Suprasl Manuscript

(Suprasliensis Manuscript; also called Suprasliensis Copy), the text of a Byelorussian-Lithuanian chronicle, contained in a collection that was rewritten in 1519 for Prince S. I. Odintsevich. The collection was later owned by the Supraśl Monastery.

The Supraśl Manuscript is important in that it is the most complete and accurate reflection of the earliest 15th-century Byelorussian-Lithuanian chronicle compilation (codex) that has survived. This codex, the foundation of subsequent Byelorussian-Lithuanian codices, was compiled from three basic sources: the Chronicle of the Grand Princes of Lithuania (c. 1428–30), chronicle entries made in the 1430’s and 1440’s, and an all-Russian codex in a West Russian version dating from the mid-15th century. The last contains unique fragments of the chronicle of Metropolitan Photius for 1410–27.