Russian chronicles are a unique historiographic phenomenon, a written source of the early period of our history. Until now, researchers cannot come to a common opinion either about their authorship or about their objectivity.
Main riddles
"The Tale of Bygone Years" is a series of intricate riddles, which are devoted to hundreds of scientific treatises. Four questions have been on the agenda for at least two centuries: "Who is the author?", "Where is the Initial Chronicle?", "Who is to blame for the factual confusion?" and "Is the ancient vault to be restored?"
What is a chronicle?
It is curious that the chronicle is an exclusively Russian phenomenon. There are no world analogues in the literature. The word comes from the Old Russian "summer", which means "year". In other words, the chronicle is what was created "from year to year." It took shape not by one person or even by one generation. Ancient legends, legends, traditions and frank speculations were interwoven into the fabric of contemporary authors of events. Monks worked on the annals.
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Who is the author?
The most common name for the "Tale" was formed from the initial phrase: "Behold the tale of bygone years." In the scientific community, there are two more names in use: "Primary Chronicle" or "Nestor's Chronicle".
However, some historians seriously doubt that the monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra has anything to do with the annals about the lullaby period of the Russian nation. Academician A. A. Shakhmatov assigns him the role of a processor of the Primary Code.
What is known about Nestor? The name is hardly generic. He was a monk, which means he wore something different in the world. Nestor was sheltered by the Pechersk monastery, within the walls of which the industrious hagiographer of the late 11th - early 12th centuries performed his spiritual feat. For this he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint (that is, pleasing God with his monastic deed). He lived for about 58 years and was considered a deep old man at that time.
Historian Yevgeny Dyomin notes that exact information about the year and place of birth of the "father of Russian history" has not been preserved, and the exact date of his death is not recorded anywhere either. Although the Brockhaus-Efron dictionary contains dates: 1056-1114. But already in the 3rd edition of the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" they disappear.
The "Tale" is considered one of the earliest ancient Russian annals of the early 12th century. Nestor begins the narrative right from the post-Flood times and follows the historical outline until the second decade of the 12th century (until the end of his own years). However, on the pages of the versions of the Tale that have come down to us, there is no name for Nestor. Perhaps it did not exist. Or it has not survived.
The authorship was established indirectly. Based on fragments of its text as part of the Ipatiev Chronicle, which begins with an unnamed mention of its author - a monk of the Pechersky Monastery. Polycarp, another monk of the Caves, points directly to Nestor in a letter to Archimandrite Akindinus dating from the 13th century.
Modern science notes both an unusual author's position and bold and generalized assumptions. The manner of Nestorov's presentation is known to historians, since the authorship of his "Readings on the Life and the Destruction of Boris and Gleb" and "The Life of the Monk Theodosius, Abbot of the Caves" is for certain.
Comparisons
The latter gives specialists the opportunity to compare author's approaches. The Life is about the legendary companion and one of the first disciples of Anthony from Lyubech, who founded the oldest Orthodox monastery in Russia - the Pechersk monastery - back under Yaroslavl the Wise in 1051. Nestor himself lived in the monastery of Theodosius. And his "Life" is so full of the smallest nuances of everyday monastic life that it becomes obvious that he was written by a man who "knew" this world from the inside.
The event first mentioned in the "Tale" (the vocation of the Varangian Rurik, how he came with his brothers Sineus and Truvor and founded the state in which we live) was written 200 years after its implementation.
Where is the initial record?
She's not there. Nobody. This cornerstone of our Russian statehood is some kind of phantom. Everyone has heard about him, the whole Russian history is repelled from him, but no one in the last 400 years has held him in his hands and has not even seen.
Even V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote: "Do not ask the Primary Chronicle in libraries - perhaps they will not understand you and will be asked:" What list of chronicles do you need? " Until now, not a single manuscript has been found in which the Initial Chronicle would have been placed separately in the form as it came from the pen of the ancient compiler. In all known lists, she merges with the story of her successors."
Who is to blame for the confusion?
What we call the "Tale of Bygone Years" exists today exclusively within other sources, and in three editions: Laurentian Chronicle (from 1377), Ipatievsky (15th century) and Khlebnikovsky list (16th century).
But all these lists are, by and large, only copies, in which the Primary Chronicle appears in completely different versions. The initial vault simply drowns in them. Scientists associate this blurring of the primary source with its repeated and somewhat incorrect use and editing.
In other words, each of the future "co-authors" of Nestor (or some other Pechersk monk) considered this work in the context of his era: he pulled out from the chronicle only what attracted his attention and inserted it into his text. And what he didn’t like, at best, he didn’t touch (and the historical texture was lost), at worst, he altered the information so that the compiler himself would not recognize it.
Is the Initial Record to be restored?
Not. From the long-brewed porridge of falsifications, experts are forced to literally bit by bit to fish out the initial knowledge about “where the Russian land came from”. Therefore, even the indisputable authority in the identification of ancient Russian literary rarities of Chess, a little less than a century ago, was forced to state that the original textual basis of the chronicle - "with the present state of our knowledge" - cannot be restored.
Scientists assess the reason for such barbaric "editing" as an attempt to hide the truth about events and personalities from descendants, which was done by almost every copyist, whitewashing or denigrating it.