Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians,…

Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians, leaving aside the legitimacy of the claims Yarolsav of I the Wise to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, often present 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 borders the Northern Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastens 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") inflicts a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024.

Yaroslav and Mstislav then divide Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper, with the capital at Chernihiv, is ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

The civil war among the Rus', which had begun in 1015, results in 1024 in the breakup of Russia into three principalities.

Most of Russia falls under the control of Novgorod-Kiev; ...