'Our Kin': The Concept of an 'All-Inclusive' Dynastic Identity Among the Rurikids in the Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

Abstract: The article presents a study of dynastic consciousness among the Rurikids of Kyivan Rus'. It revisits the foundational question of how the Rurikids understood their genealogical community, whether as an all-encompassing 'royal kin' or as a set of fragmented princely families. Through a philological and contextual analysis of key occurrences of the term rod in the Primary Chronicle and the Kyivan Chronicle , as well as in related hagiographic and epistolary sources, the study argues that although the explicit term rod (kin) was rare and inconsistently applied, the underlying notion of shared descent was deeply embedded in the political and ideological culture of Rus'.