Yaroslav the Wise: Kievan Rus at Its Height and Russkaya Pravda

Yaroslav the Wise was Grand Prince of Kyiv from 1019 until his death in 1054, a period often seen as the high point of Kievan Rus. He fought his way to power through a bloody succession war, then gave his realm its first written law code, the Russkaya Pravda, and a great building programme crowned by Saint Sophia Cathedral. Through the marriages of his children, the ruling house of Kyiv became related to the royal families of Norway, Hungary, France, Poland and Byzantium.

Background: the sons of Vladimir

Yaroslav was born around 978, one of the many sons of Vladimir I of Kyiv, the prince who adopted Christianity for Rus in 988, an event described in the Christianization of Kievan Rus. His mother is traditionally said to have been Rogneda of Polotsk. Vladimir placed his sons as governors in the main towns of his realm, and Yaroslav ruled first at Rostov and then, from about 1010, at Novgorod in the north.

In 1014 Yaroslav refused to send Novgorod’s annual tribute to Kyiv, an act close to rebellion. Vladimir was preparing to march against him when he died on 15 July 1015.

The struggle for Kyiv

Vladimir’s death started a fierce war between his sons. Sviatopolk, who seized Kyiv, was blamed by the chroniclers for the murders of his brothers Boris, Gleb and Sviatoslav in 1015. Boris and Gleb, who were said to have accepted death without resistance, became the first native saints of Rus.

Yaroslav, supported by Novgorodians and Scandinavian mercenaries, defeated Sviatopolk near Liubech in 1016 and took Kyiv. But Sviatopolk returned with his father-in-law, Bolesław I of Poland. In 1018 Bolesław defeated Yaroslav on the Bug river and entered Kyiv, an expedition celebrated in Polish tradition, and seized Yaroslav’s sisters and treasure as he withdrew.

Yaroslav fled to Novgorod, gathered a new army and in 1019 defeated Sviatopolk decisively on the Alta river. Sviatopolk fled and died soon afterwards. Even then Yaroslav’s position was not secure: his brother Mstislav of Chernigov beat him at Listven in 1024, and the two agreed to divide Rus along the Dnieper. Only after Mstislav died without surviving heirs in 1036 did Yaroslav become the sole ruler of almost all of Rus.

Ruler and lawgiver

The Russkaya Pravda (“Rus Justice”) is the oldest surviving law code of the East Slavs. Its earliest part, often called the Short Pravda or the Pravda of Yaroslav, is traditionally dated to his reign and may have been first issued for Novgorod around 1016.

The code allowed close relatives to take revenge for a killing but set money fines, called vira, where no avenger existed. It listed compensation for injuries, theft and damage to property, and reflected a society of princes, their armed retinues, free townsmen and dependent people. Yaroslav’s sons later expanded it, and a much longer version, the Expanded Pravda, appeared in the 12th century.

Builder and patron of learning

In 1036 Yaroslav defeated the Pechenegs, steppe nomads who had besieged Kyiv. The Primary Chronicle says that in 1037 he founded a new and much larger city, with stone walls, the Golden Gate and Saint Sophia Cathedral, named after the great church of Constantinople. He also built churches and monasteries dedicated to Saint George and Saint Irene, the patron saints of himself and his wife.

The chronicle praises him for gathering scribes who translated Greek religious works into Slavonic and for placing books in Saint Sophia, creating what is often described as the first library in Rus. He also encouraged schools and the training of clergy.

In 1051 Yaroslav arranged for a council of Rus bishops to appoint Hilarion, a native priest, as Metropolitan of Kyiv, rather than waiting for a Greek candidate from Constantinople. Hilarion is known as the author of the Sermon on Law and Grace, one of the masterpieces of early Rus literature. In the same period the cave monastery that became the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was founded.

Wars and diplomacy

Yaroslav fought the Poles, the Baltic peoples and the Finnic tribes of the north, founding the town of Yuryev (modern Tartu, Estonia) around 1030. He recovered the Cherven towns from Poland in the early 1030s.

In 1043 he sent his son Vladimir with a fleet against Constantinople, the last Rus attack on the Byzantine capital. A storm and Byzantine Greek fire destroyed much of the fleet, but peace was restored within a few years and later sealed by a marriage.

A family linked to Europe

Yaroslav’s marriages made Kyiv part of the European dynastic network. He married Ingegerd, daughter of King Olof Skötkonung of Sweden, around 1019. Their children married widely:

• Elizabeth (Elisiv) married Harald Hardrada, who had served in the Byzantine imperial guard and became King of Norway.
• Anastasia married Andrew I of Hungary.
• Anne married Henry I of France in 1051; she was mother of Philip I and shared in the regency during his minority.
• Iziaslav married a sister of the Polish king Casimir I.
• Vsevolod married a Byzantine princess, probably a relative of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos; their son was Vladimir Monomakh.

Yaroslav’s sister Maria Dobroniega married Casimir I of Poland, adding another link.

Myths and facts

Myth: Yaroslav founded Kyiv. Kyiv already existed long before him. What the chronicle credits to Yaroslav is a major expansion, the so-called “city of Yaroslav”, with new walls, gates and churches around Saint Sophia.

Myth: the Russkaya Pravda was written all at once. The code grew in stages over more than a century, and only its oldest core is linked to Yaroslav himself.

Myth: his remains are still in the sarcophagus. When the sarcophagus was opened for study in 2009, researchers reported that Yaroslav’s skeleton, examined by Soviet scientists in 1939, was missing; what happened to it is still unclear.

Key people

• Yaroslav I the Wise (c. 978–1054), Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Kyiv.
• Sviatopolk I, his half-brother and rival, remembered as “the Accursed”.
• Mstislav of Chernigov, his brother and co-ruler from 1026 to 1036.
• Ingegerd (Irene) of Sweden, his wife.
• Hilarion, first known native Metropolitan of Kyiv.

Death and succession

Yaroslav died in February 1054 at Vyshhorod near Kyiv and was buried in Saint Sophia in a carved marble sarcophagus. A graffito scratched on the cathedral wall records his death. According to the chronicle, he left a testament urging his sons to live in peace and to respect the seniority of the eldest, Iziaslav, in Kyiv.

The system did not hold. Rivalry among his sons and grandsons, and the growing power of regional centres, slowly divided Rus into separate principalities. This fragmentation left it vulnerable to the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus two centuries later.

Timeline

• c. 978: Yaroslav is born.
• c. 1010: He becomes Prince of Novgorod.
• 1015: Vladimir I dies; Boris and Gleb are murdered.
• 1016: Yaroslav defeats Sviatopolk at Liubech and takes Kyiv.
• 1018: Bolesław I of Poland takes Kyiv for Sviatopolk.
• 1019: Yaroslav defeats Sviatopolk on the Alta river and returns to Kyiv.
• 1036: Mstislav dies; Yaroslav defeats the Pechenegs.
• 1037: Founding of Saint Sophia and the new city, according to the chronicle.
• 1051: Hilarion becomes metropolitan; Anne marries Henry I of France.
• February 1054: Yaroslav dies.

Why it matters

Under Yaroslav, Kyiv was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe, and Rus was fully part of the Christian world of its time. His law code, cathedral and family alliances shaped the later history of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, all of which claim him as part of their heritage.