The reference to “old tradition” was a fairly new feature of Muscovite political culture. The Kyivan lineage of the Muscovite princely line had hardly been mentioned by chroniclers before Ivan III took Novgorod. Until then, the princes of Moscow had competed for power with those of Tver and other centers by appealing to the khans of the Horde. References to Kyiv and the Rurikid origins of the ruling dynasty had no value in the eyes of the khans, who were the heirs of Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire. But that situation changed with the continuing disintegration of the Horde.
