Moleniie Danyla Zatochnyka

Moleniie Danyla Zatochnyka [Моленіє Данила Заточника] (Supplication of Danylo the Exile). A collection of political and practical personal advice addressed to an unidentified Kyivan Rus’ prince from Pereiaslav. In some redactions the addressee is Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovych (ruler of Pereiaslav, 1201–6), in others, Prince Yaroslav Volodymyrovych of Novgorod the Great (1182–99). The work was probably written in the 12th or 13th century; the original has not been preserved. The oldest copies date from the 16th century. At first it was thought that Moleniie was a genuine petition from the exiled author to his prince, but later it was shown that the petition is merely a literary form. Many of the themes and ideas that appear in Moleniie can be found in other monuments of Old Ukrainian literature. An outstanding edition of Moleniie is N. Zarubin's Slovo Daniila Zatochnika po redaktsiiam XII i XIII vv. i ikh peredelkam (Danylo Zatochnyk's Supplication in 12th- and 13th-Century Redactions and Their Revisions, 1932).

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