Acta of Western Russia

collected and published by the Archeographic Commission, covering the period 1340–1699 (vols. 1–5, St. Petersburg, 1846–53).

The first volume covers the period 1340–1506, the second, 1506–44, the third, 1544–87, the fourth, 1588–1632, and the fifth, 1633–99. The collection primarily contains materials on the political history of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Lithuania. The documents in the collection reveal the relations of the grand duchy of Lithuania and Poland with Russia, Moldavia, the Crimean Khanate, and the Livonian order. Acta of Western Russia reprints the Wislitsa, Kraków, and Warta statutes; the 1468 law book of Casimir IV; deeds of treaty and truce between the Lithuanian grand dukes and the grand dukes of Muscovy and Tver’ and Novgorod, Pskov, and Moldavian hospodars; treaties of Novgorod and Pskov with the Livonian order; and agreements and charters of loyalty and fealty of the independent princes with the grand dukes. The collection reprints many charters granting the Magdeburg Law to the Polish nobility, to the clergy, and to cities, inventories, charters regulating custom duties, inventories of royal volosts and statutes on their administration, and other materials. There are also documents on Russian history in the early 17th century and the liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people in the mid-17th century, and materials on the history of the church—for instance, the Brest Union of 1596.