Encyclopedia
Yaroslav I the Wise was thrice Grand Prince of
Novgorod and
Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. During his lengthy reign,
Kievan Rus' reached a zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.
His way to the throne
Early years of Yaroslav's life are enshrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of
Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by
Rogneda of Polotsk, although his actual age would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce with Rogneda and his marriage to
Anna Porphyrogeneta. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse Sagas under the name of Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness was corroborated by the scientists who examined his relics.
In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around
Rostov the Great but was transferred to
Novgorod the Great, as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of
Yaroslavl on the
Volga. His relations with father were apparently strained, and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son,
Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Vladimir's death prevented a war.
During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother
Sviatopolk, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke
Boleslaus I of Poland. During the course of this struggle, several other brothers were brutally murdered. The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders, while the
Saga of Eymund is often interpretated as recounting the story of Boris's assassination by the
Varangians in the service of Yaroslav.
Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland. But Svyatopolk returned with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law Duke Boleslaus of Poland, seized
Kiev and pushed Yaroslav back into
Novgorod. In 1019, Yaroslav eventually prevailed over Svyatopolk and established his rule over Kiev. One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians , numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation for the
Novgorod Republic was laid. The Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than other Kievan princes and named a
veche square after him. It is thought that it was at that period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the East Slavic lands, the Yaroslav's Justice, better known as
Russkaya Pravda.
His reign
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers,
Nestor and later Russian historians often represented him as a model of virtue and styled him
the Wise. A less appealing side of his personality may be revealed by the fact that he imprisoned his younger brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Tmutarakan, whose distant realm bordered on the
Northern Caucasus and the
Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Thereupon Yaroslav and Mstislav divided Kievan Rus: the area stretching left from the
Dnieper, with the capital at
Chernigiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030 he reconquered from the Poles Red Rus, and concluded an alliance with king
Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he conquered the hypothetical Estonian fortress of Tarbatu, built his own fort in that place, which went by the name of
Yuriev and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunia to pay annual tribute.
In 1043 Yaroslav staged a raid against
Constantinople led by his son
Vladimir and general Vyshata. Although the Rus army was defeated, Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son
Vsevolod to the emperor's daughter.
To defend his state from nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of fortifications near the towns of
Chersones,
Kanev and
Pereyaslav. To celebrate his decisive victory over the
Pechenegs he sponsored the construction of the
Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. Other celebrated monuments of his reign, such as the
Golden Gates of Kiev, have since perished.
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Russian monk Ilarion proclaimed the metropolitan of Kiev, thus challenging old Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Ilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of
Old Russian literature.
Family life and posterity
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of king of
Sweden, and gave
Ladoga to her as a marriage gift. There are good reasons to believe that before that time he had been married to a woman named Anna, of disputed extraction.
In the
Saint Sophia Cathedral, one may see a
fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene , their 5 daughters and 5 sons. Yaroslav married three of his daughters to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court: Elizabeth to
Harald III of Norway ; Anastasia to the future
Andrew I of Hungary, and the youngest daughter Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France and was the regent of
France during their son's minority. Another daughter may have been the Agatha who married Edward the Exile, heir to the throne of
England and was the mother of Edgar Atheling and
St. Margaret of Scotland.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage , and 6 sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these,
Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons - Iziaslav,
Sviatoslav, and
Vsevolod - reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor of
Volynia and Vyacheslav of
Smolensk.
Sources
- Martin, Janet L.B. Medieval Russia, 980-1584
- Nazarenko A.V. Drevnyaya Rus na mezhdunarodnykh putyakh. Moscow, Russian History Institute, 2001
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