Adventures of the Glynski in Moscow

Nicholas Zharkikh

Do not have a yard near the prince’s yard.

Danylo Zatochnyk

The primary source for finding out the fate of the Glynski in the Moscow service is the razrjad books and Moscow chronicles. The razrjad books contain lists of commanders for campaigns; these lists were drawn up before the campaigns themselves and reflect the appointment of the commanders of future campaigns. This source is strictly contemporary with the events themselves and is the most competent, although it does not reflect all the details of campaigns and possible changes in the arrangement of commanders during military operations.

The chroniclers are indisputably competent in the affairs of the Moscow court, but this does not always work out to their advantage. They can be divided into two groups. The first is chronicles contemporary to the events themselves. I consider them in the order of the last year covered in the chronicle (taking it as the approximate year of completion of the work).

The comparison shows that the authors of chronicles willingly used razrjad books, often borrowing whole fragments verbatim. But in general, the volume of information of these groups of sources is different, they complement each other.

The second group of chronicles was compiled during the oprichnina and reflected the change in the image of past events, when yesterday’s heroes became today’s enemies. Although they are distant from the events by some 20 years, the evaluations of the figures and, accordingly, the set of details are significantly different from the annals of the first group. After 1567, we no longer have an official Moscow chronicle – this work stopped forever. Fortunately for me, all these chronicles are published in the series "Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei" (PSRL) and all have name indexes.

A valuable source of completely unique information is the deposit book of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, preserved in two editions – 1639 and 1673. In this book, the 35th chapter is dedicated to the Glinski princes, the entries in it are arranged in chronological order. It was printed in 1989, but is still poorly used for the history of the Glynski princes.