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or adulation for him who exiled them, falling from
their lips.
Putting Ovid’s “Elegies” back on the shelves, and
taking down Nestor’s chronicle in its place, we are fully
a thousand years later in time. The great national
migrations had driven the Slavic races in broad waves
in over Russia. Kingdoms have been founded in
Novgorod and Kief. Together with legends and naïve
conjectures about the more remote times, we have here a
history becoming more trustworthy as we approach the
period of the narrator’s own life, ending with the year
1110. And even from a period concerning which Nestor
has only exceedingly doubtful traditions to depend upon,
he possessed treaties and agreements, genuine documents
of the highest importance, which he incorporates in his
book. He is Russia’s Saxo-Grammaticus, but a hundred
years older than the Danish monk, and his work has the
greater literary value, given to it by the use of the
mother tongue.
What especially attracts the attention of the Scandinavian
reader is everything which relates to the rule
of the Norsemen in Russia, the statesmanship of the
Varings and their campaign. In the Danish translation
of Nestor’s chronicle, there are given in learned notes all
necessary criticism of the old chronicles and information
as to the present condition of investigation. The
explanation of the Scandinavian words by Gislason, at the
end of the book, is also very instructive.
In historical and psychological respects, a comparison
between the style and descriptions of Nestor and of the
Icelandic sagas is of great interest, especially in those
cases where the chronicles and sagas treat of the same
persons and events. An essay by the Russian scholar
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