Primary Chronicle (Tale of Bygone Years)
The oldest chronicle of Rus’, compiled at Kyiv in the early twelfth century from older annals, treaties, saints’ lives and oral tradition. It is the main narrative of Vladimir’s baptism, written over a hundred years after it.
The chronicle was put together by monks at Kyiv; one version carries a note by Sylvester, prior of St Michael’s, dated 1116, and the oldest surviving copy, the Laurentian, was written in 1377. For the tenth century its compilers worked from materials of very uneven worth, and the account of Vladimir the Great combines at least two stories: a testing of the faiths that ends with the report of his envoys from Constantinople, and a baptism at Chersonesus tied to his marriage. The chronicler himself says that others placed the baptism at Kyiv or at Vasil’ev.
Its years are counted from the creation of the world. They are not always reliable for this period and have to be checked against Byzantine and Arabic writers such as History and History.
Cited in
- AD 863 to AD 885, estimated date
- AD 988/989, estimated date