Tale of Podillja land

Nicholas Zharkikh

"Tale of Podillja land" (TPL) – is "another story" in the full sense of the expression, which has its own extensive chronology, its inclusion on the basis of the chronological order of presentation is not an easy task.

Conclusions

1. The story covers the events from the mid-14th century until 1430, for the period 1394 – 1430 it is reliable and valuable source; early time (Algirdas’ rule) – typical fabulous history, these messages should be treated with caution.

2. The best text is Vit4L, but it requires some amendments of Vit3L and Vit6L. Vit6L in general is processing the original story, which continues in the "Lithuanian" chronicles. The quality of the text is systematically getting worse. Only the original text can be valuable source for historical research.

3. The piece is written in Vilna in the 1430s (possibly in 1431) in order to justify the historical rights of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the possession of the Podillja, which was captured by the Poles.

4. The characteristic stylistic features of the original text is a sequence of connected narrative of the events, the complete absence of absolute dates – the same features as in the early chapters of "Vytautas" chronicle, although the story is written no doubt by another person. Perhaps its author was the author of the insertion of the death of Skirgaila in "Acts", which was "a little" in the late 14th century.