| Summary/Abstract |
UNTIL THE LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, the "Siberian File" of the rulers of the Muscovite State contained few facts obtained mostly from Novgorod sources. For the year 1364, for example, the Moscow chronicle (letopis') mentioned a march of the Novgorod army beyond the Urals and supplied the details: one part "fought along the Ob River and reached the sea" while the other was moving in the opposite direction, "up the river." This was the first mention of the Ob River in Russian chronicles while the term Siberia as a place-name was still unknown. It was in 1406 that the term Siberian Land first appeared in Russian chronicles and was associated with the murder in the lower reaches of the Tobol River of the Tatar khan Tokhtamysh, the eternal enemy of Muscovy.
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