The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir

The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir (Russian: Сказание о князьях Владимирских, romanized: Skazanie o knyazyakh Vladimirskikh), also known as The Tale of the Grand Princes of Vladimir of Great Russia,[a] is a Russian literary monument of the early 16th century.

Along with the Book of Royal Degrees, it was used by Ivan IV of Russia to legitimize his claim of being the rightful ruler of all Orthodox Christians.

[1] According to Aleksandr Goldberg [ru], the original author was Dmitry Gerasimov, a Russian diplomat "capable of embodying in concrete form the new historical and political ideas that had developed in Moscow's ruling circles".

[2] The first legend of the Tale traces the male-line descent of the princes of Vladimir, and hence of Moscow, to not only Rurik, but also from a certain Prus.

The tsar's place for praying in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was decorated with a set of bas-reliefs illustrating the Tale.