A Unique Monument of Russian Book Culture

Authors

Russian chronicle history, digitalization of cultural heritage, book culture, Illuminated Chronicle Code, scholarly facsimile edition, miniature

This paper presents a project for the creation of digital andfacsimile copies of a unique monument of the Russian book culture

– The Illuminated Chronicle Code of the 16th century – produced in a singlecopy by the order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

The Illuminated Codecontains 10,000 handwritten sheets and more than 17,000 colorfulminiatures created by the best

Russian scribes and icon painters of thattime. The Code features a presentation of the Biblical history, abstractsof history of

Ancient Rome and Byzantium, and the 400-year history of Russia, from 1114 till Ivan the Terrible’s death in 1584.

The history ofthe creation of the Code, the contents of its parts (volumes), the fate ofthis monument of culture in times

hard for Russia, and the problemsfacing scholars when developing the project are briefly described.The execution of the project

of digitalization of the Chronicle Code and the creation of its facsimile copy have allowed not only tocollect its individual parts that

were stored in various state repositories,but also to make this monument of culture available to scholars, specialists, library staff,

schoolchildren and students in Slavic and other European countries.