The Tale of Bygone Years (; ; ; ), often known in English as the Rus' Primary Chronicle, the Russian Primary Chronicle, or simply the Primary Chronicle, as well as also, after the author it has traditionally been ascribed to, Nestor's Chronicle, is an Old East Slavic chronicle (letopis) of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev around 1113. The work’s name originates from the opening sentence of the text, which reads: “These are the narratives of bygone years regarding the origin of the land of Rus’ (Old East Slavic: Рѹсь), the first princes of Kyiv, and from what source the land of Rus’ had its beginning.” The work has long been considered to be a fundamental source in the interpretation of the history of the East Slavs. The Chronicle's content is known today from several surviving editions and codices that have been revised over the years and evince a slight degree of variation from each other. The historical period covered in 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.” However, 11th-century Greek historian John Skylitzes' accounts of the Byzantine history show that Emperor Michael III did not begin his reign in 852 but rather a decade earlier, on January 20, 842. Because of the work's several identified chronological issues and numerous logical incongruities that have been pointed out by historians over the years, the Chronicle's value as a reliable historical source has been placed under strict scrutiny by the contemporary experts in the field (see “”). Authorship First edition Tradition long regarded the original compilation as the work of a monk named Nestor (c. 1056 – c. 1114); hence scholars spoke of Nestor's Chronicle or of Nestor's manuscript. His compilation has not survived. Nestor worked at the court of Sviatopolk II of Kiev (ruled 1093–1113), and probably shared Sviatopolk's pro-Scandinavian policies. Nestor's likely Pan-Scandinavian attitude was confirmed by a Polish historian and archaeologist Wladyslaw Duczko (2004), who