The year 2010 was marked by a very important event for specialists studying Ancient Russia and simply history buffs: Ivan the Terrible’s Chronicle Book (publicly known as the Tsar Book) was posted on the Internet for open access. Representatives of the Ancient Writing Society scanned it and placed it on a worldwide network.
What is the importance of this event?
Agree that the most important thing in the work of every historian is the primary sources: written, works of art, architecture, household items and other artifacts. Unfortunately, in our time, not many researchers of the past turn to them. Often they study and cite the works of other historians, and those of the third, and so on. As a result, if you start to understand, then most of these scientists never used the primary sources, and they created all their works on the basis of other people's words and opinions. It turns out that these works can be compared with a bad copy of a copy of some kind of “blockbuster”. If you open and read what is written in an ancient document and compare the information with what modern historians write, you can often find not only minor inaccuracies, but also sometimes completely opposite facts. So-and-so, and the like happens all the time.
Ancient artifacts of Russia
Unfortunately, not many original sources have survived to this day as we would like. If we consider architectural monuments, then there are very few of them left, and besides, most of them date back to the 18-19 centuries, because in Russia the main building material is wood, and regular wars and fires do not spare such structures. If we take household items and jewelry, it’s not so simple here: what was saved was all artifacts of the 15-19th centuries. And this is also understandable, because precious metals and stones have always been the goal of various kinds of amateurs and black archaeologists. Almost all the ancient burial places (mounds, etc.) on the territory of our country were looted during the time of Catherine the Second.
Oral Traditions
The most complete historical information about the history of our land has been preserved in the memory of the people - these are legends, traditions, tales, epics, etc. However, scientists categorically deny the possibility of considering oral creativity as a source of information, at least in relation to what is connected with the past Although they are ready to fully accept the legends of, say, the Scandinavian or British peoples. But in our tales and legends many interesting facts have been preserved, a certain interpretation of which confirms one of the most popular modern theories (A. Sklyarov “Inhabited Island of the Earth”). For example, we all know about such a fabulous wonder, like a magical saucer with a bulk apple, in which the whole world is visible - why is this not an “iPhone” with its logo - a bitten fruit? And carpets, and boots, boots? But you never know what else ...
However, we were very distracted, it is time to return to the main topic of our article, and this, we recall, is the front vault of Tsar Ivan (iv) the Terrible.
Written sources
The main written sources of Ancient Russia are the annals. Since the 19th century, the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles began to be published. Everyone could familiarize themselves with this printed publication by contacting the library. However, work is underway within the framework of the project “Manuscripts of Ancient Rus” to convert it to digital format, and in the near future it, like the Ivan the Terrible’s Vault, will be posted on the Internet for general use. Novice researchers should be aware that in ancient manuscripts, the source of information is not only text, but also drawings. We are talking about illustrated documents. The main one is the Facade vault. It consists of ten thousand sheets and seventeen thousand illustrations.
Front annalistic vault
This document is the largest annalistic-chronographic codex of Ancient Russia. It was created by order of the tsar in the Alexander settlement in the period from 1568 to 1576. The front vault contains an account of world history from the creation of the world to the 15th century and Russian history to 67 years of the 16th century. Amosov A.A. calculated that this ancient artifact consists of ten volumes with a total number of 9,745 sheets, which are decorated with 17,744 colored miniatures. Historians reasonably believe that the Tsar Book contained the eleventh volume. Now it is lost, and this is understandable, because it dealt with the most controversial period of Russian history - until 1114.
Facial arch: contents
The first three volumes contain the texts of Bible books, such as the Pentateuch, the books of Judges, Joshua, Kings, as well as the books of Ruth, Esther, and the prophet Daniel. In addition, they contain the full texts of Alexandria, two narratives of the Trojan War (“The Tale of the Creation and Captivity of Troy”, extracted from the “Russian Chronograph”, and “The History of the Destruction of Troy” - translation of Guido de Columna’s novel) and the work of Josephus Flavius “ History of the Judean War. ” For subsequent world events, the sources of information were the work of the Chronicler of Illinsky and Rome and the Russian Chronograph.
The history of Russia is described by the Facial Vault in 4-10 volumes, the source was mainly the Nikon Chronicle. According to researchers (for example, Kloss B.M.), starting from the events of 1152, the document also contains additional sources, such as the Novgorod Arch (1539), the Resurrection Chronicle, “The Chronicler of the Beginning of the Kingdom” and others.
Ancient editing
The Tsar Book has a number of corrections, it is believed (though there is no evidence for this) that they were made around 1575 at the direction of Tsar Ivan the Terrible himself. The processing of the finished text affected mainly the period from 1533 to 1568. An unknown editor made postscript in the margins of the document, some of them contain charges against persons who were repressed and executed during the oprichnina.
Unfortunately, the work on the Facade vault was not completed: some of the miniatures were made only in an ink sketch, they did not have time to paint them.
conclusions
The front vault of Ivan the Terrible is not only a monument to the book art of Russia, but also a very important source of historical events: miniatures, despite all the conventions and rather symbolic nature, provide rich material for researching the realities of that time. In addition, a study of the editorial changes introduced in the last volume (“The Royal Book”) provides an opportunity to obtain more in-depth information about the political struggle of the aftermath. They make it possible to judge the changed assessments of the tsar by the activities of his or her associates. As well as new views on the events themselves during his reign.
Finally
Thanks to the activities of the Society of lovers of ancient history, now everyone can get acquainted with this invaluable artifact. Indeed, before, in order to gain access to this document, it was necessary to make a lot of effort, and only historians could get it. But today it is available to everyone. All that is needed is access to a worldwide network, and you can immerse yourself in the fascinating world of studying our past. See everything with your own eyes, add your opinion about certain events, and not read the ready-made stamps of historians, who, perhaps, never even opened the source.