Image of Muslim characters by the author of «Kazan Chronicle»

Abstract

One of the features of ‟Kazan Chronicle” – the manuscript of the three hundred year history of relations between Russia and Kazan Khanate – is the unusual attitude of the author, a supporter of the policy of Ivan the Terrible, to the Kazan Tatars (the latter ones in some cases are portrayed sympathetically by him), is discussed in the article; examples of the destruction of literary etiquette in the ‟Chronicle” are given, the reasons for such descriptions, hidden in the biography of the unnamed author of ‟Kazan Chronicle”, are explained. Episodes about violation of the contract with the fugitive Crimean tsar Ulanus, about the stay of the latter at the borders of Russia, by Vasily II the Blind, the Grand Prince of Moscow (Chapter 9), about treason of Kazan Khan Muhammad Amin against Ivan III the Great and about the further repentance of the former (Chapter 12), the perfidy of Shahghali, Khan of Kazan, who was Moscow's appointee, and killing by him of Chura, son of Naryk, Kazan nobleman who had saved him (Chapter 25), are discussed in the article in this aspect. In all those episodes of ‟Kazan Chronicle”, what is reflected is not only the circumstances of the personal sympathy towards Kazan Tatars from the side of the author of the ‟Chronicle”, who had lived for twenty years as a prisoner in Kazan, but also the destruction of literary etiquette, which was a trend characteristic of the 16th century literature.