regions, by different people (authors, compilers) and were subjected, especially the most ancient ones, to repeated editorial revisions. Based on this, the chronicle cannot be considered as the work of a single author-compiler. At the same time, it is a single integral literary work. It is distinguished by the unity of concept, composition and ideological aspirations of the editors. The language of the chronicle is characterized by both diversity and diversity, as well as a certain unity due to the work of the editors. Its language is not a homogeneous system. In it, in addition to the two stylistic types of the ancient Russian literary language - bookish (Church Slavic) and folk colloquial - dialect differences were reflected.

Separate linguistic features, eg. in phonetics and vocabulary, indicate their source of different regional localization; grammatical and syntactic phenomena are more difficult to localize.

Hypothesis about the most ancient constructions

The study of the Initial Code showed that it was based on some work (or works) of a chronicle nature. This was evidenced by some logical inconsistencies in the text reflected in the Novgorod First Chronicle. So, according to the observations of A.A. Shakhmatov, in the early chronicles there should not have been a story about Olga’s first three revenges, and a legend about a brave young man (a boy with a bridle) who saved Kyiv from the Pecheneg siege, and about embassies sent to test faith, and many other stories.

In addition, A.A. Shakhmatov drew attention to the fact that the story about the death of Vladimir Svyatoslavich’s elder brother, Oleg (under 6485/977) ended in the Initial Code with the words: “And... burying him [Oleg] on the m ?st ?at the city, calling Vruchyago; There is his grave to this day near Vruchyago Grad.” However, under 6552/1044 we read: “Pogr ?bena fast 2 princes, son of Svyatoslavl: Yaropl, Olg; and baptized the bones with it,” to which the Laurentian Chronicle added: “and I laid the Holy Mother of God in the church.”

Therefore, according to A.A. Shakhmatova, the chronicler who described the tragic outcome of the Svyatoslavich strife, did not yet know about the transfer of Oleg’s remains to the Tithe Church from Vruchy. From this it was concluded that the Primary Code was based on some kind of chronicle compiled between 977 and 1044. The most likely in this interval is A.A. Shakhmatov considered 1037 (6545), under which the Tale contains extensive praise for Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, or 1939 (6547), which dates the article on the consecration of Sophia of Kyiv and “the establishment of the metropolis by Yaroslav.”

The researcher proposed to call the hypothetical chronicle work created this year the Most Ancient Code. The narrative in it was not yet divided into years and was of a monothematic (plot) nature. Yearly dates (as they sometimes say, a chronological network) were introduced into it by the Kiev-Pechersk monk Nikon the Great in the 70s. XI century

Shakhmatov’s constructions were supported by almost all researchers, but the idea of the existence of the Most Ancient Code aroused objections. It is believed that this hypothesis does not have sufficient grounds. At the same time, most scientists agree that the Primary Code was indeed based on some kind of chronicle or monothematic narrative. Its characteristics and dating, however, differ significantly.

So, M.N. Tikhomirov drew attention to the fact that the Tale better reflects the reign of Svyatoslav Igorevich than Vladimir Svyatoslavich and Yaroslav Vladimirovich. Based on a comparative study of the Tale and the Novgorod Chronicle, he came to the conclusion that the Tale was based on the monothematic “Tale of the Beginning of the Russian Land,” based on oral traditions about the founding of Kyiv and the first Kyiv princes. Assumption M.N. Tikhomirov essentially coincided with the opinion of N.K. Nikolsky and found support from L.V. Cherepnina. They also connected the origin of Russian chronicles with “some ancient story about the glades-Rus” - “a now lost historical work, which, having no significance as an all-Russian chronicle and containing news about the fate and ancient connections of the Russian tribes (Rus) with the Slavic world, was free from Byzantinism and Normanism" .The creation of such a work coincided with the reign of Svyatopolk Yaropolkovich (Vladimirovich) in Kyiv and dated back to 1015-1019. No textual verification of this hypothesis has been carried out.

An attempt to test this hypothesis was made by D.A. Balovnev. His textual, stylistic and ideological analysis of the chronicle fragments, which, according to D.S. Likhachev, once constituted a single work, showed that the hypothesis about the existence of the “Tale of the Initial Spread of Christianity” is not confirmed. In all texts related to D.S. Likhachev to the “Tale”, “there is clearly no unified narrative, no belonging to the same hand and no common terminology.” On the contrary, D.A. Balovnev managed to prove textually that the basis of the stories that were supposedly included in the “Tale” were precisely those fragments that at one time A.A. Shakhmatov attributed it to the folk (fairytale) layer of chronicle narration. Texts belonging to the spiritual (clerical, church) layer turn out to be inserts that complicate the original text. Moreover, these insertions were based on other literary sources than the original story, which, on the one hand, led to their terminological differences, and on the other, lexical and phraseological similarities with other chronicle stories (which, according to D.S. Likhachev, were not included, into the “Tale”), based on the same sources.

Despite the differences with the views of A.A. Shakhmatova about the nature and exact time of writing the most ancient literary work, which later formed the basis of the actual chronicle presentation, researchers agree that a certain work (or works) did exist. They do not fundamentally disagree in determining the date of its composition: the first half of the 11th century. Apparently, further study of early chronicle texts should clarify what this source was, its composition, ideological orientation, and date of creation.

Examples of information sources Chronicles

As is already known, the literary genre of the chronicle was formed by the middle of the 11th century, but the oldest lists of chronicles available to us, such as the Synodal list of the First Novgorod Chronicle, date back to a much later period - the 13th and 14th centuries.

The Laurentian list dates back to the first quarter of the 15th century, the Ipatiev list of the Ipatiev Chronicle dates back to the first quarter of the 15th century, and the rest of the chronicles date back to an even later time. Based on this, the oldest period of development of chronicles has to be studied based on small lists compiled 2-3 centuries later than the writing of the chronicles themselves.

Another problem in the study of the chronicles is that each of them is a set of chronicles, that is, it recounts previous records, usually in abbreviation, so that each chronicle tells the history of the world “from the very beginning,” as in, “ The Tale of Bygone Years" begins with "where the Russian land came from."

The authorship of the “Tale of Bygone Years,” created at the beginning of the 12th century, still raises some doubts: his name was definitely Nestor, but the question of identifying Nestor the chronicler and Nestor the hagiographer, the author of “The Life of Boris and Gleb” and “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk” is still controversial.

Like most chronicles, the Tale is a collection that includes processing and retelling of many previous chronicles, literary, journalistic, and folklore sources.

Nestor begins his chronicle with the division of the lands by the children of Noah, that is, from the time global flood: he lists the lands in detail, as in the Byzantine chronicles. Despite the fact that Rus' was not mentioned in those chronicles, Nestor, of course, introduces it after mentioning Ilyuric (Illyria - the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea or the people who lived there), he adds the word “Slavs”. Then, in the description of the lands that Japheth inherited, the chronicle mentions the Dnieper, Desna, Pripyat, Dvina, Volkhov, Volga - Russian rivers. In the “part” of Japheth, it is said in the “Tale”, live “Rus, Chud and all the languages: Merya, Muroma, all ...” - this is followed by a list of tribes that inhabited the East European Plain.

The story of the Varangians is a fiction, a legend. Suffice it to mention that the oldest Russian monuments trace the dynasty of the Kyiv princes to Igor, and not to Rurik, and that Oleg’s “regency” lasted under the “young” Igor for no less than 33 years, and that in the Initial Code Oleg is not called a prince , and the governor...

Nevertheless, this legend was one of the cornerstones of ancient Russian historiography. It corresponded primarily to the medieval historiographical tradition, where the ruling clan was often elevated to a foreigner: this eliminated the possibility of rivalry between local clans.

The defeat of the Russian princes in the battle with the Polovtsians at Trepol in 1052 is also seen as God’s punishment, and then he gives a sad picture of the defeat: the Polovtsians are taking away captured Russian prisoners, and they are hungry, suffering from thirst, undressed and barefoot, “the feet of the property are choked with thorns.” , with tears, they answered each other, saying: “I am the beg of this city,” and others: “I am the one who sows all,” so they ask with tears, telling their kind and lifting up, lifting their eyes to heaven to the highest, knowledgeable of the secret.”

In describing the Polovtsian raid of 1096, the chronicler again has no choice but to promise the suffering Christians the kingdom of heaven for their torment. However, here is also an extract from the apocryphal word of Methodius of Patara, which tells about the origin of different peoples, in particular, about the legendary “unclean peoples” who were driven by Alexander the Great to the north, imprisoned in the mountains, but who “come out” from there “towards the end of the century” - on the eve of the destruction of the world.

To achieve greater authenticity and a greater impression from the story, descriptions of small details are introduced into the narrative: how the tinder was attached to the legs of the birds, various buildings are listed that were “ignited” by the sparrows and pigeons who returned to their nests and under the eaves (again a specific detail).

Among other records there are plot stories written on the basis of historical, rather than legendary events: a message about an uprising in the Rostov land, led by the Magi, a story about how a certain Novgorodian told fortunes to a magician (both in the article 1071), a description of the transfer of relics Theodosius of Pechersk in article 1091, the story of the blinding of Vasilko Terebovlsky in article 1097.

In the Tale of Bygone Years, like in no other chronicle, plot stories are frequent (we are not talking about inserted stories in the chronicles of the 15th-16th centuries). If we take the chronicles of the 11th-16th centuries. In general, the chronicle as a genre is characterized by a certain literary principle, developed already in the 11th-13th centuries. and received from D.S., who examined it. Likhachev's name is the “style of monumental historicism” - a style characteristic of all art of this period, and not just literature.

Almost all chronicle collections of subsequent centuries began with the “Tale”, although, of course, in abbreviated collections of the 15th-16th centuries. or in local chroniclers, the ancient history of Rus' was presented in the form of brief selections about the most important events.

The lives written by Nestor - “Reading about the life and destruction” of Boris and Gleb and “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk” represent two hagiographic types - the life-martyrium (the story of the martyrdom of the saint) and the monastic life, which tells about the entire life path of the righteous, his piety, asceticism and the miracles he performed. Nestor, of course, took into account the requirements of the Byzantine hagiographic canon and knew the translated Byzantine lives. But at the same time, he showed such artistic independence, such extraordinary talent that the creation of these two masterpieces makes him one of the outstanding ancient Russian writers, regardless of whether he was also the compiler of The Tale of Bygone Years.

To summarize, it should be noted that the genre diversity of sources determined the richness and expressiveness of the language. They contain valuable material on the history of vocabulary. The chronicle reflects rich synonymy (for example, drevodli - carpenters, stage - verst, sulia - spear), contains military, church and administrative terminology, onomastic and toponymic vocabulary (many personal names, nicknames, geographical names, names of residents, churches, monasteries ), phraseology, borrowed words and calques from Greek are used. language (for example, autocratic, autocratic) When comparing the vocabulary of “The Tale of Bygone Years”, it is possible to trace the life of terms, in particular military terms, right up to their extinction and replacement by new ones.

So, the language of the chronicle is characterized by rather sharp contrasts: from the use of Old Slavonicisms and constructions inherent in the book language (for example, independent dative phrase, perfect with copula, dual number of names and verbs), to folk colloquial. elements (for example, the expression is not enough to fill or tore up the wood) and syntactic constructions (for example, impersonal phrases - for shame's sake, constructions without a copula, participles in the predicative function - vеtav and speech). Distribution of this kind of contrasts in the story unevenly, in particular it depends on the genre.

References

source tale of bygone years

1.Aleshkovsky M.Kh. The Tale of Bygone Years: The Fate of a Literary Work in Ancient Rus'. M., 1971

2. Eremin I.P. “The Tale of Bygone Years”: Problems of its historical and literary study (1947). - In the book: Eremin

I.P. Literature of Ancient Rus': (Sketches and Characteristics). M. - L., 1966 Sukhomlinov M.I. About the ancient Russian chronicle as a literary monument. St. Petersburg, 1856

Likhachev D.S. Russian chronicles and their cultural and historical significance. M. - L., 1947

Nasonov A.N. History of Russian chronicles of the 11th - early 18th centuries. M., 1969

Rybakov B.A. Ancient Rus': legends, epics, chronicles. M. - L., 1963

Tvorogov O.V. Plot narration in the chronicles of the 11th-13th centuries. . - In the book: Origins of Russian fiction. L., 1970

Kuzmin A.G. The initial stages of ancient Russian chronicle writing. M., 1977

Likhachev D.S. Great legacy. “The Tale of Bygone Years” Selected works: In 3 vols., vol. 2. L., 1987.

Shaikin A.A. “Behold the Tale of Bygone Years”: From Kiya to Monomakh. M., 1989

Shakhmatov A.A. History of Russian chronicles. T. 1. The Tale of Bygone Years and the most ancient Russian chronicles. Book 2. Early Russian chronicles of the 11th-12th centuries - St. Petersburg, 2003.

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The Tale of Bygone Years is an ancient Russian chronicle created at the beginning of the 12th century. The story is an essay that tells about the events that happened and are happening in Rus' during that period.

The Tale of Bygone Years was compiled in Kyiv, later rewritten several times, but was not greatly changed. The chronicle covers the period from biblical times until 1137, with dated entries beginning in 852.

All dated articles are compositions beginning with the words “In the summer of such and such...”, which means that entries were added to the chronicle every year and told about the events that occurred. One article for one year. This distinguishes the Tale of Bygone Years from all the chronicles that were conducted before. The text of the chronicle also contains legends, folklore stories, copies of documents (for example, the teachings of Vladimir Monomakh) and extracts from other chronicles.

The story got its name thanks to its first phrase that opens the story - “The Tale of Bygone Years...”

The history of the creation of the Tale of Bygone Years

The author of the idea of the Tale of Bygone Years is considered to be the monk Nestor, who lived and worked at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. Despite the fact that the author's name appears only in later copies of the chronicle, it was the monk Nestor who is considered the first chronicler in Rus', and The Tale of Bygone Years is considered the first Russian chronicle.

The oldest version of the chronicle that has reached the present day dates back to the 14th century and is a copy made by the monk Laurentius (Laurentian Chronicle). The original edition of the creator of the Tale of Bygone Years, Nestor, has been lost; today only modified versions exist from various scribes and later compilers.

Today there are several theories regarding the history of the creation of The Tale of Bygone Years. According to one of them, the chronicle was written by Nestor in Kyiv in 1037. The basis for it was ancient legends, folk songs, documents, oral stories and documents preserved in monasteries. After writing, this first edition was rewritten and revised several times by various monks, including Nestor himself, who added elements of Christian ideology to it. According to other sources, the chronicle was written much later, in 1110.

Genre and features of The Tale of Bygone Years

The genre of the Tale of Bygone Years is defined by experts as historical, but scientists argue that the chronicle is neither a work of art nor historical in the full sense of the word.

A distinctive feature of the chronicle is that it does not interpret events, but only talks about them. The attitude of the author or copyist to everything described in the chronicle was determined only by the presence of God's Will, which determines everything. Cause-and-effect relationships and interpretation from the point of view of other positions were uninteresting and were not included in the chronicle.

The Tale of Bygone Years had an open genre, that is, it could consist of completely different parts– starting from folk tales and ending with notes about the weather.

In ancient times, the chronicle also had legal significance, as a set of documents and laws.

The original purpose of writing the Tale of Bygone Years was to study and explain the origin of the Russian people, the origin of princely power and a description of the spread of Christianity in Rus'.

The beginning of the Tale of Bygone Years is a story about the appearance of the Slavs. The Russians are presented by the chronicler as descendants of Japheth, one of the sons of Noah. At the very beginning of the story there are stories telling about the life of the East Slavic tribes: about the princes, about the calling of Rurik, Truvor and Sineus to reign as princes and about the formation of the Rurik dynasty in Rus'.

The main part of the content of the chronicle consists of descriptions of wars, legends about the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, the exploits of Nikita Kozhemyaka and other heroes.

The final part consists of descriptions of battles and princely obituaries.

Thus, the basis of the Tale of Bygone Years is:

Legends about the settlement of the Slavs, the calling of the Varangians and the formation of Rus';
Description of the baptism of Rus';
Description of the life of the great princes: Oleg, Vladimir, Olga and others;
Lives of Saints;
Description of wars and military campaigns.

The significance of the Tale of Bygone Years can hardly be overestimated - it was it that became the first document in which the history of Kievan Rus was recorded from its very inception. The chronicle later served as the main source of knowledge for subsequent historical descriptions and research. In addition, thanks to the open genre, The Tale of Bygone Years has high value, as a cultural and literary monument.