Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature

The Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature is one portion of the Harvard Project in Commemoration of the Millennium of Christianity in Rus’-Ukraine sponsored by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. The Library encompasses literary activity in Rus’-Ukraine from its beginning in the mid-eleventh century through the end of the eighteenth century. Included are ecclesiastical and secular works written in a variety of languages, such as Church Slavonic, Old Rus’, Rurhenian (Middle Ukrainian), Polish, and Latin. This linguistic diversity reflects the cultural pluralism of Ukrainian intellectual life in the medieval and early-modern periods.

The Texts series publishes the original works, in facsimile whenever appropriate. English Translations contains translations of the original works. Each volume begins with an introductory essay by a specialist.

Below are the in-print works in this collection. Sort by title, author, format, publication date, or price »

Cover: The <i>Pověst’ vremennykh lět</i>: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis

The Pověst’ vremennykh lět: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis

Ostrowski, Donald
Birnbaum, David
Lunt, Horace Gray

The Tale of Bygone Years (Pověst’ vremennykh lět) is the most important source for the history of early Rus’. This massive undertaking provides scholars and general readers with the first fully legible text that includes all of the known redactions of the Pověst’.

Cover: Collected Works of Meletij Smotryc´kyj

Collected Works of Meletij Smotryc´kyj

Smotryc´kyj, Meletij

This volume reproduces in facsimile the original printed editions of eleven of Smotryc´kyj’s most important religious writings, beginning with the famous Threnos (1610) and concluding with Exaethesis (1629). The Introduction surveys the controversial details of Smotryc´kyj’s biography and critically analyzes the corpus of works attributed to him.

Cover: The <i>Jevanhelije učytelnoje</i> of Meletij Smotryc´kyj

The Jevanhelije učytelnoje of Meletij Smotryc´kyj

Smotryc´kyj, Meletij

Meletij Smotryc´kyj viewed his Homilary Gospel as a crucial requirement for the “spiritual good” of the Ruthenian nation. The work, presented here with the original printed edition, is important as a critical polemical text from the Catholic–Orthodox debate and also as a monument of early Ukrainian literature.

Cover: Seventeenth-Century Writings on the Kievan Caves Monastery

Seventeenth-Century Writings on the Kievan Caves Monastery

The Kievan Caves Monastery played a leading role in developing a Ukrainian historical consciousness in the seventeenth century. Several works written by monastery inhabitants testified not only to the site’s former saints and miracles but also to its current holy men and wonders. This volume contains facsimile reproductions of two such works.

Cover: The Diariusz podrozny of Pylyp Orlyk: 1720–1726

The Diariusz podrozny of Pylyp Orlyk: 1720–1726

Orlyk, Pylyp

Successor to Ivan Mazepa in 1710, Hetman Pylyp Orlyk led the Ukrainians who had emigrated after the Battle of Poltava in the struggle against Russian domination. The present facsimile edition of the Diariusz podrożny, which has never been published in full, constitutes an invaluable guide to Orlyk’s personality, his travels, and his politics.

Cover: The Diariusz podrozny of Pylyp Orlyk: 1727–1731

The Diariusz podrozny of Pylyp Orlyk: 1727–1731

Orlyk, Pylyp

This continuation of Pylyp Orlyk’s Diariusz podrożny encompasses the dramatic years 1727–1731. From his “honorary” confinement in Ottoman Thessalonica, the Ukrainian Hetman-in-exile tried to influence on his behalf the European powers whose representatives were gathered at the Congress of Suissons.

Cover: The Life of Paisij Velyčkovs’kyj

The Life of Paisij Velyčkovs’kyj

Featherstone, J. M. E.

This volume contains the first English translation of Paisij Velyčkovs’kyj’s unfinished autobiography, as well as a biography of the elder by his disciple Mytrofan. Tachiaos’s introduction discusses both works against their historical and generic background.

Cover: The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’

The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’

Hollingsworth, Paul

Among the finest products of early Ukrainian literature were the Lives of the first Rus’ saints. Hollingsworth provides a lucid introduction that discusses each saint and his or her cult in the historical as well as social contexts and examines the literary and textual features of the Rus’ vitae.

Cover: The Edificatory Prose of Kievan Rus’

The Edificatory Prose of Kievan Rus’

Veder, William R.

This volume consists of two of the oldest texts of Kievan Rus’: the Izbornik of 1076 and Grigorij the Philosopher’s Homilies on All the Days of the Week. These rhetorically artistic and sophisticated homilies provide a unique picture of an early Kievan preacher and of the moral needs of his Rus’ audience.

Cover: Lev Krevza’s <i>A Defense of Church Unity</i> and Zaxarija Kopystens’kyj’s <i>Palinodia</i>, Parts 1 and 2

Lev Krevza’s A Defense of Church Unity and Zaxarija Kopystens’kyj’s Palinodia, Parts 1 and 2

Strumiński, Bohdan

Krevza’s Defense, on the Uniate side, and Kopystens’kyj’s Palinodia (1621), a defense of the Eastern Church, are perhaps the most illuminating works on the debate that culminated at the time of the Union of Brest (1596), when much of the Ruthenian ecclesiastical hierarchy declared itself in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

Cover: Rus´ Restored: Selected Writings of Meletij Smotryc´kyj (1610–1630)

Rus´ Restored: Selected Writings of Meletij Smotryc´kyj (1610–1630)

Smotryc´kyj, Meletij

A prominent religious figure, Meletij Smotryc´kyj was caught up in the struggle between Orthodox and Uniate beliefs. His polemics served as the cornerstone of the Orthodox response to the Polish-Lithuanian Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The works collected here offer unique insight into the elite of early modern Rus´.

Cover: Hryhorij Hrabjanka’s <i>The Great War of Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyj</i>

Hryhorij Hrabjanka’s The Great War of Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyj

Hrabjanka, Hryhorij

Hryhorij Hrabjanka’s The Great War of Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyi is one of several Cossack chronicles that transformed the nature of written Ukrainian history in the early eighteenth century. This volume contains facsimiles of two manuscript versions of the chronicle, as well as two published versions that have become bibliographic rarities.

Cover: Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus´

Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus´

Ilarion, Klim Smoljatic, and Kirill of Turov are remarkable for their personal and literary achievements. Franklin prefaces their work with a substantial introduction that places each of the authors in historical context and examines the literary qualities, as well as the textual complexities, of these outstanding examples of Rus´ literature.

Cover: The <i>Paterik</i> of the Kievan Caves Monastery

The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery

Heppell, Muriel

The Kievan Caves Monastery was for centuries the most important Ukrainian monastic establishment. It was the outstanding center of literary production, and its monks served throughout the territory of Rus’ as bishops and monastic superiors. Heppell now makes available the first complete English translation of the Paterik.

Cover: The Old Rus’ Kievan and Galician-Volhynian Chronicles: The Ostroz’kyj (Xlebnikov) and Cetvertyns’kyj (Pogodin) Codices

The Old Rus’ Kievan and Galician-Volhynian Chronicles: The Ostroz’kyj (Xlebnikov) and Cetvertyns’kyj (Pogodin) Codices

Both the Ostroz’kyj and Cetvertyns’kyj codices appear here for the first time in facsimile. Until now they have been known only from footnotes to editions of the Hypatian Chronicle.

Cover: The Hustynja Chronicle

The Hustynja Chronicle

Tolochko, Oleksiy

Written in the seventeenth century, The Hustynja Chronicle is the earliest systematic history of Kyivan Rus´ and Ukraine from biblical times until the Union of Brest in 1596. This volume is the first scholarly edition of the chronicle. The Introduction, in Ukrainian and English, describes the chronicle in detail and explores its history.

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