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Cuman Wagons in the Radziwill Chronicle, Russia, 1490s.
Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, (ban 34.5.30).
Image sources
The Radziwiłł or Königsberg codex is undoubtedly the most recognizable manuscript containing the chronicle text. It is the only illuminated medieval chronicle that survived, and its illustrations (613 in total), by being constantly replicated over the last century, formed that distinct set of imagery which we tend to associate with Kievan Rus’. The codex is usually thought to date to the early 1490s and is believed to be a copy of a lost illuminated manuscript of the thirteenth century. The dating of the manuscript is the only thing certain about the earliest history of the codex. As with Homer’s birthplace, no less than six cities have competed for the honor of being considered its hometown: Novgorod (Sizov 1905; Arcixovskij: 1944), Suzdal’ (Kondakov 1902), Moscow or Tver’ (Podobedova 1965), Beloozero (Kukuškina 1997), or, more vaguely, “some Great Russian province” (Šaxmatov 1902) were named. However, the documented history of the codex finds it far from the supposed place of origin. It is thus believed that at a certain point, the manuscript had left the ‘Great Russian’ territory, and from the ‘Moscow or Vladimir [on Kljazma] district’ travelled ‘abroad’: first to ‘Belorussia’, then to ‘Lithuania’ where it finally fell into the hands of the Radziwiłłs (Šaxmatov 1902: 2; Kukuškina 1994: 5).
Text source: Oleksij Tolochko, Notes on the Radziwiłł Codex
