The monk-historian used such individual legends, put them in order, year by year; inserted here and there his instructions, his prayer exclamation, added his monastic chronicle, and thus a whole chronicle was created, a whole chronicler. Individual legends appeared earlier than the chronicle collections and were included in the latter either in their entirety or in abbreviations and alterations. The very same era in which individual legends began to be written more often and more frequently was the era of the appearance of chronicles. The chronicler ceases to be content with only the modern: he wants to create, recreate the past, talk about things that are not written down, confirm or deny city and national legends, adapt the old legends to his corpus and immediately insert ready-made teachings; In all this, he is driven by the desire to talk about forgotten antiquity: “Behold the tale of bygone years.” The narrator of the past becomes a historian in a serious sense
I. P. KHGUSHCHOV,
words, wants to make known a forgotten event (povedati), pushed into the distance, and, when describing modern events, he has posterity in mind. Creativity and inspiration are necessary for a story or story, and these names initially refer to the story of the cherished past, about which the song sounded and folk legend repeated.
A legend differs from a story primarily in its truthfulness, the author’s closeness to the event, and the lack of inspiration that is necessary for a story. But the legend does not constitute the first stage of narrative creativity. For a whole tale to appear about a single event, it is necessary that the author be strongly interested in this event, stop on it, and concentrate. And so he usually introduces the reader to such a special story with the words: “let’s say briefly, let’s say little... I want to say what I heard.”
Thus, the tales found in the chronicles represent something between a story and a runaway story-record, which was the original literary form of the chronicle. Let us dwell a little on the initial literary types of chronicle creativity—the recording and the story. Determining these latter will show the relative height of the legend and the story.
Our scientists have proven that we used the chronology system of the Byzantines O”—** this was the first step in our scientific rapprochement with the educated world. Chart tables with ready-made series of annual figures were an important aid that our young literacy took advantage of for weather recording of events. Our initial chronicles were written, apparently, by non-spiritual people. In those days when the Christian religion was not yet dominant in Rus', princely people began to record the events of military life. Proof that the most ancient chronicles were not written by clergy is the fact that they did not record events important for the success of Christianity 2). The form of the original chronicles is short and condensed. They consist of mentioned
') Sukhozhitpe: On the ancient Russian chronicle as memory, literature, 30-45.
*) Sreznevsk: Readings about ancient Russian chronicles, p. 17.
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vi-v. Iovestn. vryagannda* ■ ілід. Holyu, 4 mrdaad,,
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