Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia

Glebova, Daria

doi:10.31857/S0869544X0010411-5

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Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia

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Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia

Annotation

PII

S0869544X0010411-5-

DOI

10.31857/S0869544X0010411-5

Publication type

Article

Status

Published

Authors

Daria Glebova Send message

Occupation: graduate student
Affiliation: Institute of Slavic Studies RAS
Address: Moscow, Russia

Edition

Issue 4

Pages

30-49

Abstract

The two versions of the Tale of Bygone Years, manifested in its Kievan copies and the Novgorod First Chronicle, correspond usually either as two close copies or as a longer and an abridged redactions of the same text. This trend changes only in the episode of the conflict between Jaroslav Vladimirovich and Novgorodians (1015-1016) where the versions relate rather as two retellings; the analysis shows that the versions share the same structure based on the identical text and variation in the form of lexico-grammatical or rhetorical parallelism. Paraphrasis of this kind can be found in the contemporary historiographical vernacular tradition – for example, such is the relationship between the versions of the Hakon Jarl’s death story in Heimskringla (ca. 1220-1230) and in Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum (ca.1190). It is argued that the mode of retelling found in the Old Russian chronicle and in the konungasögur traditions can bee seen as a manifestation of medieval “authorship”, characteristic for the historiographical discourse, where it was a marker of skill to be able to introduce the change without changing the narrative too much. Moreover, the comparison with Heimskringla suggests that the medieval writers could switch between different transmission modes (copying, editing, retelling) and that in the manuscript tradition of the Tale of Bygone Years the case could be the same.

Keywords

Tale of Bygone Years, retelling, paraphrasis, Heimskringla, medieval text transmission, sagas and Old Russian chronicles, medieval vernacular history.

Received

12.08.2020

Date of publication

12.08.2020

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488

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S0869544X0010411-5-1 Дата внесения правок в статью - 03.07.2020

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GOST	Glebova D. Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia // Slavianovedenie. – 2020. – Issue 4 C. 30-49 . URL: https://slavras.ru/s0373-658x0000617-1-1-ru-19/?version_id=56102. DOI: 10.31857/S0869544X0010411-5
MLA	Glebova, Daria "Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia." Slavianovedenie. 4 (2020).:30-49. DOI: 10.31857/S0869544X0010411-5
APA	Glebova D. (2020). Retelling as the historian’s art: Approaching the forms of transmission in historical writing of Old Rus’ and Scandinavia. Slavianovedenie. no. 4, pp.30-49 DOI: 10.31857/S0869544X0010411-5

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