[4] All medieval historians used these accounts, that survived in over 30 known manuscripts,[5] as basis for their publications and some of the myths created in the chronicles persisted even to the beginning of the 20th century.
[4] This redaction included the earliest known historical account produced in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Dis ist Witoldes sache wedir Jagalan und Skargalan, a complaint and memorial written by Vytautas in 1390 during the Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392).
[6] It detailed his power struggles against cousins Jogaila and Skirgaila in 1379–1390 and supported his claims to his patrimony in Trakai and title of Grand Duke of Lithuania.
[6] The compilation also included a praise to Vytautas, written by Gerasim, a story about Podolia, written in 1431–1435 to support the Lithuanian claims against Poland in the Lithuanian Civil War,[7] a description of power struggles between Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis, a short summary of Moscow's chronicles (854–1428),[3] and latest events in Smolensk (1431–1445).
It is known from several manuscripts:[6][8] The second, more extensive, redaction (also known as Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia) was compiled in the second half of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century[3] (the final version probably came into existence around the 1520s at the court of Albertas Goštautas).
[9] The redaction traced back the foundations of the Lithuanian state to the 1st century, when legendary Palemon escaped from Roman Empire and settled at the mouth of Dubysa.
[4] The elaborate story that Lithuanians were of noble Roman origins had no historical basis and was discarded by modern historians as nothing more than a myth.
[10] While many modern historians discount the text as useless, it can still provide useful bits and pieces of Lithuanian history as it incorporates many garbled fragments of earlier, now lost, documents and chronicles.
[6] This redaction rarely included dates and contained several independent stories that were cherished by 19th century nationalists: legends how Gediminas founded Vilnius because of his dreams of Iron Wolf, how Kęstutis took pagan priestess Birutė for his wife, how Vytautas lavishly treated his guests at the Conference of Lutsk in 1429, etc.
The doubts were inspired by its sudden discovery and its peculiar similarity with the chronicles of Maciej Stryjkowski; also Narbutt is suspected to have falsified several other historical documents.
[6] Further, in 2011, Lithuanian historians discovered a fragment (about one-fifth of the original) of the third redaction at the National Archives in Kraków [pl] and published it in 2018.
[5] They were rediscovered with the advent of professional historiography in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when historians began to critically analyze primary sources to verify various claims.