The Tale of Bygone Years begins with
biblical times, in the introductory portion of the text, and concludes with the year 1117 in the
Chronicle's third edition. Russian
philologist and founder of the science of
textology Aleksey Shakhmatov was the first one to discover early on that the chronology of the
Primary Chronicle opens with an error. The
Chronicle has it that “In the year 6360 (852), the fifteenth of the indiction, at the accession of the Emperor Michael, the land of Rus’ was first named.