Research Project by Zofia A. Brzozowska, University of Lodz (PI)

Website by Bartosz Zieliński: ki.wfi.uni.lodz.pl/ceraneum/latopis/html/index.html 

Overview

A research project financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (National Program for the Development of Humanities, Universalia 2.2), and realized by an interdisciplinary team of scholars from the University of Lodz (Faculty of Philology, Ceraneum Centre, Faculty of Physics and Applied Informatics: Zofia A. Brzozowska, Jan Morawicki, Ivan N. Petrov, Bartosz Zieliński). 

The subject of research in this project is the so-called Novgorod First Chronicle, which is probably the oldest existing historiographical work, created in an intellectual environment of Novgorod the Great. The first Novgorod chronicle is certainly an extremely valuable historical source, containing many important data on the history of Rus’ in the 11th–14th century. Above all, it gives insight into the history and culture of the Novgorod Republic – a little-known political entity, existing in the area of the East Slavdom in the Middle Ages. The team focuses on the older version of the text, preserved in only one manuscript, the so-called ‘Synodal’ manuscript from the thirteenth-fourteenth century (ГИМ, Син. 786), covering the events from the years 1016–1352.

The aim of this project is to read the whole mentioned codex (consisting of 169 parchment pages). It is also planned to perform a professional edition of the text of the source (using a specialized font enabling the presentation of the nuances of Old Russian spelling) and translate the source into Polish. The text of the chronicle will include a comprehensive historical commentary presenting the text on the possible broad background of the history and culture of Rus’ in the 11th – 14th century. The main objective of the project is thus to create a book publication, including the edition, Polish translation, and critical elaboration of Novgorod First Chronicle – the source has not been translated into the Polish language so far and is thus virtually unknown to a wider group of recipients.

Further Reading

Brzozowska, Zofia A., and Ivan N. Petrov, with collaboration of Jan Morawicki. Latopis nowogrodzki pierwszy starszej redakcji. Łódź: Unikatowy zabytek piśmiennictwa staroruskiego i jego polski przekład, 2019.

Brzozowska, Zofia A., and Mirosław J. Leszka. Nowogród Wielki. Łódź: Historyczno-kulturowy przewodnik po średniowiecznej republice, 2019.