The work of Samiylo Velychko is one of the three most famous and complete Cossack chronicles and is a unique monument of Cossack historical thought and Baroque literature of the first half of the eighteenth century. Velychko was a chancellor of the Zaporozhian Army under Hetman Mazepa and had great opportunities to collect and use the material.

Unlike the chronicles of Samovydets and Hrabianka, Velichko's work is more extensive. It covers the events from 1620 to 1700 and includes hundreds of documents from the military chancellery (both unique copies and literally "sewn" originals), quotes from now lost diaries and chronicles.

Despite its uniqueness and popularity, Velichko's work has never been published in its entirety, with the necessary archaeological apparatus. Therefore, Velychko's Chronicle has not been properly studied to date. It was published in the mid-nineteenth century with a gross violation of the structure, significant omissions, without commentary, textual and codicological analysis. In addition, for censorship reasons, the nineteenth-century publication did not include some documents and eulogies related to I. Mazepa.

The proposed edition, based on the original manuscript and its Kyiv copy of the late eighteenth century, will allow us to more fully assess the events of the Cossack period of Ukrainian history, rethink many historiographical myths and clarify specific events. The publication contains the full text of Velychko's work, reconstructed according to his plan, a biography of the author of the monument, a codicological analysis of the original manuscript and the Kyiv list, the history of the manuscript, its storage and publications, historiography, archaeological comments, a table of documents, literary and historical works used by Velychko, geographical and name indexes.

The publication is adapted for modern reading and is intended for a wide range of readers - historians, philologists, cultural studies scholars, and anyone interested in the history of the Cossack era and examples of Ukrainian baroque literature.