Introduction to the Text

The “Discourse on Angels and Pagans” is found in the entries for the years 1110 and 1111[1] in the Hypatian Chronicle, an East Slavonic compilation believed to have been produced in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The first part of the Hypatian is the text conventionally called the Russian Primary Chronicle in English. “Russian” in this case is a misnomer, because it refers to Rus (Rus'), the medieval realm whose heritage is claimed by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

The scholarly consensus is that the Primary Chronicle was compiled in Kiev (Kyev) in the 1110s; its earliest surviving copy is from 1377. There are several redactions of the Primary Chronicle. Differences between them are rather minor, with the exception of the entries for 1110 and 1111. In all the redactions, these entries report a military expedition into the steppe launched from Kiev, with the intention to retaliate for past, and prevent future, raids by the Cumans  (also known as Kipchaks, Qipchaqs, and Polovtsians), a pagan nomadic people living to the south of Rus. According to the chronicler, the chief organizer of this expedition was Prince Vladimir Monomakh (1152-1125). He was inspired to fight the Cumans by an angel who appeared in the Kievan Caves monastery in the form of a fiery pillar; during the battle, angels helped the Rus troops. This narrative is present in all the redactions of the Primary Chronicle. However, only the version found in the Hypatian compilation contains the lengthy discourse on angels and pagans presented here.

Its manner of argumentation is typical of medieval treatises: the author interprets quotations from Christian Scripture, patristic literature, and other authoritative texts; however, it is hard to find parallels to the subject matter and main thesis of this discourse. The author begins with a quotation from the fourth-century church father Epiphanius of Salamis, stating that the elements and forces of nature each have their own angel; he then extrapolates from this statement to argue that, therefore, angels are also appointed to countries and peoples, including the Cumans. To refute an objection that pagans cannot have angels, the author uses the medieval legend about an angel guiding Alexander the Great in his conquests. Next, to argue that an angel can be appointed to a collectivity and not only to an individual, he  refers to the “angel of the church in Smyrna” from the New Testament (Rev 2:8), and then uses Biblical quotations to show that the Archangel Michael was appointed as the angel of the Jewish people as a whole, and that another angel was appointed to the Persians.

Apparently, the argument is as follows. If angels were appointed to the Jewish people and to churches, then it is possible for a collectivity to have an angel. If Alexander the Great was led by an angel, then it is possible for a pagan to have an angel. Therefore, it is possible for a pagan collectivity to have its own angel, which is further confirmed by references to the angel of the Persians. Likewise, the Cumans have their own angel, who leads them when they make war on Rus, which they do on God’s command, as punishment for sins of the Rus people.

The unknown medieval Christian author offers an inclusive, integrative view of the world, where God-appointed angels watch over every force of nature and every ethnic group, regardless of its religion. Pagans, including those fighting against the Christians, are not inherently evil; they play a role in God's plan for humanity. The example of Alexander the Great, whose portrayal in the Primary Chronicle is very laudatory, shows that pagans sometimes represent forces of good. A parallel with Alexander casts a positive light on the Cumans, which, taken together with the fighting against them reported in the same chronicle entries, creates a complex, rich picture of relations between Christian Rus and the pagan steppe.

So far, this text has received very little scholarly attention. Back in 1957, André Vaillant made an important contribution when he identified the sources of some of the erudite quotations in the entries for 1110-1111. However, he viewed the discourse as a whole as an inept string of random passages from unrelated texts. The next work on the subject appeared in 2001, when Alan Timberlake interpreted the entries for 1110-1111 as evidence for a “dialectic” worldview of the chronicler, who believed that angels may sometimes be “malevolent,” although the angel of the Cumans is never described as malevolent in the original text. Yulia Mikhailova (the present translator) interprets the discourse on angels as a statement on the inter-ethnic and inter-faith relations in southern Rus, which was a borderland between the Christian sedentary agriculturalists and pagan nomadic pastoralists. Their relations included not only military conflicts, but also alliances, intermarriages, and other peaceful interactions. The discourse on angels and pagans explained how such interactions were possible in spite of intermittent hostilities.

The Hypatian Chronicle compilation containing the redaction of the Primary Chronicle with the discourse on angels and pagans survived in the Hypatian Codex (datable to the 1420s), the Khlebnikov Codex (datable to the 1550s-1660s), and in several copies of the Khlebnikov. It is unknown when the discourse on angels and pagans was composed. Numerous errors of inattention suggest that the Hypatian scribe copied an earlier text rather than composing the discourse himself. The discourse is placed at the end of the text of the early twelfth-century Primary Chronicle, which, in the Hypatian, transitions into the Kievan Chronicle, believed to have been compiled in 1198/9. Both of these twelfth-century chronicles, the Primary and Kievan, devote much attention to relations with the pagan neighbors of Rus, making it probable that the “Discourse on Angels and Pagans,” which conceptualizes these relations, was composed in the twelfth century.

About this Edition

The original text presented here is based on the edition by O. V. Tvorogov: Povest vremennykh let. Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi, vol. 1, edited by D. S. Likhachev et al. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1997. pp. 62-315 (available as an electronic text at http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4869). The translated entries are found on pp. 296-304. The “Discourse on Angels and Pagans” apparently went through an unknown number of copying stages, accumulating scribal errors. It includes quotations from Greek texts in sometimes awkward Slavonic translations. The original does not have sentence breaks, and the syntax is often ambiguous. Where possible, I checked the quoted passages found in the discourse against the other known Slavonic translations of the same texts and/or the Greek originals. A long quotation from a Slavonic translation of the Byzantine Chronicle by George Hamartolos is represented in italics. Words and phrases supplied by me to clarify the text for the reader are put in square brackets. Emendations are noted and explained. To render Church Slavonic Biblical quotations, I used the corresponding passages from the King James Bible.

The source of the transcription:

Tvorogov, O. V., ed. Povest vremennykh let. Biblioteka literatury drevnei Rusi, vol. 1, edited by D. S. Likhachev et al. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1997. pp. 62-315. The translated entries are found on pp. 296-304. Available as an electronic text at http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=4869. Accessed 14 July 2021.

The series Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles) cited below contains the best scholarly editions of East Slavonic chronicles, including A. A. Shakhmatov's edition of the Hypatian. However, the old Cyrillic script and representations of ligatures and other features of medieval manuscripts present in this edition make it very difficult to use it as a basis for a transcription that would be readable with most internet browsers. Therefore, for the transcription, I used the online open-source edition by Tvorogov, which presents the same text as Shakhmatov's edition, but employs modern Cyrillic characters, simplified orthography, sentence breaks, and modern punctuation. Sentence breaks and punctuation in my transcription are slightly different from those in Tvorogov's edition.

The source used for the translation: 

Shakhmatov, A. A., ed. Letopis' po Ipat'evskomu spisku. Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, vol. 2. St. Petersburg: Imperatorskaia Arkheograficheskaia Komissia, 1908, columns 262-264, 268-273.

Further Reading

Ostrowski, Donald, ed. and coll., with David Birnbaum and Horace G. Lunt. The Povest' vremennykh let: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis. Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, Text Series 10. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2003. Available at https://donostrowski2.bitbucket.io/pvl/index.html. Accessed 14 July 2021.

• Introduction, pp. xvii-lxxii, provides a general overview of the Primary Chronicle.

Griffin, Sean. The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019.

• Chapter 2 “The Rus Primary Chronicle,” pp. 35-61, provides a general overview of the Primary Chronicle.

Golden, Peter. “Nomads and Their Sedentary Neighbors in Pre-Činggisid Eurasia.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, vol. 7, 1987-1991, pp. 41-81. Available at https://www.academia.edu/37198252/Golden_Nomads_and_Their_Sedentary_Neighbors_in_Pre_%C4%8Cinggisid_Eurasia_Published_in_Archivum_Eurasiae_Medii_Aevi_VII_1987_1991_41_81. Accessed 14 July 2021.

• See pp. 54-68 for an overview of relations between Rus and the steppe nomads.

Mikhailova, Yulia. “‘Christians and Pagans’ in the Chronicles of Pre-Mongolian Rus: Beyond the Dichotomy of ‘Good Us’ and ‘Bad Them’.” Geschichte der Slavia Asiatica: Quellenkundliche Probleme. Eds. Christian Lübke, Ilmira Miftakhova and Wolfram von Scheliha. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2013, pp. 22-51. Available at https://www.academia.edu/9770800/Correct_version_of_Christians_and_Pagans_in_the_Chronicles_of_Pre_Mongolian_Rus_Beyond_the_Dichotomy_of_Good_Us_and_Bad_Them_In_Geschichte_der_Slavia_Asiatica_Quellenkundliche_Probleme_edited_by_Christian_L%C3%BCbke_Ilmira_Miftakhova_and_Wolfram_von_Scheliha_50_79. Accessed 14 July 2021.

• Examines representations of the steppe nomads in the twelfth – early thirteenth-century East Slavonic sources. For the discourse on angels and pagans, see p. 73.

Mikhailova, Yulia. “Angels for Pagans: The Discourse on Angels in the Hypatian Codex as a Conceptualization of Cooperation between Christian Slavs and Pagan Turks in Southern Rus.” 2014 Midwest Slavic Conference. Available at https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/61177. Accessed 14 July 2021.

Timberlake, Alan. “Redactions of the Primary Chronicle,” Russkii iazyk v nauchnom osveshchenii, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 196-218.

• For the discourse on angels and pagans, see pp. 217-18.

Credits