Nestor the Chronicler
Nestor (c. 1056 - c. 1114), the reputed author of the earliest Ruthenian chronicle, was a monk of the Pecherski Lavra (Monastery) of Kyiv from 1073.The only other fact of his life is that he was commissioned with two other monks to find the relics of St Theodosius, a mission which he succeeded in fulfilling. The chronicle begins with the deluge, as those of most chroniclers of the time did. The compiler appears to have been acquainted with the Byzantine historians; he makes use especially of John Malalas and George Hamartolus. He also had in all probability other Slavonic language chronicles to compile from, which are now lost. Many legends are mixed up with Nestor's Chronicle; the style is occasionally so poetical that perhaps he incorporated bylinas which are now lost.
As an eyewitness he could only describe the reigns of Vsevolod and Sviatopolk (1078-1112), but he gathered many interesting details from the lips of old men, two of whom were Giurata Rogovich of Novgorod, who gave him information concerning the north of Ruthenia, Petchora, and other places, and Jan, a man ninety years of age, who died in 1106, and was son of Vishata the voivode of Yaroslavl and grandson of Ostromir the Posadnik, for whom the Codex was written. Many of the ethnological details given by Nestor of the various races of the Slavs are of the highest value.
The latest theory about Nestor is that the Chronicle is a patchwork of many fragments of chronicles, and that the name of Nestor was attached to it because he wrote the greater part or perhaps because he put the fragments together. The name of a certain Sylvester, an Igumen, is affixed to several of the manuscripts as the author.
Soloviev, the Russian historian, remarks that Nestor cannot be called the earliest Russian chronicler, but he is the first writer who took a national point of view in his history, the others being merely local writers. The language of his work, as shown in the earliest manuscripts just mentioned, is Palaeo-Slavonic with many Russisms. It has formed the subject of a valuable monograph by Professor Miklosich.
The reputed body of the ancient chronicler may be seen among the relics preserved in the Kiev Pecherski Monastery.
See Louis Leger's Chronique dite de Nestor (Paris, 1884); Bestuzhev Riumin, On the Composition of the Russian Chronicles till the end of the 14th century (in Russian), (St Petersburg, 1869).
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