Polatsk, Principality of
Substate | Defunct
850 CE to 1397 CE
The Principality of Polotsk, also known as the Kingdom of Polotsk or the Duchy of Polotsk, is a medieval principality of the Early East Slavs.
The origin and date of state establishment is uncertain.
In the Russian chronicles it is mentioned as one being conquered by Vladimir the Great and thereafter became associated with the Rurik dynasty and Kievan Rus'.Supposedly it was established around the ancient town of Polotsk (modern Belarusian language: Polatsk) by the tribal union of Krivichs.
In the second half of he tenth century, Polotsk is governed by its own dynasty the first ruler of which that is mentioned in the history was a semi-legendary Rogvolod (?
- 978).
Rogvolod is better known as the father of Rogneda.
The Principality is heavily involved in several succession crises of the 11th-12th centuries and a war with the Republic of Novgorod.
By the 13th century it is integrated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.At its greatest extent, the principality stretches over large parts of today's northern and central Belarus and a smaller part of today's southeastern Latvia, including (besides Polotsk itself) the following towns: Vitebsk, Drutsk, Minsk, Izjaslaw (now Zaslawye), Lahojsk, Barysaw, Brachyslaw (now Braslaw), Kukeinos (now Koknese) and others.
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After the death of its ruler, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, in 1054, Kievan Rus' splits into a number of principalities, each centered on a city.
One, Polatsk (Polotsk in Russian), becomes the nucleus of modern-day Belarus.
Yaropolk’s Kievan forces defeat his brother Oleg’s Drevlian troops in 977; Oleg is slain while fleeing.
Vladimir goes to Scandinavia to seek aid against his surviving sibling.
Returning in 978 with Norse mercenaries, he seizes Polotsk.
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; ...
...the other two principalities are Chernigov (with Tmutarakan) in the southeast, and …
…Polatsk in the northeast.
Yaroslav relies on the Scandinavian alliance and attempts to weaken imperial influence on Kiev.
The Norwegian Viking Harald Hardrada and his men have reached the land of the Kievan Rus, where they serve in the armies of Yaroslav, whose wife Ingigerd is a distant relative of Harald.
He and Eilifr, son of that Rognvaldr, who had originally come to Novgorod with Ingigerd, have become joint chiefs of Yaroslav's bodyguard.
Harald serves a military apprenticeship in spring 1031, fighting in the Polish campaign of 1030-1031, which has as its object the recovery of territories previously lost in 1018.
Yaroslav reconquers the area later known as Red Rus', or Red Ruthenia, from the Poles and concludes an alliance with King Casimir I of Poland, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister Maria.
Vselav, the son of Bryachislav Izyaslavich, Prince of Polotsk and Vitebsk, and thus the great-grandson of Vladimir I of Kiev and Rogneda of Polotsk, was born between about 1030 to 1039 in Polotsk (with Vasilii as his baptismal name) and had married around 1060.
He had taken the throne of Polotsk in 1044 upon his father's death, and although he is the senior member of the Rurik Dynasty for his generation, since his father had not been prince in Kiev, Vseslav is excluded (izgoi) from the grand princely succession.
He is the only major prince in Rus not descended from Yaroslav.
Unable to secure the capital, which is held by Yaroslav's three sons, Vseslav starts pillaging the northern areas of Kievan Rus.
Vseslav lays siege to Pskov in 1065, but is thrown back.
The area of today's Minsk had been settled by the Early East Slavs by the ninth century CE.
The Svislach River valley was the settlement boundary between two Early East Slav tribes – the Krivichs and Dregovichs.
By 980, the area had been incorporated into the early medieval Principality of Polatsk, one of the earliest East Slav states.
Minsk was first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle for the year 1067 in association with the Battle on the river Nemiga.
1067 is now widely accepted as the founding year of Minsk.
City authorities consider the date of September 2, 1067, to be the exact founding date of the city, though the town (by then fortified by wooden walls) had certainly existed for some time by then.
The origin of the name is unknown but there are several theories.