Keletas pastabų apie Maskvoje rastą Lietuvos metraščio fragmentą

LTLietuvos metraščių moksliniai tyrimai vyksta jau beveik 200 metų - nuo XIX a. 3 deš., kai Ignas Danilavičius (Ignacy Daniłowicz) Supraslio vienuolyne rado ir spaudoje paskelbė Trumpojo Lietuvos metraščių sąvado nuorašą. Nuo tada iki dabar buvo publikuota dauguma šiandien žinomų realiu fiziniu pavidalu egzistuojančių (ar bent publikuojant egzistavusių) Lietuvos metraščių nuorašų, paskelbti net ir keli nedideli fragmentai. Šiame straipsnyje norima atkreipti dėmesį į vieną vis dar menkai žinomą, istorikų ir filologų darbuose nenaudojamą, tačiau išties svarbų tekstą. Apie 2005 m. Maskvoje buvo rastas tyrėjams nežinomas „Lietuvos didžiųjų kunigaikščių metraščio“ fragmentas (p. 438).

ENIn around 2005, a fragment of the Chronicle of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, hitherto unknown to researchers, was found in Moscow. It was found by Evgenija Luk’janova of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents (Moscow) when she was describing the books in the library of the Muscovy writer and poet Sil’vestr Medvedev (1641-1691). The fragment was found in the book: [Ioaniciusz Galatowski], Messiasz Prawdziwy Iezvs Chrystvs Syn Boży ... The fragment of the chronicle was used as an endpaper on the top hard cover of Galatowski’s book, which was printed in Kiev in 1672 and is kept in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents in the Sinodal’naja tipografija Library collection. Russian historians Ludmila Moshkova and Anatoly Turilov prepared a transcript of the fragment. It was published twice: in 2005 in Simeon Polockij’s Library. A Catalogue by Anthony Hippisley and Evgenija Luk’janova and in a catalogue of 16th-century Slavic Russian manuscript books kept in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents released in 2014. The description in this article is based on the latter publication, images and having inspected the fragment de visu. At present, researchers can witness a text of 12 lines from the chronicle fragment which is on the visible side of the page. This text gives an account of the end of the battle at Veišiškės between Vytautas’ and Skirgaila’s forces, and information about battles near the Vilnius Castles. The first researchers to have examined the fragment, Moshkova and Turilov, found that from a textological approach, it is closest to the Supraśl and Vilnius, or the Avraamka, copies. However, according to the researchers, it bears some features that are characteristic of only one of these copies (that are present in one copy and missing from the other). It is likely that in this context, we should be talking about the Academy and Supraśl copies, while the discovered fragment is a kind of interm.Based on the Ruthenian semi-uncial, the mentioned researchers date the fragment to the last quarter of the 15th to the first quarter of the 16th centuries, or simply the late 15th-early 16th centuries. Moshkova and Turilov found that the chronicle was written in the territory of present-day Belarus or Ukraine. Today we can only guess as to how the fragment found its way into the book. All we do know is that Medvedev inherited the manuscripts and library of his teacher, Simeon Polockij (1629-1680). Thus, the fragment in question or even the entire chronicle could have been among Simeon’s manuscripts. The version explained in the article of how the fragment came to be in the book is merely a provisional working hypothesis. The very path of the publication’s arrival in Medvedev’s library is partly explained by one other inscription testifying to a previous owner, left by Andrzej Zumbrowski / Zambrowski in 1674 and 1677 (?). More information about this individual is not available, but it is unlikely that he could have been the owner of the chronicle or its fragment. The year given in the inscription has been corrected (to 1677), which further diminishes the possibility that the book’s owner was Simeon Polockij, as he died in 1680.Further de visu research of Simeon’s and Medvedev’s books could reveal at which stage the chronicle fragment appeared in the book. What is clear now is that the book was bound in the second half of the 17th century, probably between 1677 and 1689. It was at precisely this stage that Medvedev worked at the Moscow Print Yard (Pechatnyj dvor) in Moscow where books were not only printed but bound as well. As such, it is quite possible that Medvedev took advantage of the post he held. Simeon could have also made use of this opportunity, because he was also involved with the Moscow Print Yard and the Upper (Tsarist) Printers (Verchnjaja tipografija). The version where a bookbinder simply used his own initiative in taking the chronicle fragment from a pile of manuscripts at hand at the time also appears likely. An unarguable fact is that in 1689, the chronicle fragment was already in the binding of the copy of Galatowski’s work, which belonged to Medvedev. It should also be said that more thorough archival and bibliological research is required. Perhaps then the course of the fragment’s journey into the book will become clearer, or perhaps more fragments of the same chronicle or other interesting relics of early Lithuanian writing will be found.