Perils of Compilation and Problematic Chronology

Abstract

This article argues that the Piskarev Chronicle provides glimpses of lost sources devoted to the legacy of tsar Ivan the Terrible. This complex and contradictory compilation preserves examples of efforts to revive chronicle-writing after Ivan’s death and it also provides evidence of a continuing crisis in traditional annalistic recording of the past. Various glitches reveal its complexity as a compilation and collectively expose the cultural gulf between the early seventeenth-century compiler and his sources. This study also analyzes the working methods of an early modern Russian compiler who was keen to transmit memories of tragic events that had officially been consigned to oblivion.