Illustrations for Our Time

This article examines how the Black Death is represented visually in the Illustrated Chronicle Compilation (Litsevoi letopisnyi svod), a many-tomed account of the history of Russia compiled and lavishly illustrated at the court of Ivan the Terrible in the 1560s or 1570s. Illustrators and chroniclers depicted ordinary plague victims differently from those of high rank. Lofty individuals, like Grand Prince Semen Ivanovich and his sons, were shown apart from the mass deaths and their deaths were not explicitly attributed to plague. This may be because plague was understood as divine punishment. Nonetheless, the illustrations show the common humanity of plague victims. Illustrators also expressed an appreciation of the organic connections between human and natural spheres and the fragile relations between the two.