The ''Hypatian Codex'', also known as Hypatian Letopis or Ipatiev Letopis, is a compendium of three Rus' chronicles: the ''

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

'', ''

Kievan Chronicle The ''Kievan Chronicle'' or ''Kyivan Chronicle'' is a chronicle of Kievan Rus'. It was written around 1200 in Vydubychi Monastery as a continuation of the ''Primary Chronicle''. It is known from two manuscripts: a copy in the '' Hypatian Codex'' ...

'' and '' Galician-Volhynian Chronicle''. It is the most important source of historical data about

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

. The language of this work is

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...

with many East Slavisms.

Provenance

The codex was discovered in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

in 1617 by Zacharias Kopystensky, and was then copied by monks in 1621. The codex later known as the ''Hypatian Codex'' was most likely acquired from the Ipatievsky Monastery (Hypatian Monastery) in

Kostroma Kostroma (, ) is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267, ...

on 15 May 1767. This would have happened during the May–June 1767

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

voyage of Empress

Catherine II Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III ...

(), who was highly interested in reading Rus' chronicles, and collecting them all at the capital city of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

(one of the goals of her voyage). Count Vladimir Grigorievich Orlov (1743–1831), then director of the Academy of Sciences, accompanied the empress on the voyage and wrote in his diary that three chronicles were acquired from the Ipatievsky Monastery on 15 May 1767, which were subsequently sent to Moscow and ended up in the Petersburg

Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences () is a large state-owned Russian library based in Saint Petersburg on Vasilievsky Island and open to employees of institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and scholars with higher education ...

. Ever since, the ''Hypatian Codex'' has been preserved there with registration number "16.4.4". According to the ''Istoriia Biblioteki Akademii Nauk SSSR'', the ''Hypatian'' manuscript was first mentioned in S. S. Bashilov's October 1767 letter to

August Ludwig von Schlözer August Ludwig von Schlözer (5 July 1735, in Gaggstatt – 9 September 1809, in Göttingen) was a German historian and pedagogist who laid foundations for the critical study of Russian medieval history. He was a member of the Göttingen schoo ...

(Catherine had previously appointed Schlözer as full professor of Academy of Sciences on 3 January 1765 with a 5-year contract). At some point after Schlözer left Saint Petersburg on 15 June 1765 (to organise education of Russian history students at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

), but before autumn 1767, the

must have acquired it. Schlözer returned to Saint Petersburg in autumn 1766 one last time before settling in Göttingen definitively. Before leaving, he gave instructions to Bashilov, who was dissatisfied with his humble position at the Academy, unable to do and get credit for his own work. In the letter of 12 October 1767, Bashilov wrote that the codex had been delivered from the Ipatievsky Monastery to the Committee of the Academy of Sciences, where Alexei Yakovlevich Polenov (1738–1816) was given the task of describing and copying the ''Hypatian Codex'' in order to prepare it for publication. In response to Schlözer's request for more information on the codex, Bashilov provided more details, leading the excited Schlözer to write ''An Abstract from a Report from St. Petersburg dated 16 (27) December 1767'', which Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–1799) included in his 1768 book published in Göttingen.

History of studies

Because Schlözer was working in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

and could not proceed to study the ''Hypatian'' text further until he had received a complete copy, Schlözer incessantly wrote letters urging Bashilov (who did not respond for over six months) to hurry up and send him a copy ("I am waiting for the requested copy of the ''Hypatian Codex'' every mail day" in an August 1768 letter), which finally arrived a few days later. The reason was that after Schlözer left Saint Petersburg to continue his work in Göttingen, Bashilov and Polenov were assigned to continue work on the ''

Nikon Chronicle The ''Nikon Chronicle'' () is a compilation of Russian chronicles undertaken at the court of Ivan the Terrible in the mid-16th century. The compilation was named after Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, who owned a copy. In the 18th century, it was publi ...

''s publication instead. The Academy tried to get Schlözer to return to Petersburg as late as February 1769, and eventually terminated his contract per 1 January 1770, which effectively terminated the work on Rus' chronicle publications, and leaving Bashilov without a job (and dying from tuberculosis on 11 July 1770). Polenov resigned in April 1771. The ''Hypatian Codex'' was forgotten by almost everyone including empress Catherine in the decades thereafter. The Czech scholar Josef Dobrovský probably briefly examined it in autumn 1792. After the '' Khlebnikov Codex'' was accidentally discovered in the summer of 1809, Nikolay Karamzin began searching for the ''Hypatian Codex''. It was rediscovered after he asked Academy president Novosiltsev to help find it, and delivered to Karamzin in Moscow in early October 1809. When Karamzin finally began publishing abstracts of the ''Hypatian Codex'' as part of his magnum opus ''History of the Russian State'' from 1816 onwards, the scholarly community was finally introduced with the codex on a large scale. The first full publication of the ''Hypatian Codex'' would not see the light until 1871.

Composition

The codex contains the second-oldest surviving manuscript of the ''Primary Chronicle'', after the Laurentian Codex. The Hypatian manuscript dates back to 1425, but it incorporates much precious information from the lost 12th-century ''Kievan'' and 13th-century ''Galician-Volhynia'' chronicles. The codex was possibly compiled at the end of the 13th century. The title page, written in red letters, names it ("Rus' chronicle. Let us begin with God. Father, bless us"), and continues in black letters with ("The Tale of Bygone Years"). The flyleaf contains, in relatively recent handwriting, the title ' ("The Kievan Chronicle"), and includes the names of two previous owners of the codex: "i. The book of the servant of the Ipatiev Monastery Tikhon Mizhuev. ii. The book of the monk of the Ipatiev Monastery Tarasij."

Notes

References

Bibliography

Editions

Literature

* * * * {{cite book, title=National History as Cultural Process: A Survey of the Interpretations of Ukraine's Past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian Historical Writing from the Earliest Times to 1914 , first=Stephen , last=Velychenko , edition= illustrated , publisher= CIUS Press , year=1992 , isbn=0-920862-75-6 , page=142 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=amcVMnFKvXgC

External links

Hypatian Chronicle

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

Works about Lithuania 15th-century manuscripts Cyrillic manuscripts Primary Chronicle textual witnesses Church Slavonic biblical textual witnesses Works about Ukrainian history