Nestor, A Monk Of The Convent Of Petchersti At Kiof In Russia, Whose Secular Name Is Not Known

was born in 1056, at Bielzier; and, in his twenty-ninth year, assumed a monastic habit, and took the name of Nestor. At Kiof he made a considerable proficiency in the Greek language, but seems to have formed his style and manner rather from Byzantine historians, Cedrenus, Zona' as, and Syncellus, than from the ancient classics. The time of Nestor’s death is not ascertained; but he is supposed to have lived to an advanced age, and to have died about 1115. His great work is his “Chronicle;” to which he has prefixed an introduction, which, after a short sketch of the early state of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, contains a | geographical description of Russia and the adjacent countries; an account of the Sclavonian nations, their manners, their emigrations from the banks of the Danube, their dispersion, and settlement in several countries, in which their descendants are now established. He then enters upon a chronological series of the Russian annals, from the year 858 to about 1113. His style is simple and unadorned, such as suits a mere recorder of facts but his chronological exactness, though it renders his narrative dry and tedious, contributes to ascertain the aera and authenticity of the events which he relates. It is remarkable, that an author of such importance, whose name frequently occurs in the early Russian books, should have remained in obscurity above 600 years; and been scarcely known to his modern countrymen, the origin and actions of whose ancestors he records with such circumstantial exactness. A copy of his “Chronicle” was given, in 1668, by prince Radzivil, to the library of Konigsburgh, where it lay unnoticed until Peter the Great, in his passage through that town, ordered a transcript of it to be sent to Petersburg. But it still was not known as the performance of Nestor; for, when Muller, in 1732, published the first part of a German translation, he mentioned it as the work of the abbot Theodosius of Kiof; an error, which arose from the following circumstance: the ingenious editor, not being at that time sufficiently acquainted with the Sclavonian tongue, employed an interpreter, who, by mistaking a letter in the title, supposed it to have been written by a person whose name was Theodosius. This ridiculous blunder was soon circulated, and copied by many foreign writers, even long after it had been candidly acknowledged and corrected by Muller.

Nestor was successively followed by three annalists; the first was Sylvester, abbot of the convent of St. Michael at Kiof, and bishop of Perislaf, who died in 1123; he commences his “Chronicle” from 1115, only two years posterior to that of Nestor, and continues it to 1123; from which period a monk, whose name has not been delivered down to posterity, carries the history to 1157 and another, equally unknown, to 1203. With respect to these performances, Mr. Muller informs us, “the labours of Nestor, and his three continuators, have produced a connected series of the Russian history so complete, that no nation can boast a similar treasure for so long and unbroken a | period.” We may add, likewise, from the same authority, that these annals record much fewer prodigies and monkish legends than others which have issued from the cloister in times so unenlightened. 1


Coxe’s Travels through Russia, vol. II. p. 185.—Schloeter, Russ. Ann. p. 32.