Manuscript of Henrik's Livonian Chronicle Arrives in DIGAR After 70 Years

Eestlased Eestis | 04 Feb 2012 | EWR

Estonian Review
The manuscript of Henrik's Livonian Chronicle that was lost for seventy years arrived at the DIGAR digital archives of the Estonian National Library. Doctor of History Enn Tarvel regards Henrik's Livonian Chronicle the most important source of Estonian and Latvian history, a press officer of the National Library told BNS. If Henrik's work had been lost, very little would have been known of the course of the conquest of the Baltic lands from the end of the 12th century to the second quarter of the 13th century.

The original of the chronicle has not been found but sixteen fully or partly preserved copies from the 14th to the 18th century are known. The National Library has the Codex Gymnasialis Revaliensis or the manuscript that arrived in the library of the Tallinn Upper Secondary School in 1734. It disappeared from Estonian historians' sight in 1925 when it was sent to Riga for the study of versions of the chronicles by Leonid Arbusow. Contrary to what has been believed, the manuscript was returned to Estonia before World War Two and was registered in the National Library depository in 1951.

Sirje Lusmägi, old books specialist at the National Library, has said that Leonid Arbusow was apparently the last person who leafed through the manuscript. After that the manuscript had been lost, but 87 years later the digital version of the manuscript is available at the DIGAR digital archives and is apparently the only digital version of Henrik's Livonian Chronicle.

Eestlased Eestis

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