Historians in prerevolutionary Russia in the Soviet Union in contemporaryRussia and in the West have consistently relegated the medieval dynasty ofChernigov to ... » 

Historians in prerevolutionary Russia in the Soviet Union in contemporaryRussia and in the West have consistently relegated the medieval dynasty ofChernigov to a place of minor importance in Kievan Rus. This view wasreinforced by the evidence that after the Mongols invaded Rus in 1237 thetwo branches from the House of Monomakh living in the RostovSuzdal andGaliciaVolyn regions emerged as the most powerful. However carefulexamination of the chronicle accounts reporting the dynastys history duringthe second half of the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth centuryshows that the Olgovichi of Chernigov successfully challenged the Monomashichifor supremacy in Rus. Through a critical analysis of the available primarysources such as chronicles archaeology coins seals graffiti in churchesand architecture this book attempts correct the pervading erroneous view byallocating to the Olgovichi their rightful place in the dynastic hierarchy ofKievan Rus. «