Interpretation of the Joachim chronicle in Mikhail Karateev's novel The charter of great khan

The article investigates the specific features of inserting the excerpts from the Novgorod Joachim Chronicle into Mikhail Karateev’s historical novel The Charter of Great Khan (1958). The research relevancy is determined by the scholarly interest in the artistic actualization of medieval documents in modern literature. The issue of the adequate transformation of medieval literature images, motifs and episodes is very significant for historical fiction. The quotations paraphrased by the character of the novel are borrowed from the most debatable part of the Novgorod Joachim Chronicle, which contains information not found in other medieval texts. Being aware of the Chronicle’s questionable reputation among scholars, Karateev poses arguments in favor of its authenticity and explicates these arguments through the character of his novel tailoring them to the character’s personality and his historical period. Consequently, the author portrays the character who critically investigates the Chronicle, which is appealing to readers but not typical for a person living in the described epoch. Mikhail Karateev attributes his own perception of the Novgorod Joachim Chronicle to the character of his novel in order to refute the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state. The picture of old Russian history is supplemented with the information derived from the medieval annals and scholarly literature