was born in 1056, at Bielzier; and, in his twenty-ninth year, assumed
was born in
1056, at Bielzier; and, in his twenty-ninth year, assumed
a monastic habit, and took the name of Nestor. At Kiof
he made a considerable proficiency in the Greek language,
but seems to have formed his style and manner rather from
Byzantine historians, Cedrenus, Zona' as, and Syncellus,
than from the ancient classics. The time of Nestor’s death
is not ascertained; but he is supposed to have lived to an
advanced age, and to have died about 1115. His great
work is his “Chronicle;
” to which he has prefixed an
introduction, which, after a short sketch of the early state
of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, contains a
geographical description of Russia and the adjacent countries; an account of the Sclavonian nations, their manners, their emigrations from the banks of the Danube, their
dispersion, and settlement in several countries, in which
their descendants are now established. He then enters
upon a chronological series of the Russian annals, from the
year 858 to about 1113. His style is simple and unadorned, such as suits a mere recorder of facts but his
chronological exactness, though it renders his narrative
dry and tedious, contributes to ascertain the aera and authenticity of the events which he relates. It is remarkable,
that an author of such importance, whose name frequently
occurs in the early Russian books, should have remained
in obscurity above 600 years; and been scarcely known to
his modern countrymen, the origin and actions of whose
ancestors he records with such circumstantial exactness.
A copy of his “Chronicle
” was given, in