On Roman Origins of the Lithuanians | Сталосѧ єсть воплощеє сн҃а Бж҃ьего

Read the text (PDF)

Introduction to the Source

The text used for this translation is taken from the Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia, a 16th-century compilation written in Ruthenian from the Świdzinski Miscellany of Lithuanian Chronicles, once part of the Krasiński Collection. Unfortunately, the manuscript itself burned during World War II; however, paleographic descriptions by Evfimii Karskii and Franciczek Pułaski provide necessary information about its contents, while individual texts, including The Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia, were published by Afanasii Fedorovich Bychkov in 1893 and later in Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei. Two versions of the Chronicle are known: the shorter version was witnessed by the lost Krasiński copy and the longer version by the Alshevskii, Archeographic, Patriarch, Rumiantsev (Moscow, Russian State Library, Collection 37, № 435), and Tikhonravov copies.

The manuscript used in this translation represents the second redaction of the Chronicle, in which the account of the Roman descent of the Lithuanians first appears. The Chronicle is written in Ruthenian, the written language of the ethnic East Slavic population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. This area, generally referred to as Ruthenia, corresponds to portions of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and southern Russia.

Introduction to the Text

Compiled in the 1520s, the Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia (henceforth Chronicle) is an original composition of unknown authorship. Aristocratic in tone, the Chronicle includes a description of the legendary origins of the Lithuanian princes and nobles: that they descended from Roman patricians who, under the leadership of Prince Palemon, fled the tyranny of Emperor Nero. It was likely compiled at the court of the powerful magnate Albertas Goštautus while he was the Voivode (governor) of Vilnius and Grand Chancellor of Lithuania from 1522 to 1539. Most scholars agree that the Chronicle’s focus on Lithuania’s noble origins suggests that it was used in the 16th century as a historical justification for Lithuania’s autonomy in its union with Poland and to distinguish Lithuania from neighboring Slavic realms.

The Polish historian Jan Długosz (1415-1480) was the first to write in a work of history the idea that the Lithuanians descended from Roman patricians in his Chronicles of the Kingdom of Poland. It is likely that the anonymous author of the Chronicle found this information in Długosz’s work and developed a detailed and dynamic narrative of the foundation of the Lithuanian state. The Chronicle opens with an enumeration of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Nero, and attributes the flight of Palemon, the legendary founder of Lithuania and Nero’s relative, to Nero’s tyranny. It describes how Palemon, along with four well-known noble Roman families by the names of Centaurus, Columna, Rose and Ursini, and five hundred others, sailed to Lithuania in search of a safe place to live. The remainder of the text provides vivid descriptions of the great beauty and abundance of what would become Lithuanian lands and describes how names were chosen for important cities. It also provides a genealogical record of Palemon’s progeny and founded important cities and regions in Lithuania. In fact, the text credits Palemon’s son Kernus with giving the Lithuanians their name by combining the words riverside “litus” and pipe “tuba” which became “Litustuba” in Latin and “Litva” in Ruthenian.

The Chronicle is ambiguous about the temporal and geographical settings of the events it describes. Besides the year of Christ’s birth and mention of Palemon’s flight during Nero’s reign, no dates or indicators of time are provided. Moreover, Palemon, a figure from antiquity, is anachronistically tied to prominent Roman families from the Middle Ages. Additionally, many of the cities and other locations in the text cannot be linked to existing 16th-century locations. These ambiguities reflect the legendary nature of the Chronicle’s narrative and suggest that its author intended to emphasize the antiquity of the Lithuanian state and its nobility.

Scholars today argue that the Chronicle’s portrayal of Lithuanians’ ancient Roman roots speaks to the 16th-century Lithuanian nobility’s historical and political consciousness. By linking the 16th-century Lithuanian state to Roman culture and history, the Chronicle’s author(s) influenced future official state historiography and political doctrine, as well as conceptions of collective identity. In fact, Uladzimir Kananovich (see Further Reading below) has argued that the Chronicle speaks more to the political and cultural reality of the 16th century than to the much earlier period it describes. Some of the names of rulers and noble families mentioned in the Chronicle belong to well-known noblemen of the 15th and 16th centuries, suggesting the author(s)’ intent to legitimize contemporary authority figures by connecting them to historical legendary leaders. Therefore, the Chronicle can be read as providing a history not only of the Lithuanian state but of regional noble communities in power in the 16th century.

Global Medieval Sourcebook A Digital Repository of Medieval Texts

Text Information

On Roman Origins of the Lithuanians | Сталосѧ єсть воплощеє сн҃а Бж҃ьего

Read the text (PDF)

Introduction to the Source

Introduction to the Text

Further Reading

Credits