One of the main organizing conceptions of the history of medieval Rusˊ and Russia is dynasty. Russian chronicles of the sixteenth century present a continuous story from Riurik and the calling of the Varangians, a story that follows the Riurikovich dynasty in its various branches, leading up to Moscow and the formation of a more or less unitary Russian state. Most modern historians have also used dynasty as an organizing principle, at least for the Vladimir and Moscow princes and Russia after Ivan III. Christian Raffensberger and Donald Ostrowski question the utility of the notion of a continuous dynasty, offering instead a picture of the state that is founded on smaller clans and families in local principalities. In their view, dynasty became an organizing principle only with the reign of Ivan III.

The authors follow a definition of clan that means descent from a single ancestor, but this is descent in the male line. In their view “family” includes the wife and all children, but as the authors frequently note, the chronicles often do not even tell us the names of the princes’ wives. The authors refer to the foreign marriages of some of the princes and their daughters that historians often ignore. Often these women are as poorly described in western sources as in Russian, which makes them little more than names, if that. Without the women, it is hard to see a family. The sources seem to point relentlessly to descent in the male line, not a family in the sense the authors mean. Obviously, such a family existed, but the issue is conceptions that appear in the sources.

To make their point the authors present a series of accounts of the rule of ten selected princes in chronological order. Each chapter depicts one of the princes, some familiar and some not so familiar, though among them are Iaroslav the Wise, Aleksandr Nevskii, and Ivan III. To make the point, the chapters provide the known details about marriage and family. Most of each chapter is largely taken up with accounts of inter-princely feuds, relations with the Horde, and the church more extensively than the depiction of the actual structure of the family.

The authors do not confront the variety of historians who have written on the princes they describe. For the early period we hear nothing of A. E. Presniakov, B. D. Grekov, M. B. Sverdlov, P. P. Tolochko and many other Russian and Ukrainian historians. There is much polemic with George Vernadsky and Mikhailo Hrushevsˊkyi, both classics in their field but hardly the last word on the topic. Peter Nitsche’s careful account of the succession system within the Moscow dynasty does not appear, and the work of A. A. Zimin only indirectly. Without taking them into account it is difficult to really engage with the literature.

In the process of recounting the history of the various princes, there are many observations on a multitude of issues large and small, many of them quite promising, but the result is not a coherent picture of the family relations of the princes described. The book is beautifully illustrated, and the pictures add life to the dry narrative that the character of the sources often imposes on the historian. The authors show a proper discontent with established ideas. The proposal that the notion of the Riurikovich dynasty is a product of the time of Ivan III is probably correct, though modern historians do not always draw the consequences of that conclusion. This attempt to put clan and family at the center is a step in the right direction.