What the Rus' Primary Chronicle Tells Us about the Origin of the Slavs and of Slavic

Writing
Author(s): HORACE G. LUNT
Source: Harvard Ukrainian Studies , 1995, Vol. 19, Камень КраєѪгъльнъ: RHETORIC OF
THE MEDIEVAL SLAVIC WORLD (1995), pp. 335-357
Published by: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41037009

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 What the Rus' Primary Chronicle Tells Us
about the Origin of the Slavs and of Slavic Writing

HORACE G. LUNT

The first East Slavic chronicle, the IToB-fecTb BpeMem> h jitTt, begins with a
question,"From where has the Land of Rus' come?" The opening pages make
it clear that the term pycbCKaia 3eMJiia here denotes primarily a group of
people, a nation. The text briskly (though confusedly) demonstrates that all
Slavs are related and that the inhabitants of Rus', despite labels such as
Poljane or Krivici, are predominantly Slavs. It is taken for granted as matter-
of-fact background information that all mankind is descended from one of the
three sons of Noah and that it was Japheth who was allotted the north and
west; the self-evident corollary that the Slavs belonged among the sons of
Japheth is stated immediately.
The term Slavs appears in the third and fifth columns of the PVL text (3.8,
5.22), and then six times in an account of Slavic history that breaks off at
6.24, interrupted by an aside about local peoples in Rus', to be resumed in
column II.1 These eight examples deserve special attention.
The narrative begins with the division of the earth among Noah's three
sons, listing the lands that went to Shem in the east and to Ham in the south
(col. 1-2). Enumeration of Japheth' s regions starts with Media and Albania
(roughly modern Azerbaidjan) in the east, and moves through Asia Minor
westward to Arcadia and "Epirus, Illyricum, Slavs, Lychnitis, Adriake, the
Adriatic sea" (3.8- 10).2 Since the other items are geographical names, the
ethnonym stands out. Now, it is well known that the wording of this
passage - with the signal exception of the term Slavs - comes from the
Slavonic version of the Chronicle of George the Monk (hereafter GM), with

1 PVL references are identified according to column and line in PSRL 1. 1 cite the Hypatian
copy unless otherwise indicated by reference to the individual copies: L[aurentian],
T[roickij], R[adziwitt], A[cademy], H[ypatian], X[lebnikov].
1 The form here is, exceptionally, GnoB-fcHe, an innovation adapted to the typical
ethnonyms in *jan- (like ITojuiHe, Aepe&JiaHe, Phmji^hc ). It is notable that the *-ën- never (in
PVL, rarely elsewhere, and only after 1300) is spelled with "a" or "ia" as is the OCS
ethnonymic suffix in such words as erynrfcHe, Rusian ernriTAHe. The nominative plural in
older texts was clearly GnoBtHH , which occurs eleven times in L (against four -e). The total
early evidence is consistent with a possessive formation, *Slovën-j-, 'belonging to
Sloveni,', see Lunt 1985, 1996b.

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336 HORACE G. LUNT

interpolations (not otherwise atte

Malalas.3 The order of items is arbi
on the Gulf of Corinth, while E
Lychnitis is Ohrid, an important tr
hundred kilometers by the Via Egna
Albania).4 GM has 'iM/upiç, but the
presumably nominative, this looks l
points to HjiiopHKT> (H; JliopHKT>
standing for Illyricum, a Roman
(approximately modern Austria) to
redefined; during the ninth century
eastern and western civil and eccles
territories is one of many that wer
are comparable lists of the descend
back ultimately to a third-centu
undertook to explicate the ethnogr
with elements suggested by the apo
GM's enumeration of Japheth's lan
which the PVL adds the major rivers
the land (which extends west to cov
building of the tower of Babel and
mankind into seventy-two "tongues

3 The names are sometimes distorted in t

reconstructed from the Greek original;
example, Epirus, 'Hneipümc, in 3.8 becom
ending), but all six of the PVL witnesses a
erased) H, HnnpoHoia X, rArmpoHbia L,
Malalas, see Istrin 1897 11.
4 The lake and city were known as Lych
variant forms) in Byzantine texts. An alter
the 11th century, and occurs in the Lif
equivalent, OxpMAi», is not attested until l
about 1230 and probably translated at on
Bb JlHXHHflOH-fe rpaAe miHpHHbCKOMy...
[Moesia was north of Macedonia], HHt Oxp
168, 169.) In GM, A')xvíxiç has become Jloy
(but modified to JlyxHTaa in L,Jlyxorba i
commentary, strangely, deems this item t
5 The Danube and Don were in a passage
has been rearranged, producing geograph
Pripet', Dvina, Volxov, and Volga give a da
the Caucasian mountains are glossed as "H

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 337

reminder that the sons of Japheth took the west and

concludes (5.20-22), "Of these seventy-two ton
Slavic tongue, of the tribe of Japheth, (those) calle
These clauses do not fit together easily. The relatio
to the original seventy-two is not clear, and the Nor
last time. This rather odd sentence seems, then, to
sub-tribe of Slavs.

Just what early readers were able to understand from this PVL account is
debatable, but the intentions of the editors can be inferred from other echoes
of Hippolytus that are known from early Slavic. Hippolytus's so-called
Xpovóypoupoç is not a narrative, but rather a series of lists of rulers and other
important persons, often with chronological information such as length of
reign. The sons of Noah, the three fathers of all humankind, are defined in
terms of their geographical allotments, their sons and grandsons with their
geographical locations and the names of the peoples descended from them.
Though Shem, Ham, Japheth, and the seventy-two tribes recur, the details are
rearranged in bewilderingly different ways.8 Thus a list of forty-seven nations
in Japheth' s allotment (Bauer's item 80), including 'Ita)pioí, Mociceôóveç, and
"EXky'vE<; (as sub-items 23-25), corresponds rather poorly to his forty-one
regions (xcopai) enumerated in another (#84), which underlies the wording in
GM that was used by a Rus' editor for the PVL: 'Erceipcorriç, 'IÀAupíç, ti

6 Terminology for classifying socially and/or politically organized groups was variable,
but for the purposes of this paper it suffices to point out that the exact role of kinship,
language, geography, and political organization in the determination of the Hebrew terms in
Genesis 10 has little to do with the translations into Greek and then Slavonic - translators
made arbitrary selections from the store of terms they knew. The fact that early Slavic
*jçzykT> meant both language and ethnos makes it difficult to interpret a number of
important passages in the PVL Greek yXxuxraa (like Hebrew laSon) means 'tongue; language',
and God divided "each according to his tongue in their tribes (or clans, <jn)Ar| ) and in their
nations (or peoples, ëOvoç)," Gen 10:5, or "tribes according to their tongues in their
countries (x(opa)and in their peoples" 10:20, 31. In these verses in Slavonic, tongue is
ra3biKT>, people/nation iscrpaHa, country is cejio, while tribe is po^aemie in 5, but tuicmsi in
20 and 31. Elsewhere (e.g., Gen 12:2, and usually in the New Testament) A3biKT> represents
eGvoç. <lH)À,f| is usually KOjrfcHO in NT texts, but KOJitHO also renders ëOvoç or yb/oq 'kind'.
7 On> CHXT» ace 70 h 2 ia3biKy 6ucTb w3biKt cnoB^HecKT», on» rmeMeHH AoJ)eTOBa,
HapHuaeMH Hopun H*e cyTb GnoßtHe . I am normalizing the text on the basis of H, X, and A; L
and R have independent corruptions. Note that ott> + Gen pi in definitions may mean "one
(some) of."
Adolf Bauer divides the Greek text into 241 sections, most of them not more than one
sentence long, but a few are lists with numbered subdivisions.

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338 HORACE G. LUNT

A')%víxiç, 'ASpiavTi, àcp' r'q xò 'Aôpi

"Slav-land" and the ethnonym was sub
(The riajiea TOJiKOBaa, essentially a
Testament, also draws heavily on list
Noah's death, the Paleja quotes Gen 1
son's lands. Where in GM (and PVL
Media and Caucasian Albania with
Illyricum is the twenty-fourth and,
Paleja has merely MHflHa, AHBaHH
crucial point is made - the "Slavic ton
In still another list (item 199), Hipp
God dispersed when he destroyed the
to fit peoples they knew - in the four
groups identified in Genesis, and thu
put in their lists continually prod
provided data naming those descende
with fifteen y^éoaaai for Japheth (it
'Icoúav à(p' oh "EÀXnveç Kai "Icoveç,
oh oi Maicéôoveç, Kíxxioi, à(p' oh 'Pco
[came] the Hellenes and Ionians,11
Khatain, from whom the Macedonian
Latins'). The principle of alternate na
the nations (e0vr|) classified by lan
offers, among others, AápSavoi,

9 Subitems 29-32 in Bauer's presentation; th

differences in order (as well as number of i
Hippolytus. The details are of little interest
10 Slavs and non-Slavs agree on the over-al
in the lack of an over-all "tribal" or recogni
given a unifying name. The term Sklavin
sources means territory controlled by a nam
plural. 3eMJiia cnoB-feHbCKaia seems to incl
seems to denote local groups rather than the
11 A variant of this list in Syncellos (91) h
relationship of the two ethnonyms is perc
alternate names become confused with di
further complicated by scribal spelling erro
order of items shift, the tally may end up
tribes) or seventy-two (for all tribes). T
contradictory data when they tried to conso

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 339

uaíoveç, NcopiKoí, AeXuáxai, Pcouaûn oi Kai Aaxîvoi K

Dardanians belong with Paeonians in what is now the
of Macedonia, while Pannonia is ordinarily located
adjacent to Noricum and Dalmatia.13 What is importan
the identifications: they show, first, that the equatio
correct (Pannonians are not Paeonians), and, second
equations does not have to indicate age (the Kittim of
on to justify the Romans = Latins as legitimate heirs o
The TojiKOBaü Ilajieji offers a numbered list of the fifteen ia3biuH
descended from Japheth that was abstracted from Hippolytus's list by deletion
of the name of the ancestor. Thus number 4 is Kjihhhh Hace cyTb Hhoct>,15
and 15 is PyMH ime 3OByn> ca FpeuH.16 The order is slightly perturbed (312
for the first three peoples) and there are puzzles, and serious distortions, along
with one surprising interpolation: Hopnua, unte cyrb Cjiobìhh.11 The first
word surely was originally HopHixuy which is an equivalent of NopiKoi, and
allows us to posit HopHUH in the PVL.18 We can therefore paraphrase PVL

12 The order of sub-items in the Greek manuscript (10th c.) is extremely disturbed, and
the two Latin versions do not contain exactly the same names. Bauer numbers the names
according to his hypothetical reconstruction of the original list.
13 Old Illyricum included Noricum, but the newer Pannonia and Dalmatia still were
considered parts of Illyricum. Accounting for Sarmatians and Germans is far beyond the
scope of this paper.
Essentially the same list, but with recalcitrant variations, recurs in widely differing
contexts in several Byzantine sources. For example, in a Book of Reminders, 'YjconvTjaTiKov
ßißtaov,by Joseppus (Migne PG, 106, col 32) it is an answer to the question, "How many,
and which nations are from the three sons children of Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth?" Here the
Pannonians and Paeonians are explicitly two separately-numbered items; the Romans are
not further identified. The grand total is sixty-seven, not seventy-two.
15 Mhoct> stands for HoHecb, implying a list where Greek forms are merely transliterated,
so the plural "Igíveç remains intact, instead of the usual adaptation of Greek stem plus Slavic
desinence, Hohh. A list of this type in the Izbornik of 1073 indeed has McoyaHT> ott> Heroaœ
HoHec(138d21).
10 PyMH is surely a popular form reflecting Tournoi with the sense "subjects of the
(Eastern) Roman Empire" - i.e. Greeks - rather than true PnMJiiaHe associated with Rome.
17 Notice that all copies have the older desinence, Cjiob-ehh. In this sentence Lav has one
of its exceptional spellings with -tHe for Np; see note 2 above. (The 1477 copy treats the
suffix like that in OCS -tH-e , producing a hybrid, Cjiobahh. )
18 Here is the list, from the 1409 copy (col. 237-38), with selected variants (including
from the 1477 copy) and the presumed equivalent from Hippolytus and related lists:
orb A4>eTa *e ch cyrb po^iiJHH ca ia3biUH Haœ b cmnnoTBopeHMK: pa3fltjieHbi 6biiua
1. Mh/joh (3. MfjSoi), 2. KanoflOKHH (1. KaTuiáôoiceç ), 3. TajiaTH Haœ cyrb KejrrfcH
(KejibTHH) (2. KeXxoi Kai FaXxxxai ), 4. I€jihhhh (Ejihhh) M>KecyTb Mhoct> (4. oi "Eààt|veç Kal
"Iûweç), 5. OeTaTajioH (5. oí Gercatan), 6. AjiaoyKOH (AjiaoyKOKOw, aMoyKon), (6. oi 'Itaòpioi
{ AÂxAeíç . Bauer 208 p. 106, are Eolians}) 7. OpaKtHH (7. oi ©pôcKeç), 8. MaxeflOHH (8. oi
MaKEÔóveç), 9. CpMaTe (CapMaTe) (9. lapuáxai), 10. Poahoh (10. oi Tóôioi), 11. ApMeHH
(1 1. oi Apuévioi), 12. Chkhjioh (12. oi IikeXoí), 13. Hopmja H>Ke cyTb Cjiob-bhh, 14. Aßer/b

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 340 HORACE G. LUNT

5.20-22, "One of the seventy-two to

the Norici, also known as Slavs."1
surely some Slav - unfortunately n
aiming at this kind of mixed definit
ethnos, and territory in a way that is

This definition of Slavs as Norici is followed by this information (5:23-

6.23):

After many seasons,21 the Slavs had settled along the Danube where is now the
Hungarian and the Bulgarian land. And some of those Slavs scattered about the
land and named themselves for the place in which they settled. Thus some came
and settled on the river called Morava, and they called themselves Moravians,
while others named themselves Czechs. Now, these also are Slavs: the White
Croats and the Serbs and the Carinthians. For when the Volokhs came against the
Danube Slavs and settled among them and oppressed them, those Slavs came and
settled on the Vistula and were called Ljakhs. And some of these Ljakhs were
called Polianians, and the other Ljakhs were called Ljutichians, others Mazovians,
others Pomoranians. So also these same Slavs came and settled along the Dnieper
and were called Polianians, and the others Derevlians, because they settled in the
forests,22 while the others settled between the Pripet' and the Dvina and were called

n*e cyTb O6e3n (tì> 6e3flHbi!) (14 "IßripEc Kai T')pr|voí), 15 PyMH nace 3OByTb ca fpeuH (15
Kíxxioi, oKp'ou 'Pcouxxûn oi rai Aaxîvoi).
Item 9 shows a common confusion of C and C (plus omission of "a"). Items 6 and 14
have "A" for expected initial M, whereby variants of 6 perhaps imply original 'IAÀupucoí
rather than 'iMpioi (although they also suggest Aiotaîç, Eolians). The O6e3H of 14 are
otherwise unknown (and one scribe had visions of the abyss). Still another Slavonic version
of this list is preserved in the Izbornik of 1073.
19 An unwary reader of dictionaries might be inclined to interpret HOpuH as Slovenian
norci 'fools', but this is one of many cases where no PVL copy is correct: emendation to
HopHUH is required. (The Slovenian is based on a borrowing from dial. Ger. non [standard
Narr] 'fool'.)
20Saxmatov (1940, 75), finding that in Syncellus the ethnonym Tty/îveç stands in 13th
place, concluded that HopHUH is its replacement. However, Regines do not appear in
Hippolytus, and substitutions in later lists are many and varied, e.g. 1073 138d28 the
PHreHecb [NB retention of Gk desinence -eç] are in ninth place. There is no way to
demonstrate the kind of direct relationship Saxmatov would like to establish. The
patchwork of excerpts from different Byzantine sources that make up long passages in
Slavonic chronicles on the whole indicates that some translated works have not survived in
Slavic form and at the same time suggests that the earliest, Bulgarian, layer included bits
from other works that probably were not translated in full.
21 This plural phrase, no MHO3txi> ace BpeMeHexi», does not occur elsewhere in the PVL.
22 This explicit linking of the ethnonym with derevo 'tree' surely expresses the author's
belief, but it is possible that the name had some other, possibly non-Slavic, origin.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 34 1

Dregovichians.23 Others settled on the [Western

Polochanians because of the little river that flows in
name - from it the Polochanians got their name. Slavs
too, and they called themselves by their own name Sl
and called it Novgorod. And others settled along the Des
the Sula, and they were called Sëverians. And in this wa
Therefore the writing too was called Slavic.

The first lines establish that in a remote but unspeci

settled along the Danube, then spread out and assume
the topography of their new homes, e.g., those
Moravljane. The naming principle is immediately ign
mentioned is the Czechs. We may assume that the a
started in the west and moved east to his own peop
sources of local names as he went. Unfortunately
somewhat disjointed and perhaps faulty. Ignoring th
Czechs immediately associated24 with the White Cro
and the Sorbs (Cbp6b), both otherwise known to
Czechs on or near the upper Elbe, and with the Car
closest Slavic neighbors to the south, beyond a Germ
of the East Frankish kingdom.26 Then a second clus
by a reason for migration - invasion of the Dan
people speaking Latin or a Romance language
pronominal references are unsatisfactory. The phrase
ohh RA; X om.) seems to involve a specific referenc
distance rather than these just-mentioned Danubian

23 The repeated definite form apy3HH is translated the other

merely mean 'some'. It is not clear just what groupings were en
24 The transitional words are a ce th xce Cjiobchh. Thjkc com
sense does not fit here. This then is an afterthought - "and he
these [groups] too [are] Slavs" - inserted to make the list more
23 Perhaps the epithet white denotes 'western' in the steppe
ultimately to Chinese. In any case, Porphyrogenitus locates W
to Francia (Opayyía, i.e. the East Frankish kingdom) whose
30/71-74, 31/3-5.
26 The initial x in XopyTaHe is unexpected. The Slavs of Carinthia (now Kärnten in
Austria and KoroSka in Slovenia) were Carantini in ninth -century Latin documents. The stem
was *korçt- in pre-Slovene dialects; the appropriate Rusian would be *korut-an-. Though
Old Bavarian might account for initial x (cf. Vasmer, sub XopyTaHe) it fails to explain the
second vowel, and in any case a non-Slavic pronunciation is improbable in the transmission
of this ethnonym from west to east. Haphazard instances of x for k in names are known, e.g.,
1073 139a23 CxoyTe but 138dl8 CKyee correct for Iia>8ai 'Scythians'; Lav 91.26 Cepyia>
for Cepyx-b(Gen 11:21-23, Ieoouy, Heb. Seme).
27 HX Bojioxomt>, LA Bojixomt>, R Bojiotomt>.

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 342 HORACE G. LUNT

pronoun obt> otherwise in the P

alternatives (some ... others [... st
'and certain Slavs'. In short, the pre
Vistula region is not clearly specifie
Whatever their origins, the Ljakh
Ljutici,28 Mazovsane, and Pomorja
obscure: raicoxce h th Cjiobíhc np
too came and settled along the Dn
Slavs too? The original Danube Sla
implied relationship between th
Poljane who presumably chose th
remains nebulous. The sentence abo
near Lake limen uses the same perfe
the preceding lines (alternating w
denotes a change of name, but the "
"named themselves, began to call th
them, called them." But whoever
seems odd that this group remained
term Slavic tongue - a reminder of t
seventy-two nations established afte
The last words, however, rEMxce
seem disconnected with the context
Slavic." Scholars generally agree tha
(separated by some 440 lines of tex
898, an account of the invention of
the term rpaMOTa may be a faint ec
nations who have their own writi
35).

in

The intervening text concludes the undated introduction and provides thirteen
entries for the years 852-897. The central topic is the Poljane along the
Dnieper, with special attention to Kyiv, although the presentation is

28 LRA JlyTHMH, X J1k>thhh, H JliOTHirfc. Adam of Bremen's History of the Bishops of

Hamburg (c 1080) mentions Leutici (also known as Wilzi) between the Elbe and Oder.
^ The Mazovians or east central Poland recur in the fVL (sub 1U4U, 1U4/) and later
Rusian history. The more distant Pomoranians, between the lower Oder and Vistula (cf. Adam
of Bremen), appear only here.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 343

disjointed, repetitive, and not always consistent. Th

the separate individuality of these Poljane,30 (2)
named Slavic groups31 and - in much fuzzier focus
a distant past settlement of Slavs on the Danube,32
Poljane and other Sloveni to the non-Slav neighbor
to Novgorod.
Slavs on the Danube in the past are mentioned twi

While the Slavic tongue - as we said - was living on t

the Scythians, i.e., from the Khazars, called Bulgarians
the Danube and became oppressors of the Slavs. After t
inherited the land of the Slavs, driving out the Volokh
the land of the Slavs. (11.15-23)

Scythian is a vague term Greek writers used for a

north. The Khazars had established a powerful stat
tenth century extended to the Dnieper region.33 Th
the "Proto-Bulgars" who settled on the Danube
merged with the Slavs they dominated. These Bulg
with the Avars who had occupied the Danubian Bas
the "White Ugri" of the sentence above introduce u
the O6i>pH oppressed the Slavs, in particular the Du
(11.23-12.18).34The rest of the introduction is ch
Poljane, and the first dated material deals with
affairs and with the establishment of the Varangian

30 7: 1: 'The Poliane were living separately (ocoöt) on t

were living separately and ruling their own clans" even befor
and Xoriv, with their sister Lebed', founded Kyiv.
31 12.14: "The Poliane were living separately, as we said,
(on> pOAa cjioB-fcHbCKa ), and they called themselves (Ha
formally "reflexive" naming-verbs allow the possibility
outsiders; "they were named [by unspecified others] Poliane.
JZ Prince Kyj, having visited Constantinople, tried to sett
inhabitants - "Danubians" Jlynanim - did not allow it (He Aa
that these neighbors were Slavs.
33 According to the last item of the undated introductio
Kyiv region paid tribute to the Khazars. A gloss defining Scy
in the Slavonic GM (36.16, 318.23), the latter in a badly
invasion of the west, including the Danube.
34 GM combined two sources in discussing the Avars; o
(translated as Obri) and the other the generic Turks, rendered
from theGk spelling "Oyypoi). The PVL adaptation does not m
refer to a single group.

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 344 HORACE G. LUNT

IV

The entry for 898 starts with a new incursion from the east, an event that
probably is to be dated 893. The Hungarians hurry past Kyiv to the middle
Danube, then the region south of the lower Danube, and finally Bohemia:

(1) The Ugri went past Kyiv by way of the hill that is now called Ugor'skoe. And
coming to the Dnieper they set up their tents. For they were nomads, as the
Polovcians are now. Coming from the east they hastened through the big
mountains which came to be called the Ugrian mountains.
(2) And they began to harry against the people who lived there, Volokhs and
Slavs.35 For earlier the Slavs had been settled there, and the Volokhs took the land
of the Slavs.36 And then the Ugri drove out the Volokhs and inherited the land.
And they settled with the Slavs, subjugating them, and from then on it was called
the land of the Ugri.
(3) And the Ugri began to harry against the Greeks, and they captured the land of
Thrace and Macedonia all the way up to Salonika.
(4) And they began to harry against Morava and the Czechs.
(5) There was one Slavic tongue, the Slavs who were settled along the Danube,
whom the Hungarians took, and the Morava and the Czechs and the Ljaxs and the
Polianians who are now called Rus'. For it was for them that the books were first
translated in Morava,37 which were called Slavic writing,38 which is the writing in
Rus' and among the Danube Bulgars.

Section (2) presents a familiar sequence: (a) Slavs settled [place unspecified,
"there"], (b) Volokhs invade and settle, (c) Ugri invade and settle. Item (a) -
now specifically "along the Danube" - and (c) recur in section (5). The
extremely vague information in section (3) is based on George the Monk.
What is important is that mention of Macedonia and Salonika seems to lead
directly to Morava, which leads to the Czechs (section 4) and provides an
opening for tying together the farflung groups who are Sloveni and use the
Slavic writing or writings (rpaMOTa). Morava is a slippery term: in (4) and
the first sentence of (5) it seems to be a collective referring to a people; in the

35 HX omit the two names.

36 H has "of the Volhynians" ( 3eMJiio BonuHbCKyio instead of cnoB-fcHbCKVio).
37 Chmt> 6o nbpBoe npejiojKeHbi KHHru MopaBt Aace npo3BacA ... (normalized text). I take
MopaB-fc as a locative without preposition (probably then a city), an old construction that is
generally tolerated in L, often in H, but usually "corrected" by the addition of a preposition
in the others. Here it has survived in all five witnesses because it can be parsed as dative,
referring to the people: "For them - the Moravians - the books...."
6 The term rpaMOTa probably includes the alphabet and the written texts; the plurale
tantum KT>Hnm has the same meanings.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 345

next sentence it denotes, in my opinion, a place. I wi

below.

The PVL implies that the Slavs began to exist during the building of the
Tower of Babel, as the grandsons of Noah separated into tribes. Then they aie
on the Danube, and Volokhs appear to oppress them (6.6-7; 25.17-18). The
supplemental association of Slavs with either Noricum or Illyricum does not
contradict a Danube origin, and PVL goes on to imply that the Slavs in the
west, east, and north spread from the Danube. Historians, on the contrary, tell
us that at some point, not much earlier than 500 C.E., the Slavs appeared in
the north and east and settled along the Danube from the Black Sea to a point
probably within modern Germany. The crux of the problem is the Volokhs;
everyone finds them inappropriate in these contexts.
Volokh or Vlakh is well attested in medieval and modern Slavic as an

appellation for disparate groups who speak Latin or a Romance dialect

(Rumanian, Dalmatian, Italian).
The Roman Empire occupied the right bank of the Danube in its entirety
by 200, and for a century extended into Dacia on the left or northern bank.
Therefore, the sequence should be Romans (Volokhs?) followed by Slavs. We
may conjecture that the PVL simply rearranged matters to make a plausible
story, or that the term Volokh has a special significance here. Or should we
declare that the authors of the PVL made a mistake, twice?
Some romantics among Slavic scholars have wished to believe that the
PVL records the true Slavic folk memory of the ultimate homeland.39 Oleg
Trubacev, for example, posits Slavs along the Danube (in modern Czech and
Slovak zones) from ca. 2000 to ca. 500 B.C.E., when they are displaced
northward by the Celts. Slavic *Wolx- was borrowed from a Germanic term
meaning 'foreigner, speaker of Celtic or Romance dialect'; therefore the PVL
passages refer to Celts.40 This solution rests squarely on the hypothesis that

39 In contrast, a putatively empirical model of ethnic population movement (developed

by a physical anthropologist) that omits the "human element" (defined as "great leaders,
important decisions, ambitions, accidents, apathy, luck, and all the rest of what people
believe in") finds Magyar to be a Mesolithic speech and Hungary to be the center from which
"all the other Uralic speakers expanded out of (Krantz 1988 11). That the Magyars arrived
as late as 896 is precluded by the strict applications of the model's rules; "a population
replacement, or even a language change, by [a northern Asian] tribe within a well-populated
agricultural region like Hungary at that time is clearly impossible" (72). In short, Krantz
ignores written history in favor of his own hypotheses.
40 The origin is the Latin name of a Celtic tribe in Gaul, Volcae, and in the west it retained
Celtic associations, e.g., Eng. Wales, Welsh. From the earliest German, however, it meant
'Roman, of Roman origin.' Safarik in the 1830s proposed to read Celt in these passages, but
subsequent generations pointed out that Celts were not in suitable regions after about 200
B.C.E.

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346 HORACE G. LUNT

the Slavs were an identifiable entity

evidence for such a group is avail
were not noticed by Romans or Gre
theorizing based on guesswork abou
names and allusions in heterogeneou
pragmatic approach.42 Folk memor
with single versions of the story
siblings) or the baptism of Volod
preserved even more ancient events?
yearning for the delights of the Da
efforts of Kyj (cf. n. 32 above) and
More probably they reflect the fac
historians they knew in connection w
Unless the PVL is simply wrong
ninth century, a period whose majo
Byzantine sources. According to th
on the Danube was the Franks - Roman Catholics who wrote Latin. Some
scholars conclude that this is the basis of the notion that found its way into
the PVL (see Gyóni).
It seems to me that the whole account of Slavic origins was fashioned from
heterogeneous written sources supplemented by some contemporary
knowledge, the pieces being arranged to make a story that satisfied the authors
of the PVL. One of the bits, I suggest, was a Byzantine source something like
the memoranda underlying the variant versions of the history of the Croats in
chapters 29 and 30 of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus's De Admininis-
trando Imperii (DAI). Ch. 29 speaks of the Romani (Tco|i(xvoi) of Dalmatia,
who possessed a territory that extended to the Danube. And once they became
curious about who lived on the other side, and "they crossed it and came upon
unarmed Slavic nations (e9vr| lK^aßf|viKa), who were also called Avar"
(29/15-17). They easily overcame them and took booty and prisoners. And

41 Trubaöev's extensive ruminations on the prehistory of Slavic language and society

operate with a protean Slavic ethnos that has no beginning or end, speaking a language that
endures for millennia. For his (bizarre) views on the irrevelance of defining a beginning for
Slavic, see 1991, esp. 55-56; on Celts and the PVL, see 41-42.
42 Trubaöev expresses astonishment that I could call the early Slavic language recorded
in etymological dictionaries 'entirely hypothetical' (1991 137; cf. Lunt 1985a 422). In this
passage and passim he makes it clear that he is unable to distinguish between facts and
ideas, between empirical evidence and guesses. His burning wish to demonstrate the eternal
exclusivity of the Slavs (along with the preeminence of the Russians) has put him in the
front ranks of contemporary nationalist myth-creators.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 347

the Romani made it a habit to make raids every ye

were also called Avars," (29/33) devised a plan and d
took the major city of Salona and eventually drove
Dalmatia. This version plainly equates Slavs wit
does so, but indirectly. The topic is "the taking of
was taken by the nations of the Slavs" (napa t5>v I
but in the rest of the episode only Avars appear
known to some Slavs and some Byzantines about 95
that somehow it became available in written S
Bulgarian Empire.

The PVL narrative now (26.5-29.2) looks at the origins of Slavic writing - a
concise account that includes citations from the Slavonic Life of Methodius

(printed in italics here):45

(6) Now as the Slavs were living in baptism, and their princes too,46 Rostislav and
Svjatopolk and Kocel sent to Emperor Michael,47 saying, "Our land has been
baptized, and we have no teacher who could admonish us and teach us and
interpret the holy books. For we do not understand either the Greek language or
the Latin. And some teach us this way and others teach us that way. Therefore, we

43 In terms of the PVL, then, they were oppressing the Slavs.

44 Chapter 30 gives a more elaborate account of the strategem whereby the Slavs captured
a Roman military unit, dressed themselves in Roman uniforms, and marched right into
Salona before the inhabitants realized who they were. Chapter 30 does not mention Romani.
In chapter 29 it is stressed that the inhabitants of the few coastal cities that did not fall (e.g.,
Ragusa, Spalato) "are called Romani to this day" (29.52). Otherwise the term 'Pcouaun is
used for subjects of the Empire, usually Greek.
45 The oldest known copy of the Life, along with an Encomium to Cyril and Methodius,
is in the Uspenskij Sbornik, a twelfth-century MS that surely was copied from older Rusian
and Bulgarian sources.
46 This prefatory clause is in the dative absolute, including the phrase h KHfl3eMi> hxt>,
producing a curious distance from the three names. Saxmatov "restores" the nominative
kt>rh3h "according to the sense" (1916 26).
47 In the Life of Constantino (hereafter 2K' known in copies no older than 1400), only
Rostislav of Morava, with unnamed princes and MopaanaHe "Moravans" appealed to the
Emperor (probably in 862). In the Life of Methodius (ZM' however, Rastislav's nephew and
successor CBATom>JiKT> - Svjatopolk in later ESI - is included. KoubJib, Kocel of Pannonia
(whose realm was centered around Lake Balaton, now in Hungary, with territories extending
west into Slovenia and Austria) entered the picture later (868?). Rostislav (spelled Rastislav
in South Slavic) was blinded and deposed in 870, Kocel died after 874, and Svjatopolk in
894.

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 348 HORACE G. LUNT

do not understand the sense of the letters or their force. Do send us a teacher who
can explain the words of the books and their sense."48
(7) Hearing this, Emperor Michael called together all the philosophers and
explained all that the Slavic princes had said. And the philosophers said, "There is
a man in Salonika named Leo. He has sons who understand the Slavic language,
two clever sons of his are even philosophers." Hearing this, the emperor sent to
Leo in Salonika for them, saying, "Send us your sons Methodius and
Constantine." Hearing this, Leo sent them quickly and they came to the emperor.49
And he said to them, "See, the land of the Slavs has sent to me asking for a teacher
for themselves, who would be able to interpret the holy books for them. For they
desire this."
(8) And they were persuaded by the emperor. And they sent them to the land of the
Slavs to Rostislav and Svjatopolk and Kocel. And when they arrived, they began
to put together the letters of the alphabet in Slavic.50 And they translated the
Apóstol and the Gospel.51 And the Slavs were glad that they heard the greatness of
God in their own language. And after this they translated the Psalter and the
Octoich52 and the rest of the books. And certain men began io deride the Slavic
books, saying, "It is not fitting for any tongue to have its own letters, except for
the Hebrews and the Greeks and the Latins, according to Pilate* s writing, which he
wrote on the cross of the Lord. "

(9) Now when the pope of Rome heard this, he rebuked those who were murmuring
against the Slavic books, saying,53 "Let the word of scripture be fulfilled, that 'AH
tongues shall speak forth the greatness of God, as the Holy Spirit gave them to
answer.'54 And if anyone55 derides the Slavic writing, let him be excluded^ from

48 The form yHHTejiA was interpreted as plural (i.e. OCS -jia) in LTHX(H^e ... MoryTb) but
singular (i.e. OCS -Jiia)in RA (Hate Moacexb), which thus agree with the Life of Methodius. In
the Life of Constantine, the request is for a bishop and teacher. Historians tend to overlook
this discrepancy and construct their interpretations on one or the other.
49 The story is abridged (no mention of the Saracen mission [¿K] or the Khazar mission
[ZK,22Vf]or the relics of St. Clement [¿K]) and rearranged (in ÍK% Constantine is summoned
to Constantinople long before he is given any duties at all).
DU Both ZM and ZK portray Constantine as inventing the alphabet and starting to
translate before they set out for Morava. The Encomium, however, rather vaguely assigns the
new writing to both brothers, apparently after their move to "the western regions" (Usp.
113cl-8).
51 That is, the lectionaries: the book of readings from Acts and the Epistles, the Greek
'AjróaxoXoç, and the Gospel lectionary, EvxxyyeXiov.
32 The Octoich, containing certain hymns for each day, to be sung according to a complex
schedule, was an indispensible book by 1100, but before 900 it was only beginning to
evolve. In any case, it is not mentioned in other Cyrillo-Methodian sources.
53 The italicized text is, according to ZM, from the letter Pope Hadrian II addressed to
Rostislav, Svjatopolk, and Kocel (Usp. sb. 106b26-cl8).
54 Compare Ps 85:9.
33 ZM has an expanded definition (Usp. sb. 106c2-8): any one of the teachers assembled
for you, flattering you and perverting you to heresy, begins to turn you in another
direction'.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 349

the church until he corrects himself. For they are wol

fitting to know by their fruit and to guard against th
God,58 heed the teaching of God and do not reject the
Methodius your teacher has admonished you."
(10) And Constantine returned and went to teach t
Methodius remained in Morava.59 And after this Ko
bishop in Pannonia,60 on the throne of St. Androni
Seventy, a disciple of the holy apostle Paul.
(11) And Methodius sat down two priests61 who we
translated all the books completely^2 from Greek
beginning in March, to the 26th of October.63 An
worthy praise and glory to God who gave such grac
successor of Andronicus.
(12) Therefore the teacher of the Slavic tongue is Andronicus the apostle. For also
the apostle Paul travelled to Morava and taught there. For there is Illyricum,64
which the apostle Paul reached. For there the Slavs were at first.
(13) Therefore Paul is the teacher also of the Slavic tongue, from which tongue we
Rus' are too; therefore Paul is teacher also to us Rus', because he taught the Slavic
tongue and established Andronicus as bishop and his successor for the Slavic
nation.

(14) And the Slavic tongue and the Rus' is one, for from the Varangians they were
called Rus', while at first they were Slavs. Even though they were called Polianians,
still they were Slavic in speech. And they came to be called Polianians because
they were settled in the field,65 but the Slavic tongue is one.

56 The Life of Methodius has here 'not only from communion, but' - He tt>kmo B-bcyAa,
ht> i - a phrase not understood by the editors of Usp. and perhaps not by the scribe, who
wrote ht>i, when m> h would have been appropriate.
57 Cf. Mt 7:15-16.
58 ZM 'beloved children'.
This is at odds with all other sources. A plausible sequence is that the brothers went to
Kocel' s realm in Pannonia for a time, then via Venice to Rome (868?), where Constantine
became ill. He took monastic vows and the monastic name Cyril not long before he died,
February 14, 869. Methodius, consecrated as Archbishop of Pannonia and Legate to all Slavs
by the Pope, was detained by Bavarian bishops for two and a half years before he was able to
join Kocel in Pannonia. He died on April 6, 885.
60 LRAHX Bb naHHH, T omits; ZM (Usp. sb. 106c) bt> IlaHOHHH. ZM says that Kocel
requested the Pope to send Methodius back to him as a teacher, but of course it was the Pope
who appointed Methodius as archbishop.
01 PVL .B. nona; Usp. sb. .b. norrbi, to be read with the Glagolitic value of the numeral, TpH
norrbi 'three priests' - a statement that makes the rapid translation even more plausible.
62 LM adds 'except for The Maccabees '
63 The period should be eight months (counting both March and October); here again we
assume that the Glagolitic numeral '8' was transliterated as "s," which has the Cyrillic value
of '6'.

64 At this point, 28.14 in PSRL I, the oldest manuscript, the Laurentian, has lost many
pages. L's text resumes with the "empty year" 923, at 43.9. The translation is therefore based
on the evidence of the four younger manuscripts, HXandRA.
65 Bt> nojiH, possibly here 'unforested land'.

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350 HORACE G. LUNT

Notice the paucity of specific loc

baptized Slavs, and Constantine and
land of the Slavs" (bt> cJioßtHbCKyio
of a place called Morava.66 It is assoc
somehow goes with Illyricum61 S
Romans 15:19, and the connection is reinforced by yet another of
Hippolytus's lists, one that records where each apostle preached and where he
died. FlayjiTj ace jitrbMb no bt>uii>ctbhh rocnoßbHH B'hJitee bt> anocTOJibCTBO
h HaHbHTb orb HepoycajiHMa aohac ao HjiHpvxa, PïrajiHA, h HcnaHHA
nponoB-EAaia HeyarrejuiHre (Izbornik of 1073, 262a23), "And Paul, in the
year following the Lord's ascension, entered the apostolate and starting from
Jerusalem he went to Illyricum, Italy, and Spain."
What is the relationship of Morava to Pannonial For scholars in the 1990s,
the answer must be that the first term is of uncertain value, while the second
is reasonably specific. Pannonia in ninth-century Latin texts was roughly
modern southwest Hungary, bounded on the north and east by the Danube.68
There are two major rivers called Morava, one a north tributary flowing into
the Danube just above Bratislava (March in German, Maws in Latin), the
other a south tributary that enters the Danube nearly five hundred kilometers
downstream, east of Belgrade (Margus in Latin). The March/Marus was in the
high middle ages a major route from Italy and Austria to the headwaters of the
Oder and Vistula; the Margus was an ancient route from the Danube basin to
Salonika and the Aegean or to central Bulgaria and Constantinople. In the

66 PVLocTa B Mopaßt. In ¿K the initial period of the mission (cf. n. 39 above) is defined,
MeTbipeAecATb MtcAUb CTBopn BTbMopaB-fc 'he completed forty months in Morava'. Imre Boba
has insisted that the preposition indicates the name of a city, since Czech uses na Morave to
specify location in the province or territory Morava that is centered on the Morava river.
(The archaic prepositionless locative in (5) is stronger evidence, see n. 37.) Serbian,
however, distinguishes na Moravi 'on the Morava' (the river in eastern Serbia) from u
Moravi 'in (the region called) Morava'. Evidence for ninth-century dialectal usage is
inadequate to resolve the question.
67 The text is slightly odd (28.13): LTA b MopaB u 6o xoahjit,
RX B MopaB U ÕOAOXOAH/Tb
Hyp MopaBbi 6o aoxoahjit>.
In LTA, the first phrase might be interpreted as "among (the people called) Moravi," with
the unprefixed verb indicating repetition of his visits. RX changed the verb in accord with
the next statement, while H revised the whole clause to make a standard sentence, with
genitive MopaBbi - now clearly the name of aplace - as object of AoxoflH.m>: Andronicus
reached Morava. Similarly the next statement (28.14): Ty 6o ecTb Hjitopwcb, eroxe
ßoxoßHJTh anocTOJTb ilaBeJTb. Here clearly St. Paul is presented as going as far as, all the way
to Illyricum.
08 After 900 it is the normal term for Hungary.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 3 5 1

ninth century, the Moravi (or Marvani, or Sciavi mar

spelling variants),69 were a persistent military problem f
kingdom, from about 846 when a certain Rastiz became p
Frank leader, and even more after his nephew Zwentibald
variants) took power among the Moravi in 870 - these tw
and Sventopulk or Svjatopolk of Slavic sources. Received
two as leaders of a powerful and extensive kingdom or e
Moravia," based somehow in Czech Morava and/or the ne
Slovak lands. A rereading of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic
"heretical" conclusion that "Moravia" was somewhere south of the Danube. A

quarter century of wrangling among scholars has failed to produce a

consensus, and the traditional northern "Moravia" has generally prevailed
because of the quantity and volume of polemic, combined with the inertia of
non-specialists who are reluctant to rethink what they learned as students. My
own view at present is that there is no evidence to place Rastislav/Rastiz in
Czech or Slovak territory, and therefore Constantine too cannot have worked
in that area. Sventopulk, however, was lord of most of Slovak and Bohemian
territory after 890, and Methodius may well have been involved with
problems north of the Danube at the end of his life (ca. 880-885).70
The question to examine here is what the authors and early readers of PVL
understood. Sections 10-14 of this passage depend on symbols, not true
geographical locations. Methodius is associated with Morava and Pannonia
(10). Pannonia explicitly ties him with Andronicus, traditionally the first
bishop there, which links him with St. Paul.71 Paul travelled as far as
Illyricum. PVL has come full circle, for it already has mentioned Illyricum
and Slavs together (3.8, see above). If Paul taught there, he taught the Slavs.
And the final step is easy: since St. Paul taught the Slavs, he taught us, the
Poljane, that is to say the Rus'.72

69 Slavonic has MopaaniaHe as a rule, but Rusian can use MopaBa as a collective (like
ßepeBa for AepeaniaHe ), see above, section IV and note 37.
70Imre Boba' s controversial 1971 book aroused a storm of discussion, much of it quite
irrevelant. Antitraditional views are offered by Charles R Bowlus (1995), who concentrates
on the military aspects of Frankish campaigns, and Martin Eggers (1995), who essays a more
comprehensive view. They agree in important ways, but their disagreements are also
significant. I suspect that the extraordinarily scant sources do not suffice to answer some
fundamental questions (cf. also Lunt 1994, 1996).
The Seventy apostles are the disciples of the twelve original apostles chosen by
Jesus; a list attributed to Hippolytus is in the Izbornik of 1073, where #20 is Ahapohhki»
eriHCKorn> IlaHOHHa (262d6-7).
72 The equations are scattered but their ultimate intent is unmistakeable. Beside the
remarks in section 5 (including uojiflHe A*e Hñt 3OBOMaa Pycb, 26.1) and 14 (hardly a model

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 352 HORACE G. LUNT

The significance of the message is cl

spring from one of the Japhetic trib
kin of other Slavs (on the Danube, i
related to other Japhetic groups (V
writings, shared with other Slavs,
apostolic line through Methodius to A
himself).73
The form and coherence of the message is another matter. Russian scholars
were disturbed by many details and hypothesized that much of the
information had to be from a written West Slavic (probably Czech) source,
dubbed CKã3ãHHe o npejioxceHMH cjiobõhckhx khhe14 I see no compelling
need for such a source. PVUs abridgement of the story of Constantine and
Methodius purposefully strips away everything but the basic statement of the
creation of letters and translation of texts plus the apostolic succession. The
chief deviation - the assertion that Constantine went to teach the Bulgars -
would rather imply a Bulgarian source. The possibility that the brothers were
working in a zone not far from Belgrade (rather than a northern region not far
from modern Bratislava) requires us to reexamine other evidence. We may
assume that the first generations of educated Christian Bulgarian and Bulgaro-
Slav cultural workers (including Tsar Symeon) knew Greek well and that there
was communication among travellers (clerics, merchants, military men) to
Dalmatia and Rome. In any case, there may be confusion because of the early
tenth-century author Konstantin "of Preslav," who recorded his name in
acrostics (Georgi Popov, 1985).

of lucidity), cf. 23.25, sub 882, 6tiua y Hero Bap*3H h GnoB-fcHH h npoMH h npo3Baiua ca
Pycbio.
73 A second apostolic line is implied by the tale of St. Andrew, who travelled from the
Black Sea to the Novgorodian Sloveni and west by sea around Europe to Rome (7.25-9.4). In
a fourteenth-century Greek paraphrase of the PVL, this is made explicit: "The rays of the
Divine light shone on Russia from the walls of Byzantium, where the apóstol Andrew
enthroned the first bishop, Stachys (of the 70) and thus entrusted to his successors in the
spirit of foreknowledge the extensive country in which Andrew himself proclaimed Christ
(in Sinope and Crimea) and from there fashioned the unbreakable bond of the Russian
church with the Hellenic church in Byzantium ... and the Bulgars, Moravi (Serbs and Vlakhs)
living on the Danube and the Slavs of Illyria were illuminated by holy baptism about the
middle of the 9th century ... two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, educated men, translated the
Old and New Testaments and the holy books and all of Divine Scripture."
Lambros 133. (The significance of the parentheses is uncertain; they maybe additions by
Lambros.) In the Izbornik of 1073, Craxoycb eriHCKom, BH3aHTHia is #23 in the list of the
Seventy, 262dll.
74 It was "reconstructed" in some detail by Saxmatov, extensively modified by
Nikol'skij, and further discussed by Jakobson. A detailed analysis is given by Gyóni.

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 THE RUST PRIMARY CHRONICLE 353

Does the PVL help locate the Morava where Co

welcome by Rastislav? Twice Morava and Czechs are
does this not guarantee that the northern Morava (Ma
believe it does not, for the whole construction of the
it verges on incoherence. The authors seem to have ha
geography or the social groups. They rightly linke
Macedonia and Salonika, the region (and/or peo
introduction of Slavic writing, and Morava to Cz
coherence of these passages is far from rigorous. The
middle and lower Danube to the river Morava has no e
number of Slavs being implied by the context. The ne
called themselves Czechs," has the long pronomin
Unfortunately neither OCS nor PVL usages allow us t
of "definite" versus "indefinite" ([some] others vs.
insist that the passage deals with a group that m
whereupon one part stayed, with a new name, and "the
took another, quite arbitrary, name. Sventopulk's Mora
include the March valley, and the Moravians of that r
known to Germanic and Slavic neighbors long after t
had erased the memory of former Slavic groups in H
Morava is purely a symbolic link in the cultural chain
Rus' back to St. Paul; the geography is insignificant.76
The origin of the Slavs is, then, God's definition
tongues or peoples descended from Japheth at the
Tower of Babel and scattered the nations across the face of the earth. It is
notable that no intermediate ancestor is named (neither a son of Japheth nor
perhaps a putative Sloven to justify the unitary designation of the "Slavic
tongue"), and that most subgroups of Slavs did not engage the full attention
of the authors of the PVL. The initial list (cols. 5-6) has sixteen names, but
only Moravian, Derevlian, and Polochanian are given etymologies. The
Poljane who are also Ljakhs and the Poljane on the Dnieper are never
explicitly defined, and only at the very end of the account of writing and
religion is their name analyzed (section 14 sub 898): they lived "in the field,"
bt> nojiH. Why was this not explained when they are first mentioned,
immediately before the putative "forest-dwellers," the Derevljane? Assuming

75 Note that in section (5) Morava quite clearly is a collective noun denoting the people.
Yet Rastislav, Kocel, and Svjatoslav speak for, and are referred to as, the Slavic land, 3eMJiia
cjioBtHbCKaia (sections 6, 7, 8).
76 See Eggers, particularly his introduction, for the development of the historio-
graphical myth that goes back to the tenth century.

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 354 HORACE G. LUNT

that nojie means unforested land, s

details - named ancestors, split
organization, way of life, political in
Slavic writing, too, is the result o
God'schosen instrument, Consta
notably Methodius), in the chose
hallowed from the beginning by Pau
called Morava or Moravljane and spr
Danube Slavs. Just why and how th
The brief account allows room for
Slavic books, but nothing is said
message has been written down; it i
The authors of the PVL were op
memory supplemented by written
background to eleventh-century his
Jaroslav Volodimerovic (died 105
grandfather Svjatoslav Igorevic (d
879), as well as his Christian herita
and good works (praised sub 1037
their subjects - are connected to th
and the even vaguer Slavs of the Dan
In all probability, however, it was b
limited curiosity that Kyi vans of th

Harvard Unive

77 Etymologists have noted that polje

undesirable land' or 'flat land'. It is possibl
the basis of one or both of these senses.
The fourth-generation ancestor, Rjurik, is manifestly very remote in memory, and the
PVL dates even for the tenth century are unreliable. The criteria for defining Rus' as a group
remain hazy, but kinship ties are significant for the rulers.

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 THE RUS' PRIMARY CHRONICLE 355

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