Lyzohub Chronicle

Lyzohub Chronicle [Лизогубівський літопис; Lyzohubivskyi litopys]. A historical record written in 1742. Of its two sections the first is a chronological compilation of events from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century on the basis of Cossack chronicles, and the second is an account of events in which the Lyzohub family played an important role. The latter begins in the 1690s and covers the years 1725–37 in great detail. The chronicle ends with a description of the Cossack campaign against the Crimean Khanate commanded by the acting hetman Yakiv Yu. Lyzohub. Ukraine's past is evaluated in the chronicle from an autonomist standpoint, and its present is seen throught the eyes of a Russian loyalist who is not uncritical of the tsarist policy toward Ukraine. The authorship of the work has been attributed by some (Volodymyr Antonovych, Pavlo Klepatsky) to Yakiv Lyzohub; the possibility of his brother Semen's contribution has not been excluded. The chronicle was first published by Mykola Bilozersky in Iuzhnorusskie letopisi (South Russian Chronicles, 1856), and then in another version in V. Antonovych's Sbornik letopisei, otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Iuzhnoi i Zapadnoi Rossii (Collection of Chronicles Pertaining to the History of Southern and Western Russia, 1888).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]