German, Polish, English and Swedish: Where did the Russian princes look for wives?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There is a myth that Russian rulers began to "Germanize", choosing foreign brides over and over again as wives, only after Peter I, and in the old days princes and tsars looked only at ruddy Slavic young women. In fact, even the first Russian prince Igor (Inger) recorded in the chronicles took a girl from the "Varangian" family, who later became famous as Saint Olga, as his wife.

And it is not surprising - after all, initially the word "rus", as most historians now believe, had nothing to do with the Slavic tribes at all, just as the princes kept their isolation from the population for a long time. But they did not marry non-Slavs for reasons of blood purity; it was a simple political calculation. The wives of Russian princes were either Polovtsian nomads, Greek women, or Scandinavians, and they chose Germans, French, Hungarians as sons-in-law - depending on who seemed to them more advantageous in-laws.

Gita from England

Never before or after the Rurikovichs took brides from such a distant place. Geeta was born in England to King Harold II and his legendary wife Edith Swan Neck. After the death of the king in the battle with William the Conqueror, Geeta and her two brothers had to leave the country: England was conquered by the Normans.

The princess and the princes were taken in by their uncle, King Sven Estridsen of Denmark. He also found a groom for Gita: then Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Smolensk. The Scandinavians then still perceived the Russian princes relative to their own, and Gita with a calm soul was sent to the east. Together with her husband, she alternately changed her place of residence: according to custom, the place where Rurikovich reigned did not belong to him and he could be sent to reign in any other inheritance. So Gita had a chance to live in Smolensk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl and, finally, Kiev.

Whether Gita was happy in marriage, the chroniclers were of little interest, but we know that she became the mother of at least six surviving children, one of whom, Mstislav, passed through the papers of the Orthodox Church as Fedor, and in Europe was known as Harald - apparently in honor of the grandfather.

There are two dates of death of Gita: either the year 1098 (because the next year Monomakh had already married a woman named Efimia), or in the Smolensk monastery in 1107 - in this case, Monomakh used this method of getting a divorce, as being forced to take the tonsure as a nun. This method remained popular for a very long time - for example, Peter I did to his first wife.

I must say that after Efimia Monomakh was married again, this time to a Polovtsian princess. Many princes were related to the Polovtsians for political reasons, for example, the official founder of Moscow, for his contemporaries - first the Prince of Rostov-Suzdal, then the Grand Duke of Kiev, and Vsevolod Yaroslavich, the prince of Pereyaslavl, then Chernigov, then Kiev.

Ingigerda from Sweden

The daughter of the first Christian king of Sweden, Olaf Sjötkonung and his wife Estrid, was first intended to be the wife of the Norwegian king. But just before the wedding, without informing the groom's side, Olaf accepted matchmakers from the Novgorod prince Yaroslav and married his daughter to him, transferring Ladoga and the land around her as a dowry. The Norwegian king was not taken aback and married Ingigerda's sister.

In Novgorod, the Swedish princess was baptized under the Orthodox name Irina. She soon discovered that her position was rather strange. The fact is that Yaroslav's first wife did not die and did not go to the monastery. She was captured and kept in captivity in a separate castle for years by the Polish king Boleslav, who had fallen in love with her from a young age. So Princess Irina was recognized, but was she legal?

As for the husband, everything was difficult for him and in his own family. His mother was a Varangian princess from Polotsk Rogneda, captured and raped by Vladimir Svyatoslavich - in our time he is known as an Orthodox saint. After Vladimir adopted Christianity to marry a Byzantine princess, Rogneda ceased to be considered his wife, and even before baptism she lived separately with her son in Polotsk.

Ingigerda was brought up according to northern customs and did not hesitate to participate in the social and political life of Novgorod, and then Kiev. She led the army by order of her husband, acted as a peacemaker between Yaroslav and his brother, together with her uncle tried to kill King Eymund, gave refuge to the fugitive English princes Edward and Edmund and her ex-fiancé, who by the will of fate lost the crown. True, she welcomed the groom for the sake of his son Magnus - after all, the boy was brought to Irina's nephew.

Due to the fact that Irina and the Norwegian king were once engaged, the people of Kiev suspected her of a love interest in the exile, but the princess did not pay attention to the rumor. After the ex-fiancé left for Norway, she kept Magnus with her and raised him until it became known that the prince would be safe in Norway. The Swedes are sure that she taught both him and her own children Swedish and many sagas.

In Kiev, Irina also founded the first women's monastery and, together with her husband, laid the foundation of the Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedral. Widowed, the princess did not even think about remarriage. She cut her hair as a nun under the name of Anna and returned to the north, to Novgorod, which was much closer to her in spirit than Kiev. By the way, one of the wives of Gita's son from England, Mstislav-Harald, was also Swedish. Her name was Christina, she was the daughter of King Inge and gave birth to her husband ten children. One of them, Izyaslav Mstislavich, married a German woman named Agnes.

Byzantine princesses

The most famous princess from Byzantium was, of course, the wife of the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich. This is not to say that before the wedding itself, their story was a love story. Vladimir, having seized Korsun (Chersonesus of Tauride), demanded Anna as his wife as a ransom, threatening to seize Constantinople otherwise. He even agreed to accept Christianity, if only to become related with the emperors. “I’m walking in full, it would be better for me to die here,” the princess cried as she was being outfitted. Still would! Rumors about Vladimir were extremely terrible. He preferred to steal and rape women, and no considerations stopped him - he kept a whole harem of other people's wives. He killed his brother and, in general, had wild temper and fun.

It is interesting that in the annals Anna was always called the queen, not the princess, although her husband was precisely the prince. She also seems to have had a really big influence on him, and he has abandoned many of his previous habits. Although, perhaps, it was already aged. Exuberant youth was at the end of his marriage by the time of his marriage, maturity came.

Anna, according to some hypotheses, turned out to be sterile - in any case, in the annals, Vladimir's children from other wives are listed in detail, but there is not a word about Anna's children. This, perhaps, is related to her enormous activity in planting churches and monasteries: she wanted to give birth to an heir, making the Kiev throne closer to the Byzantine one. Anna died childless, and Vladimir survived her only four years.

In addition to Vladimir, the father of Vladimir Monomakh Vsevolod was married to the "Greek woman" - in fact, "Monomakh" was the surname of the Byzantine grandfather Vladimir, and he kept her as the last representative of this imperial family. They are credited with a Greek wife and Yaropolk - allegedly it was a nun captured as a trophy and forced to marry. The cousin of Vladimir Monomakh, Oleg Svyatoslavich, was married to a noble Greek woman Theophania Muzalon.

Gertrude from Poland

The daughter of the King of Poland Meshki and Queen Ryxa of Lorraine, Gertrude spent part of her childhood with relatives in Saxony - she was taken there by her mother after the death of Meshka. As soon as Gertrude's brother, Casimir, was entrenched on the throne, the family returned to Poland. There the girl received an excellent education, slightly worse than the Byzantine one.

Casimir was married to the sister of Yaroslav the Wise, Maria and considered it necessary to strengthen this Polish-Russian alliance, giving Gertrude for the son of Yaroslav and Ingigerda, Izyaslav. At the same time, the girl was baptized into Orthodoxy under the name Elena. The marriage was in itself quite successful, but Izyaslav turned out to be a worthless ruler. When he lost the battle to the Polovtsy, the Kievites, whom he reigned at that moment, simply drove him away. The spouses had to move to the place of residence with their mother-in-law.

Out of boredom in exile, Gertrude collected a prayer book in Latin, decorated it and added an astrological section to it, creating the oldest text on astrology in Poland. Ascended the princely throne, Gertrude's nephew Boleslav helped his uncle return to the Kiev throne, but not for long. Four years later, Izyaslav and Getruda reappeared in Poland: Izyaslav was expelled by their own brothers. To the great chagrin of the spouses, Boleslav took the side of the Izyaslav brothers, took some of the jewelry from his uncle and aunt and drove them out of the country. It seems that he was very disappointed in his uncle's talents and intelligence.

The remaining jewelry Izyaslav presented to the German Emperor Henry IV, accompanying them with a request for help. Henry took the jewels, but did not help, once again strengthening the glory of Izyaslav as a person who was not very far-sighted and intelligent. It was during this period that Gertrude's major quarrels with her husband fell. Her prayers have been preserved, in which she asks the Lord to help her tame her temper and so that her husband will start talking to her again.

It is not known how else Izyaslav and Gertrude would have knitted together, but the Pope himself stood up for them before Boleslav. Boleslav had to take his aunt and uncle back to Poland and even invite her to the coronation. After a while, Izyaslav tried to return to his homeland, but very unsuccessfully - less than a year later, he died, figuring out who was right in claims to the Kiev throne. Gertrude, widowed, moved to her son, the prince of Volyn, but even there she had no peace. After a while, the son literally fled under the pretext that he was going for help, and Gertrude and her daughter-in-law Kunigunda were captured by Vladimir Monomakh and, apparently, Gertrude spent the rest of her life in captivity.

In addition to Gertrude, according to rumors, the wife of Svyatopolk the Damned was also a Polish woman. Rumor attributes him to a marriage with the daughter of Boleslav the Brave, but this may also be a way to prove his original curse: after all, Boleslav the Brave in the Russian principalities was known as the kidnapper of Yaroslav Vladimirovich's wife and her sister and the fact that, according to rumors, he cohabited with both of them without hesitation holding them in one of their locks. The relationship with such a character was viewed as defamatory.

Ode from the western lands

Oda was born from the union, presumably, of the Margrave Leopold Babenberg and Ida, niece of the German emperor Henry III. Oda spent her youth in a monastery - until her mother found a good match for her, a certain Russian prince. Most modern historians believe that it was Svyatoslav, the son of Yaroslav and Ingigerda and the brother of the ill-fated Izyaslav. Oda became his second wife, and this marriage was probably caused by the prince's desire to get connections with the West, since Svyatoslav already had four sons from his first wife - he did not need an heir.

Oda gave birth to her husband's son Yaroslav. With so many older brothers, the prince initially did not shine, so after the death of Svyatoslav, Oda took her son with her to her homeland. Taking at the same time, much to the annoyance of the stepsons, a large number of valuables. At home, Oda married a second time, but she gave the captured from Russia to Yaroslav as a keepsake.

As an adult, Yaroslav returned to Russia and opposed Vladimir Monomakh on the side of his half-brother Oleg. Together with him, he brought wealth, which helped him a lot at first.

According to legend, the wife of Gertrude's son with Izyaslav, Kunigunda, was also German. Her father was Count Otto of Weimar, her mother was the early widowed Adela of Brabant, her stepfather was Margrave Dedi of Lusatian. It was he who chose a husband for his stepdaughter. When Kunigunda's father-in-law Izyaslav wandered across the western lands in search of refuge, Kunigunda, who went with him and her husband, begged her stepfather to shelter a restless Russian family for a while.

Having captured Gertrude and Kunigunda, Monomakh, after the death of Kunigunda's husband Yaropolk, released her to her homeland. The woman took with her the psalter of her late mother-in-law and her youngest daughter, known in Western countries as Matilda. In the German lands, Kunigunda found herself a new husband, and her daughter also married a German. She especially did not like to remember Russia.

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