Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature
Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature
1607-6192
2713-2226
IWL RAS
https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2025-24-549-589
Research Article
Articles
RUSSIAN CHRONOGRAPHIC CONCEPT UNTIL THE 1660S
Bogdanov
Andrey P.
old-rus@imli.ru
2025
24
549
589
Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS
2026
The article examines the place of the Russian Chronograph, an outstanding monument of historical thought of the 16th–17th centuries, in the Russian book literature of the “rebellious” century, from overcoming the shock of the Time of Troubles to the early 1660s. We are talking about the Chronographs of the 2nd and especially the 3rd edition, the idea of the richness of the manuscript tradition of which we managed to double. And about the author’s chronographs of Pakhomiy Astrakhansky and Arseny Sukhanov based on them, which became key for subsequent reflections of chroniclers on the course of world and Russian history. The study of more than fifty major codices showed that the Russian Chronograph, although it entered the all-Russian annals in the 16th century, although it was twice radically altered in the first half of the 17th century, after the Time of Troubles it remained, as it was conceived in 1516–1522. Dosifey Toporkov, a unique historical library, with its own stable concept of the development of Rus’ and the world, which could be enriched, but not radically changed. It is possible to understand the extremely stable chronographic concept and the meaning of the changes introduced into it by 17th-century scribes only within the framework of the history of the text of the Russian Chronograph and the development of all-Russian chronicle writing as a whole. We make such an attempt, explaining the meaning of the Chronograph for scribes and readers of the 17th century, comparing its editions and interpreting the changes in the text taking into account the entire array of chronicle monuments and historical and journalistic works created at that time.
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