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schmericaGeoffrey Hosking, Russia and the Russians: a History, pg 71 and 72:
Ivan I left a testament to his three sons, Semen, Andrei and Ivan, assigning a more or less equal division of territory among them, but recognizing Semen's seniority within the family. He took his sons to Sarai and persuaded the khan to ratify the testament, as if consciously assuming the role of a founder of a dynasty worthy to exercise the *iarlyk* in perpetuity. After his death, his sons confirmed the arrangements but took an additional step: to avoid conflict, they acknowledged Semen as the senior political authority and fixed the land assigned to each brother as a patrimony, thus breaking definitively with the Kievan tradition that both land and sovereignty were the affair of the dynasty as a whole.
P.S. My mood is *totally* what Fraser's thinking in that picture. You can't tell me differently.
Ivan I left a testament to his three sons, Semen, Andrei and Ivan, assigning a more or less equal division of territory among them, but recognizing Semen's seniority within the family. He took his sons to Sarai and persuaded the khan to ratify the testament, as if consciously assuming the role of a founder of a dynasty worthy to exercise the *iarlyk* in perpetuity. After his death, his sons confirmed the arrangements but took an additional step: to avoid conflict, they acknowledged Semen as the senior political authority and fixed the land assigned to each brother as a patrimony, thus breaking definitively with the Kievan tradition that both land and sovereignty were the affair of the dynasty as a whole.
P.S. My mood is *totally* what Fraser's thinking in that picture. You can't tell me differently.
