Slavonic and East European Review

SEER,Vol. 79,No.2, April2001 Text and Textology: Salmina's Dating of the Chronicle Tales about Dmitrii Donskoi CHARLESJ. HALPERIN THEreign of Dmitrii Donskoi (I350-89) marksthe culminationof the rise of Moscow to a position of hegemony in northeasternRus' during the fourteenth century. Donskoi's armies successfullybesieged Moscow 's hated rivalTver' and reduced it to submission.Forthe firsttime since the Mongol conquest, an East Slavic army,led by Donskoi, took the offensiveagainsttheTatarsandrode (andmarched)into the steppe. Finally,in his will Donskoi left the grandprincipalityof Vladimirto his son Vasiliias his patrimony, ensuringa Muscovite monopoly over the mostprestigiousthrone in Vladimir-Suzdalia. Three events in the life of Dmitrii Ivanovich became the subjectsof extended narrative works within the corpus of the East Slavic chronicles: (i) his victory over emir Mamai of the Golden Horde in 1380,which earnedhim hisepithet,Donskoi, the Chronicle TaleofKulikovo; (ii) the sack of Moscow by Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382, the Taleof Tokhtamysh; and (iii) his death in 1389 (6897), the Encomium toDmitrii Ivanovich, in which he is lauded as the rus'kiitsar'.The authorship, dating, textual history, and interpretationof these workshave always been highly controversial.' This article will examine the evolution, premises,and reception of the most widespreaddatingof these texts. It will not present an alternativetheory, although some general remarks about the possibleparameterswithinwhich the workscould have been writtenwillbe outlined. In a series of articles published between I966 and 1979, Marina A. Salmina of the Sektor drevnerusskoi literaturj, Institutrusskoi literatua)j Charles J. Halperin is a Visiting Scholar at the Russian and East European Institute of Indiana University. See Charles J. Halperin, 'The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar: The Emergence of 1\4uscoviteIdeology, 1380- I408', Forschungen zurosteuropdischen Geschichte, 23, I976 (hereafter 'The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar'), pp. 7-Io3, here: pp. 39-44 (1380), pp. 44-48 (1382), pp. 69-78 (1389); idem, 'The Six-Hundredth Anniversary of the Battle of Kulikoxvo Field, I380 i980, in Soviet Historiography', Canadian-American Slavic Studies, i8, i984, pp. 294-3IO (304-o6); idem, 7he Tatarroke,Columbus,OH, I986, pp. 97-Io3 (1380), pp. 1 5-21 (1382), pp. 121-24 (I 389). The problem of dating the Chlr^onicle TaleofKulikovo is exacerbated by its relationship to the two other members of the 'Kulikovo Cycle', the cadonshchina and the SkazanieoMamaevorn poboishche, which wNill not be discussed here. DATING THE DMITRII DONSKOI CHRONICLES 249 (Pushkinskii Dom), of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg,argued that the three 'chronicle tales' (letopisnye povesti) shared a common textual history.The Trinity Chronicle, the manuscriptof which perished in the Moscow fire of I812 but was reconstructed by the St Petersburg -Leningrad historian Mikhail D. Priselkov,contained a primary 'ShortRedaction', writtenno later than I408, the date of composition ofthis'compilation'(svod).2 The hypotheticalprotographof theNovgorod IV and SofaI chronicles, the Compilation of I448, contained secondary 'Expanded Redactions' based directly upon the 'Short Redactions'.3 The 'Expanded Redactions' were composed between I437 and 1448, since the Chronicle TaleofKulikovo anachronisticallymentions a prince FeodorTorusskiias having died in 1380, whereas the historicalprince Feodor Torusskii died in I437.4 Salmina concluded that these texts were the productsof a singleliterary'laboratory',and thus expounded the same theme, the necessity for the princes of northeasternRus' to unite againstthe threatof the Tatars.5 Salmina's datings were reinforced by Iakov S. Lur'e of the same Sektor,who foundher conclusionsconsistentwith his own understanding of the evolution of all-Rus'chronicle-writingin the fourteenthand fifteenthcenturies.In his 1976monographLur'earguedthatthe Trinity Chronicle reflectedthe views of MetropolitanKiprian, who had died in 1405, and the Compilation of 1448 embodied the perspective of the 'metropolitanate',since the office of metropolitan was unfilled at the time.6Lur'einsistedthat no new all-Rus'chronicle appearedbetween 1408, the date of the TrinityChronicle, which did not contain the 'ExpandedRedactions' of the three chronicle tales, and I448, the date 2 MI.D. Priselkov, Troitskaja letopis'.Rekonstruktsiia teksta,Moscow and Leningrad, I950 (hereafter Troitskaia letopis'), pp. 419-2I 2(380), pp. 422-25 (1382), p. 434 (I389). 3ovgorod I. Pa/oansobranie russkikh letopisei, vol. 4, St Petersburg, I848 (hereafter PSRL), pp. 75---83 (1380); pp. 84-90 ( 382); pp. 96, 349--57 (I389). Sofia I. PSRL, vol. 5, St Petersburg, I851, p. 238 (1380...