The Rus' chronicles, or Russian chronicles, was the primary Rus' historical literature. Chronicles were composed from the 11th to the 18th centuries.
Chronicles were the main historical narrative until the mid-16th century (the reign of Ivan the Terrible), when they were superseded by chronographs.
The Primary Chronicle, shortened from the common Russian Primary Chronicle (Church Slavonic: Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ, romanized: Pověstĭ vremęnĭnyxŭ lětŭ, commonly transcribed Povest' vremennykh let (PVL), lit. 'Tale of Bygone Years'), is a chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been originally compiled in the Kiev area in the 1110s. Tradition ascribed its compilation to the monk Nestor (Nestor's Chronicle) beginning in the 12th century, but this is no longer believed to have been the case.
The title of the work, Povest' vremennykh let ("Tale of Bygone Years") comes from the opening sentence of the Laurentian text: "These are the narratives of bygone years regarding the origin of the land of Rus', the first princes of Kiev, and from what source the land of Rus' had its beginning". The work is considered a fundamental source for the earliest history of the East Slavs.
The Grand Prince of Kiev (sometimes also Grand Duke) was the title of the monarch of Kievan Rus', residing in Kiev (modern Kyiv) from the 10th to 13th centuries. In the 13th century, Kiev became an appanage principality, first of the grand prince of Vladimir and the Mongol Golden Horde governors, and was later taken over by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Rus' chronicles such as the Primary Chronicle are inconsistent in applying the title "grand prince" to various princes of Kievan Rus'. Although most sources consistently attribute it to the prince of Kiev, there is no agreement which princes were also "grand prince", and scholars have thus come up with different lists of grand princes of Kiev.
The Great Troubles (Russian: Великая замятня, romanized: Velikaya zamyatnya, from Old East Slavic замѧтьнѧ, as found in Rus' chronicles), also known as the Golden Horde Dynastic War, was a war of succession in the Golden Horde from 1359 to 1381.
This era, which followed shortly after the Black Death had ravaged the cities of the Golden Horde, was characterised by two decades of near anarchy. A long series of short-reigning khans deposed and killed each other, only to suffer the same fate next. Mamai emerged as the most powerful Mongol warlord, frequently employing Rus' principalities such as Tver and Ryazan as his allies. Because he was not a Chingisid (descendant of Genghis Khan), Mamai had no legitimate claim to the throne, and instead used Chingisid puppet-khans to exercise political control.