The theory of succession in the Rurik family was as follows: the grand prince of Kiev was lord paramount of Russia. He disposed of all vacant principalities, and was supreme judge and general; but each of his brothers had, according to his seniority, the right of succession to the throne. The death of every elder brother brought the younger ones a step nearer to that goal. The order of advance was from Smolensk to Pereiaslavl, from Pereiaslavl to Tchernigov, from Tchernigov to Kiev. But none could attain to the highest dignity, save him whose father had held it before him. Sons of a father who had died before reaching the goal were excluded from Kiev and were confined to the possessions in their hands at the time of their father’s death. The technical Russian term for those members of the Rurik family who were excluded from the highest dignity was Isgoi, and the attempts of the Isgoi to break through the law of exclusion have had no small share in the bloody and desolate history of Russia during the period upon which we now enter. But another factor contributed to the same end. The power of the grand prince was not so predominant as to enable him to enforce his will and put down disobedience. His position was based on the idea of patriarchal power, and was respected by the princes only when it was to their advantage. To maintain himself he had to resort to the expedient of making coalitions with some of the princes against the others, and the sword was the final arbiter between the grand prince and his nominal vassals.[c] Accordingly the whole of Russia was always divided in its support of the claims of this or that candidate. The civil wars which ensued were after all but family quarrels.[a] CIVIL WARS [Sidenote: [1055-1069 A.D.]] Iaroslav left five sons. To Iziaslav, the oldest, he gave Kiev; to Sviatoslav, Tchernigov; to Vsevolod, Pereiaslavl; to Viatcheslav, Smolensk; and to Igor, Vladimir in Volhinia. The order in which they are given here represents the order of their respective dignities and their position in the line of succession. Two of the brothers did not long survive their father. In 1056 Viatcheslav died, and Igor, in accordance with the law of succession, moved to Smolensk, where he too died in 1060. About this time a new wave of migration set in from Asia towards the south-Russian steppe--the Turkish tribe of the Polovtsi. In 1055 Vsevolod of Pereiaslavl concluded peace with them by bribing them to retire into the steppe. In 1061 he suffered a defeat at their hands, but they did not follow up their success and again retired into the steppe. The civil wars, however, which soon broke out, were to bring them back as an ever-menacing plague to the Russian population. [Illustration: SVIATOSLAV]