An Interpolated Version of Ðorđe Branković’s Chronicle in a 1770 Miscellany (Romanian Academy Library Rom. Ms.1358)

The present article examines the scribal interventions in a manuscript copy of Đorđe Branković's late seventeenth-century Romanian Chronicle. The manuscript (Romanian Academy Library, Rom. Ms. 1358) is a miscellany copied in 1770 by Eustatie Popovici, a Transylvanian Eastern Orthodox monk who made various changes to the text of the chronicle. The scribe removed the biblical and pre-Christian history fragments from the beginning of the chronicle, gave the work a new title and added historical accounts collected from other sources. In particular, Eustatie cited an unidentified source titled The Histories of Wallachia’s Wars (Istoriile războaielor Țării Românești), which he used to expand upon the description of Mehmed II’s military campaign against voivode Vlad III the Impaler (1462). The modifications provide clues about the literary knowledge of the copyist, while also hinting at his sympathy for the Russian side in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which was unfolding at that time