Hustynia Chronicle

Hustynia Chronicle. A 17th-century chronicle compiled at the Hustynia Trinity Monastery. The original is no longer extant, but a copy has been preserved, transcribed in the vernacular by the monk-priest M. Losytsky, at the monastery. Its author and date of compilation have not been established. The historian Anatolii Yershov thought that the work was written between 1623 and 1627 by Zakhariia Kopystensky.

The main text of the chronicle is an account of Ukrainian history from the times of Kyivan Rus’ to 1597. Although much of the information given is based on Polish, Lithuanian, Byzantine, old Rus’, and other chronicles, it is also an original history of contemporary conditions in Ukraine, its ties with Muscovy, the politics of the Lithuanian grand dukes, the nobility of Poland and Turkey, and the depredations of the Turks and Tatars. The chronicle ends with chapters on the origin of the Cossacks, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, and the Church Union of Berestia. An outstanding monument of 17th-century Ukrainian historiography, its text was published in Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (The Complete Collection of Rus’ Chronicles, vol 2, 1845). A modern Ukrainian version was published in Kyiv in 1985.