Brief Description of Little Russia

Brief Description of Little Russia
Короткий опис Малоросії (КОМ)
Author(s)	unknown
Language	Literary Ukrainian (Late Ruthenian)
Date	c. 1730s
Manuscript(s)	more than 50 manuscripts and editions
Period covered	1506–1734 (with a brief intro from 1240 to 1506)

The Brief Description of Little Russia, abbreviated KOM, is a Ukrainian chronicle written by an anonymous author in the 1730s.

Composition

The main source for the KOM was the Hrabianka Chronicle. From this, the author selected the most significant facts and summarised them, whilst writing his own original account of the events of the first third of the 18th century. The work is written in literary Ukrainian (Late Ruthenian).

Contents

The chronicle provides an overview of events from 1506–1734, with a brief intro from the Mongol invasion of Kyivan Rus' (1240) to 1506, with "1340" as the first year explicitly mentioned. It becomes more detailed from 1506 onwards, taking the form of annalistic entries by year (although many years are skipped between 1506 and 1620), with the most detailed account covering the era of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The author (who presumably belonged to the patriotically-minded Cossack starshyna) links the Cossack period of Ukraine’s history with the history of Kyivan Rus’; he recounts the history of the Cossacks, extols the Ukrainian people’s struggle for liberation against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and expresses sympathy for its leaders (Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Bohun, Severyn Nalyvaiko, Semen Paliy and others).

Popularity and influence

1789 German edition of Schérer's Annals of Little Russia, or History of the Ukrainian and Zaporizhian Cossacks.

Manuscripts of the Brief Description of Little Russia (KOM) began to circulate in Ukraine in the 1740s. The KOM gained widespread popularity in Ukraine, where it has been preserved in more than 50 manuscripts and editions. Reasons for its great popularity have been attributed to its concise and clear style of writing, the fact that it was based on the similarly popular Hrabianka Chronicle, and according to Mytsyk (1999) "that the unknown author managed to give the reader an idea of the historical past of Ukraine during the Cossack era (from 1506) in the most concise form". Given that it appeared in a time when the Ukrainian people were "devastated by Russian colonialism" as the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich were gradually being eroded and abolished, the picture that the KOM painted of a glorious past with full state independence awakened patriotism and hope for a better future in its readers. According to Serhii Plokhy (2012), by 1777, the KOM "had become the most popular compendium of Ukrainian history in the Hetmanate." It also greatly influenced Ukrainian historiography and literature from the mid-18th century until the early 19th century.

The KOM became the basis or an important source for the following works:

• Novhorod-Siverskyi Chronicle (1760s), used the Brief Description of Little Russia as a source
• Vasyl Ruban, «Краткой летописи Малыя России c 1506 no 1776 год…» [A Brief Chronicle of Little Russia from 1506 to 1776, with the Disclosure of a True Picture of the Local Administration and the Publication of a List of Earlier Hetmans, General Officers, Colonels, and Hierarchs.] (Saint Petersburg 1777). Ruban claimed that the 1734–1776 continuation had been written by Oleksandr Bezborodko, Colonel (Polkovnyk) of Kyiv.
• Jean-Benoît Schérer, published manuscripts of the KOM in supplements in 1786 in Paris, and used it as the basis of his "Annals of Little Russia, or History of the Ukrainian and Zaporizhian Cossacks".
  • French edition: Annales de la petite Russie ou Histoire des Cosaques-Saporogues et des Cosaques de l’Ukraine (Paris 1788).
  • German edition: Geschichte der Ukrainischen und Saporogischen Kasaken nebst einigen Nachrichten von der Verfassung und den Sitten derselben (Leipzig).
• History of the Ruthenians (Istoriya Rusiv, c. 1800), heavily through the French edition of Schérer's Annales.
• «Лѣтописце, или кратком описании знатнѣйших дѣйств и случаев, что в котором году дѣялося в Украинѣ Малороссійской обѣих сторон Днѣпра и кто именно когда гетьманом был козацким» ["A Chronicle, or a brief account of the most notable events and occurrences that took place in that year in Little Russia, on both sides of the Dnieper, and who exactly served as Cossack hetman and when"], (1888).

See also

• The History of the Zaporizhian Cossacks (1740s), historical work written by Semen Ivanovych Myshetsky

Bibliography

Critical editions

• Osip Bodyansky, Eyewitness Chronicle, with the Brief Description of Little Russia (Лѣтописецъ въ Малой Россіи) ["Chronicler in Little Russia"] as an appendix (Moscow 1846).
• Levytsky, Orest, ed. (1878). "Краткое описание Малороссии" [Brief Description of Little Russia]. Летопись Самовидца по новооткрытым спискам. С приложением трех малороссийских хроник: Хмельницкой, ”Краткого описания Малороссии” и ”Собрания Исторического” [The Eyewitness Chronicle, based on newly discovered manuscripts. With three Little Russian chronicles appended: Khmelnytsky Chronicle, "Brief Description of Little Russia" and "Historical Collection"] (in Russian). Kyiv: Kyiv Archeographic Commission. pp. 211–319. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
• Apanovych, Olena Mykhaylivna (1983). Рукописная светская книга XVIII в. на Украине. Исторические сборники [18th-century handwritten secular books in Ukraine. Historical anthologies] (in Russian). Naukova Dumka. pp. 187–211. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
• Mytsyk, Yuri Andriyovych (1999). "Невідома редакція «Короткого опису Малоросії»" [Unknown edition of "Brief Description of Little Russia"]. Історіографічні дослідження в Україні / Historiographical studies in Ukraine, 1968–2020 (7). Institute of History of Ukraine: 133–154.

Literature

• Bovhyrja, Andrii, ed. (2012). Короткий опис Малоросії (1340-1776), упорядкування та вступна стаття Андрія Бовгирі [Brief Description of Little Russia (1340–1776), compiled and with an introductory essay by Andrii Bovhyrja] (in Ukrainian). Kyiv: Stylos. p. 192. ISBN 978-966-193-071-0.
• Mytsyk, Yuri Andriyovych (1960). "Короткий опис Малоросії" [Brief Description of Little Russia]. Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia (in Ukrainian). Vol. 5. Main Editorial Office of the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia. p. 424.
• Mytsyk, Yuri Andriyovych (2008). "Короткий опис Малоросії" [Brief Description of Little Russia]. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine (in Ukrainian). Vol. 5. Kyiv: Institute of History of Ukraine. p. 185. Archived from the original on 27 June 2026. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
• Plokhy, Serhii (2012). The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 503. ISBN 9781139540162. (A monograph entirely dedicated to examining the History of the Ruthenians manuscript tradition).

Further reading

• (in Russian) Volodymyr Antonovych, [Передмова] (Foreword). In the book: Сборник летописей, относящихся к истории Южной и Западной Руси [A collection of chronicles relating to the history of Southern and Western Rus’]. Kyiv (1888).
• (in Russian) Volodymyr Ikonnykov. Опыт русской историографии [The Expertise of Rus' Historiography], Vol. 2, Book 2. Kyiv (1908).
• (in Ukrainian) Dmytro Bahalii. Нарис української історіографії [An Overview of Ukrainian Historiography], Vol. 1, No. 2. Джерелознавство [Source Studies]. Kyiv (1925).

External links

• «Короткий опис Малоросії» . Літературознавча енциклопедія [Literary Encyclopedia] : in 2 vols. / ed. by Yu. I. Kovaliv. Kyiv: ‘Akademia’ Publishing Centre, 2007. Vol. 1: A–L. p. 528.