The
Tale appears for the first time in 1523. Some historians have dated it to the late 15th century, specifically after 1480, but others do not find this convincing.
Aleksandr Zimin dated it to the end of the 15th century and did not name a specific person as the author of the
Tale, but he did not consider
Pachomius the Serb to be the author. According to , the original author was
Dmitry Gerasimov, a Russian diplomat "capable of embodying in concrete form the new historical and political ideas that had developed in Moscow's ruling circles". Goldberg believed that the original version was written in the 1510s or 1520s. The
Tale starts off with the
Biblical Flood and the
Tower of Babel, which is then followed by a list of great rulers of the past, beginning with the rulers of Egypt. The first legend of the
Tale traces the male-line descent of the princes of
Vladimir, and hence of
Moscow, to not only
Rurik, but also from a certain Prus. The
Tale says that following the death of
Julius Caesar, his brother Augustus succeeded him and was crowned in Egypt. After conquering the world, he sent his brother called Prus to the
Vistula. It then says: "And Prus lived a very long time, until the fourth generation, and until now these lands are called the Prussian lands". From this,
Gostomysl, the ruler of
Novgorod, advised his subjects on his "death bed to send to Prussia for a ruler, and they did so and found Riurik". According to the legend, from Prus descends Rurik, and from Rurik descend the princes of Vladimir. The second legend included in the
Tale tells of the story of
Monomakh's Cap, a purported imperial crown which
Vladimir Monomakh obtained from Emperor
Constantine IX Monomachos. According to the legend, after his victory, Vladimir received the regalia of
Byzantium, including the Cross of Christ, the imperial crown, the
pelerine, and the box of
carnelian, "out of which the Emperor Augustus had derived great joy... From that time onward the princes of Vladimir had themselves crowned with the Imperial Crown". The
Tale provided the ideological background for
Ivan IV's coronation as the first Russian
tsar. For instance, it was included as an introductory article to the rite of Ivan's coronation as tsar. During his reign, Ivan constantly stressed the Rurikovich descent from August, for example in negotiations with Poland–Lithuania and Sweden. It also inspired
Athanasius, Metropolitan of Moscow, to compile the famous
Book of Royal Degrees. The tsar's place for praying in the
Dormition Cathedral of the
Moscow Kremlin was decorated with a set of
bas-reliefs illustrating the
Tale. ==Notes==