The Genesis of Russian History Writing

FAIN: RZ-20859-02

UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)
Gail D. Lenhoff (Project Director: September 2001 to November 2007)

To support preparation of an edition and source study of the BOOK OF DEGREES OF THE ROYAL GENEALOGY.

The Book of Degrees of the Royal Genealogy, filling some 780 leaves, was written by churchmen during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. It represents the first attempt by Russia's intellectual elite to compose a narrative history of their land and continues to be regarded as a central statement of the nation's identity in the high Middle Ages. This project will publish the first critical edition of the codex closest to the book's archetype, will provide witnesses to the ongoing textual tradition, and will produce electronic facsimiles of the two earliest manuscripts. A companion study will identify and comment on the book's many sources.