Volhynian Provenance of the Radziwill Chronicle: Hypothesis and Its Critical Assessment

Abstract

The Radziwill chronicle is a unique Cyrillic manuscript dating back to the late 15th century. It was named after Radziwill princely family who kept it in the mid-17th century. The chronicle covers historical period from the mythical beginnings of Rus’ land up to the early 13th century. But it is not unique in terms of its text which is well-studied by scholars. Its exclusivity lies in over 600 miniatures that were once called “windows on a lost world”. In fact, the Radziwill chronicle is a copy of the illuminated codex of the early 13th century though its miniatures underwent some changes in the West-European style. Since the times of Aleksey Shakhmatov it is generally believed that the Radziwill chronicle was compiled in the city of Smolensk which was the part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania up to 1514. This notion is mostly based on the results of linguistic analysis of the chronicle as the manuscript itself lacks any indications on the place of its creation. The concept of chronicle’s Smolensk origin is so engrained in academic literature that there were even proposals to rename it to the Smolensk chronicle. But after almost a century of scholarly consensus regarding this issue the new concept emerged. It was put forward in 2004 by Russian researcher Andrey Nikitin in whose opinion the Radziwill chronicle was compiled in the bishop’s scriptorium in Volodymyr (Volhynia). The theory formulated by Nikitin found its ardent supporter in Ukraine. The view of Volodymyr as chronicle’s hometown was enthusiastically accepted by Oleksiy Tolochko who promoted this theory in a number of publications. His conclusions were based on some paintings and marginal notes of the Radziwill chronicle. Unfortunately, his ideas have never been critically assessed despite being quite a novelty for chronicle studies. This served as an impetus for detailed examination of his “Volhynian theory”. As it appeared, it lacks any scholarly value and thus should be completely ignored.