Recommendations
Nicholas Zharkikh
Since the study has the character of source study, we must always remember that a source studies is an auxiliary historical discipline. And now, when a final conclusions are made, it is time to ask – to whom what help may be on the job.
1. The greatest benefit may have historians, dealing with the reconstruction of historical events. They should guide by the following table the most authoritative texts:
| Period | Article | Best text | The degree of reliability, informativeness |
| 1340 – 1392 | Tale of Vytautas | Vit1L | high |
| 1392 – 1397 | Acts of Vytautas | Vit1L + Vit3L | high |
| 4 qtr. 14 cent. – 1430-ies | Tale of Podillja land | Vit3L + Vit4L + Vit6L | Fantasy and recalls in the initial part, the significant value from the time of Vytautas |
| 1430 | The story about the congress rulers | Vit4L | low |
| Praise of Vytautas (2 ed.) | Vit4L | low | |
| 1432 – 1436 | Tale of Švitrigaila | Vit4L | high |
| 1410 – 1427 | Chronicle Metropolitan Photius | Bil1L + Bil2L + Bil3L + Bil4L | high |
| 1432 – 1446 | Smolensk chronicle | Bil2L + Bil4L | high |
| Praise of Vytautas (3 ed.) | Vit6L | no | |
| Fabulous emergence of Lithuania | Lit2L, Lit4L | no | |
| Tale of Algirdas march on Moscow | Lit6L | no | |
| Remaking "Lithuanian" chronicle | Lit1L | no | |
| 1514 | Annals of King Sigismund (1 ed.) | Lit7L | high |
| 1482 – 1548 | Annals of King Sigismund (2 ed.) | Lit5L + Lit6L | No up to early 16 cent., high for the 1st half 16 cent. |
| 1307 – 1536 | Short chronicle Lithuania | Lit4L + Lit7L | No up to early 16 cent., high for the 1st half 16 cent. |
Using these texts, one should remember that in any case we does not have autographs, but only later copies. These copies, as our experience shows, quickly deteriorate as we move from the stemma apex to its final copies. Therefore, we can be sure that the texts that are at the top, have gaps and other defects too, but they are difficult to notice for us.
We did not meet any case, that later copy was systematically better than early one; therefore one should not use more recent copies, to avoid their individual errors be historical facts.
2. For the literary historian, historian of public opinion and historiograph help from this work is in establishment stemma of each article. Once again – any copy the examined chronicles was not derived from the other, each has an individual layout, retaining only a general scheme. Therefore it is impossible to make general stemma preserved copies, but only stemma individual articles.
3. A significant help to anyone who is interested in these chronicles, have establishment the origin of each of the episodes, as well as each of their words (where there is an individual errors). This makes it possible to separate the original recordings in annals and the borrowing from other sources, that it contains a lot. These loans do not have a source value for the historian (he must apply to the original sources), but they are of interest to determine the range of expertise chroniclers.
4. The general recommendation for historians – not to use such works filled with fantasies as "Short chronicle Lithuania", Lit1L ("Bychowiec chronicle") and Chronicle M. Stryjkowski.
5. The task of historical science is to write a relevant part of the history of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine from scratch, based on the sources of contemporary events, and without the use of inventions of 16 cent.