Protograph

A protograph is, in textology, the nearest common source-text (an original or early copy) from which the extant copies of a work derive, directly or indirectly. The protograph is usually not preserved and is reconstructed by the textologist on the basis of comparing the surviving copies, their variant readings, and common errors. Establishing the protograph and the genealogical relationships among copies (constructing a 'stemma' — a genealogical tree of manuscripts) is the central task of the genealogical (Lachmannian) method of the textology of early monuments. The protograph must be distinguished from the archetype — the hypothetical earliest recoverable text of the whole tradition — and from the autograph — the original written in the author's hand. The reconstruction of the protographs of the Old Rus' chronicles (notably the hypothetical 'Primary Compilation' and the protograph of the 'Tale of Bygone Years') is a classic problem of medieval studies, worked on by Aleksei Shakhmatov and Mykhailo Hrushevsky.