Rybakov D. Rybakov D.O.”Vremennik of Ivan Timofiev as a Source of Russian History Narration of the Seventeenth Century (Attribution, Text and history Context)

The dissertation brings forward for formal consideration the textual sources of one of the most remarkable works of Seventeenth Century Russian historiography, the so-called Vremennik of Ivan Timofeev. The Vremennik manuscript is dated and the stages of the plot formation of its tale are delineated on the basis of a complex textual analysis that includes the tools of palaeography, hermeneutics, historical anthropology, and textual criticism. The dissertation makes it possible for scholars to reconstruct the dotted history of the Vremennik, as it traces the various usages to which it was put in Russian history narratives of the Seventeenth Century. The origin of the tale, its historical background, and Timofeev’s narrative principles are examined in detail. Special attention is directed to the work’s authorship, a structural analysis of its sources, and the palaeographic critics of the Vremennik manuscript. The original practice of examining the various handwritings of the Florischeve codex has been employed. A unique feature of the dissertation consists the structure analysis of the source and the description of the biography of the tale’s most probable author, the dyak Ivan Timofeev. Indeed, it is the close examination of the verified details of Timofeev’s biography that enable the author of the dissertation to construct a new interpretation of the Vremmenik’s inner narrative arrangement