Not only the perception of the contemporary Lithuanians and Vytautas by Konrad von Jungingen (1393–1407) and the Teutonic Order, but also the Order's memory of the earlier actions of the Lithuanians under King Mindaugas were the background against which the policy of the beginning 15th century was conducted. There is a nexus between memory, perception and politics. The Order still perceived the Lithuanians around 1400 as pagans. The memory studies, especially the central ideas of Maurice Halbwachs' classical theories on collective memory and the "cadres sociaux" provide a plausible explanation.
The aim of the article is to analyze the widely spread idea that the late medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania could unite the whole Rus' and pose an alternative to Moscow. It is shown that the Lithuanian rulers didn't lay such claims; the attempts to detect them in their statements made in 1358 and (allegedly) in 1399 are nothing but misinterpretations. It is also shown that Algirdas, Jogaila and Vytautas had no real chances to subjugate the Duchy of Moscow and its allies and vassals, both as the result of their military expeditions (1368–1372, 1406–1408) and due to the matrimonial union (1383/84).