A Lost Byzantine Chronicle in Slavic Translation

Abstract

Until recently the so-called Slavic version of the Chronicle of George Synkellos has not been paid proper attention. The attribution of Vasilij Istrin who in the beginning of the 20th c. identified the Slavic text as a translation from an abridged redaction of the Byzantine chronicle, was thoroughly accepted by the Slavic studies researchers. As a result, no great importance was attached to the Slavic text preserved in 5 copies from 15-16 cc. (of which Istrin knew only 4) because of the closed tradition of the copies and their relatively late date. My research linked to the publication of this unedited Slavic chronicle led me to the conclusion that the text referred to as the Slavic version of Synkellos by both Istrin and his successors is not a translation of the Greek Synkellos but rather a chronographic compilation. It was demonstrated that the first part of the compilation narrating the years from the Creation up to the Resurrection of Christ represents a vast excerpt from the Julius Africanus’s Christian chronography and only the second part covering the years after the Resurrection up to the foundation of Constantinople contains the respective text of Synkellos plus a couple of pages from the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor that was not translated in OCS. Both the discovery of a non fragmented text of Africanus and the conclusion that the Slavic translation was done during the 1st Bulgarian Kingdom in 10th c. raise a series of problems my contribution touches upon.