The Brief Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Vasil Varonin
The
article analyses a sample of the 16th
century Belarusian-Lithuanian chronicles, The Brief Chronicle of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania. It has not been studied on its own in special
literature so far. The Brief Chronicle had a complicated history. It was
copied, edited and supplemented with new information more than once. At present
there are three copies of the manuscript available, which differ to a
considerable extent. The most thorough version covers the events from the 14th
century to 1567. It includes brief records of the events of political, military
and church history of the Grand Duchy of Litva (Lithuania). The manuscript was
created in the Grand Duchy’s capital city Vilnia. Its author was a Catholic by
faith. So far the attempts to identify more precisely either the author’s
personality or even the intellectual community where the Brief Chronicle
was written have not been successful. There are two versions regarding the way
this manuscript was created. According to the first one, it is an abridged copy
of the second complete Belarusian-Lithuanian collection of chronicles with
certain new data added. In this case the Brief Chronicle was compiled in
the 1550s. According to the second version, the second Belarusian–Lithuanian
collection of chronicles was written basing on the Brief Chronicle. Then
the latter dates from the 1530s or the 1540s.
It
has been worked out that the 16th century Polish
historian Maciej Stryjkowski borrowed the information about the Lithuanian
occupation of Połacak in 1307 directly from the Brief Chronicle. The
text analysis has made it clear that this piece of information appeared as the
result of some mistakes. This fact is not confirmed by other sources. For this
reason, the version that Połack finally merged with the Grand Duchy of Litva
(Lithuania) in 1307, which is taken for granted by the contemporary Belarusian
historiography, should be rejected.
The text is supplemented with a
reconstructed protograph of the manuscript and a brief historical commentary.