Gostomysl

[2] According to Tatishchev, who claimed to have derived his information from the now-lost Ioachim Chronicle, Gostomysl was elected by the Ilmen Slavs as their supreme ruler and expelled the Varangians from what is now northwestern Russia.

[3] The legend of Gostomysl was much aired by the writers and composers working in the nationalist milieu of Catherine II's reign.

However, the historians Gerhardt Friedrich Müller and Nikolay Karamzin gave no credit to Tatischev's story, believing that the very name of Gostomysl resulted from a misinterpretation of two Slavic words - gost' ("guest") and mysl' ("thought").

[citation needed] Gostomysl's rule is associated with the confederation of northern tribes, which was formed to counter the Varangian threat in the mid-9th century and embraced the Ilmen Slavs, Krivichs, Merya, and Chud.

[citation needed] Sergey Platonov and Aleksey Shakhmatov believed that the capital of the confederation was in modern Russa and Gostomysl could have been one of its leaders.