From Wikipedia
Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as
Yaroslav the Wise (
Old Norse:
Jarizleifr;
Old East Slavic and
Russian Ярослав Мудрый;
Ukrainian:
Ярослав Мудрий; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice
Grand Prince of
Novgorod and
Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's Christian name was George (
Yuri) after
Saint George (
Old Russian: Гюрьгi,
Ghyurghi).
A son of the
Varangian (
Viking)
Grand Prince Vladimir the Great, he was vice-regent of
Novgorod at the time of his father’s death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother,
Svyatopolk the Accursed, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in
Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the
Novgorodians and the help of
Varangian mercenaries, defeated Svyatopolk and became the
Grand Prince of Kiev
in 1019.
Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely
enactments was begun, and this work served as the basis for a law code
called the
Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During his lengthy reign,
Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.
Rise to the throne
The only contemporary image of Yaroslav I the Wise, on his seal.
The years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of
Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by
Rogneda of Polotsk, although his actual age (as stated in the
Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his
skeleton in the 1930s) 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 from Rogneda and marriage to
Anna Porphyrogeneta, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogeneta herself.
Yaroslav figures prominently in the
Norse Sagas
under the name of Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably
resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who
examined his remains.
In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to
rule the northern lands around
Rostov but was transferred to
Novgorod, as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of
Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the
Volga.
His relations with his 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
Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland. During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (
Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered. The
Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders, while the
Saga of Eymund is often interpreted 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, seized
Kiev and pushed Yaroslav back into
Novgorod.
Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly
established his rule over Kiev.
One of his first actions as a grand
prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to
gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the
foundation of the
Novgorodian republic
was laid.
For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than
they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their
city, next to the marketplace (and where the
veche often convened) was named Yaroslavovo Dvorishche ("
Yaroslav's Court") after him.
It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the
East Slavic lands, "Yaroslav's Justice" (now better known as
Ruskaia Pravda, "Rus Truth [Law]").
Reign
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers,
Nestor the Chronicler
and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue,
styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is
revealed by his having imprisoned his younger brother Sudislav for life.
Yet another brother,
Mstislav of Tmutarakan, whose distant realm bordered the
Northern Caucasus and the
Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King
Anund Jacob of Sweden (as
Jakun -
"blind and dressed in a gold suit"),
[5]
inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav
then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the
Dnieper, with the capital at
Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.
Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the
trident.
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance
and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he
reconquered
Red Rus' from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King
Casimir I of Poland, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he founded
Yuryev (today Tartu, Estonia) (named after
Saint George, or "Yury", Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of
Ugaunia to pay annual tribute.
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against
Constantinople led by his son
Vladimir and general
Vyshata. Although
the Rus' navy was defeated, Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son
Vsevolod
to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so
advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine
possession in
Crimea,
Chersones.
To defend his state from the
Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of
Yuriev,
Boguslav,
Kaniv,
Korsun, and
Pereyaslav. To celebrate his decisive victory over the
Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) 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 the king of
Sweden, and gave
Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.
The
Saint Sophia Cathedral houses a
fresco
representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known
in Rus), their five daughters and five sons. Yaroslav had three of his
daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name
being Ilya (?-1020)), 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 (1036–1060) of
Volyn and Vyacheslav (1036–1057) of
Smolensk. About the last one there are almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son
Boris who challenged
Vsevolod sometime in 1077-1078.
Grave
The sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise was uncovered in
St. Sophia Cathedral in 1939 there were displayed
the remains of unknown woman without head and the man’s skull, which
possibly belonged to the famous ruler’s son. Skeletons mentioned in a record of 1939 disappeared.
Legacy
Four different towns in four different countries were founded by and named after Yaroslav:
Yaroslavl (in today's
Russia), Yuryev (now
Tartu,
Estonia) and another Yuryev (now
Bila Tserkva,
Ukraine (Yuriy was Prince Yaroslav's baptismal name),
Jarosław
in Poland.
Also, following the Russian custom of naming military
objects such as tanks & planes after historical figures, the helmet
worn by many Russian soldiers during the
Crimean War
was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav the Wise". It was the first pointed
helmet to be used by any army, even before German troops wore pointed
helmets.
In 2008 Yaroslav was placed first (with 40% of the votes) in their ranking of "our greatest
compatriots" by the by the viewers of the TV show
The Greatest Ukrainians.
Afterwards one of the producers of The Greatest Ukrainians claimed that
Yaroslav had only won because of vote manipulation and that (if that
had been prevented) the real first place would have been awarded to
Stepan Bandera.
Yaroslav. Tysyachu let nazad is a 2010 film based on his early life as a regional prince on the fronter. It is available with English subtitles as
Iron Lord.
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