Galician-Volynian Chronicle

a rather clearly delimited portion of the Hypatian Chronicle, containing a description of events from the beginning of the 13th century to 1292.

The Galician-Volynian Chronicle is typically secular and poetic in its style of exposition. The coherence of its narrative and the use of similar stylistic devices throughout create the impression of internal unity in the chronicle. However, researchers have succeeded in distinguishing within it a number of successive revisions in which contemporary records were integrated with prior material. Historical literature offers several estimates on the time of compilation of the chronicle and of its separate parts and redactions. One of the main stages in the development of the Galician-Volynian tradition of chronicle writing was reached in the 1240’s in circles close to Daniil of Galicia when a single text was prepared from several chronicles. This compilation (svod) was later revised several times in various cities of southwestern Rus’. Aside from the Galician-Volynian records proper, the Galician-Volynian Chronicle incorporated elements from a Kievan chronicle compilation (presumably the svod of 1238) and from a composite chronograph similar to that of the Ellinskii chronicler. The chronology of the Galician-Volynian Chronicle is extremely confused. It is noteworthy that the dating of events until the 1240’s differs, as a rule, by four to five years from the customary dating. This can be explained by the use in southwestern Rus’ of a system of reckoning the time from “the creation of the world” to “the birth of Christ” as 5,503 to 5,505 years and not 5,508 years.