Presentation of the Twelfth Century History in Stepennaya Kniga (The Book of Degrees of Royal Genealogy)

The subject matter of the paper is the history of the 12^th century as it is presented in the Stepennaya Kniga (The Book of Degrees of Royal Genealogy), the literary monument of his­torical and political life that was composed in the 16^th century. It is known that numerous sources were used in the process of its compilation, including some chronicles. The lat­ter were not reproduced verbatim, but loosely interpreted. In order to analyze the changes in the perception of 12^th century history as it is rendered in the Stepennaya Kniga compared to the chronicles, the author conducted a detailed compare and contrast analysis of the Princes’ images, which are related to the historical events of the period, as they are pre­sented in the Kievan Chronicle included in the Hypatian, Voskresensky and Nikon Chron­icles and the Stepennaya Kniga. The dynamics of the Princes’ images, the focus of the com­piler of the Stepennaya Kniga on three key figures different from those in the Chronicles, and foregrounding those princes who went unnoticed in the Chronicles (the Davydovich of Chernigov, Vsevolod the Wonderworker from Pskov and Euphrosyne, a daughter of the Prince of Polotsk) resulted in re-accentuation of the 12^th century history. It is worth noted that the Stepennaya Kniga presents female characters of the 12^th century as significant ones.

Key words: Stepennaya Kniga, the history of 12^th century, editing, images of 12^th century Princes, dynamics of the images, female images.

Presentation of the Twelfth Century History in Stepennaya Kniga (The Book of Degrees of Royal Genealogy)