Ryazan, Principality of

Vsevolod II of Kiev has two sons, but his chosen successor is his brother, Igor, and he has obtained pledges from his subjects to accept Igor as his heir.

According to one account, Vsevolod even had the Kievans kiss the Holy Cross and swear loyalty to Igor, which they resented.

Shortly before his death in 1146, Vsevolod becomes a monk under the name Gavriil.

Igor II and his family, the Olgovichi, are unpopular and there is resistance against his accession.

The chroniclers accuse Igor of being dishonest, greedy, scheming, and violent.

He has reigned less than two weeks before the Kievans invite his cousin and rival, Iziaslav Msistislavich, the oldest son of Mstislav Vladimirovich, Kniaz' (Prince) of Novgorod, to be their prince.

Reneging on a promise he had made not to seek power, Iziaslav attacks and defeats Igor and his brother Svyatoslav.

Svyatoslav escapes, but Igor becomes entrapped in some marshes and is unable to flee because of an infirmity in his legs.

He is captured, and Iziaslav has him thrown into a pit, where he languishes until autumn 1146, when, desperately ill, he requests permission to become a monk.

Iziaslav releases him, but Igor is so weak he has to be carried from the pit and nearly dies of illness.

He becomes a monk at the monastery of St. Feodor in Kiev under the name Ignati.

Iziaslav, who is already Prince of Pereyaslav (1132), Prince of Turov (1132-1134), Prince of Rostov, (1134- ), Prince of Vladimir and Volyn (1134—1142), and Prince of Pereyaslavl (1143-1145), now becomes Velikiy Kniaz (Grand Prince) of Kiev.

The first written mention of Bryansk is in 1146, in the Hypatian Codex, as Debryansk.

Its name is derived from a Slavic word for "ditch", "lowland" or "dense woodland"; the area is known for its dense woods, of which very little remains today.

Local authorities and archaeologists, however, believe that the town had existed as early as 985 as a fortified settlement on the right bank of the Desna River.

Bryansk is today an important center for steel and machinery manufacturing, and is home to many large factories.

Yuri, the sixth son of Vladimir Monomakh, had in 1108 been sent by his father to govern in his name the vast Rostov-Suzdal province in the northeast of Kievan Rus'.

In 1121, he had quarreled with the boyars of Rostov and moved the capital of his lands from that city to Suzdal.

As the area is sparsely populated, Yuri has founded many fortresses here, establishing the town of Ksniatin in 1134 (He is to found Pereslavl-Zalesski and Yuriev-Polski in 1152, and Dmitrov in 1154.

The establishment of Tver, Kostroma, and Vologda is also popularly assigned to Yuri.)

For all the interest he takes in fortifying his northern lands, Yuri still covets the throne of Kiev.

It is his active participation in southern affairs that earns him the sobriquet of "Dolgoruki", i.e., "the long-armed".

His elder brother Mstislav of Kiev had died in 1132, and "the Rus lands fell apart", as one chronicle put it.

Yuri had instantaneously declared war on the princes of Chernigov, enthroned his son in Novgorod, and captured Pereyaslav of the South.

The Novgorodians, however, had betrayed him, and Yuri had taken vengeance by seizing their key fortress, Torzhok.

Dolgoruki resumes his struggle for Kiev in 1147, arranging a meeting with Sviatoslav Olgovich in a place called Moscow, a trading center along the Baltic-Volga-Caspian route, situated on the Moscow River near the geographic center of European Russia and the Great Russian Plain.

A mob attacks Igor in 1147 under the mistaken impression that he intends to usurp Iziaslav's throne.

Iziaslav's brother, Vladimir, tries to rescue Igor, but the mob tears down a balcony on which Igor has sought sanctuary, and thus kills him.

His body is dragged behind a cart and exhibited in a market before it can be salvaged by Vladimir.

Yuri had captured Kiev in 1149, but in 1151 he is driven from the capital of Rus by his nephew Iziaslav.

Yuri establishes the town of Gorodets in 1152 as a large fortress on the left bank of the Volga River, the first Russian fortress in today's Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

Yuri regains Kiev once again in 1155.

The first reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a meeting place of Yuri Dolgorukiy and Sviatoslav Olgovich.

At the time it was a minor town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality.

In 1156, Yuri fortifies Moscow with wooden walls and a moat.

Although the settlement probably existed earlier, Dolgorukiy is often called "The Founder of Moscow".

Muscovites have cherished Yuri's memory as the legendary founder of the city, today the capital of Russia.

His patron saint, Saint George, appears on the coat of arms of Moscow slaying a dragon.

Yaroslav, the fourth son of the long-reigning Grand Prince of Vladimir, Vsevolod the Big Nest, and Maria Shvarnovna, had been sent by his father in 1200 to rule the town of Pereyaslav near the Kopchak steppes.

Six years later, he had been summoned by Halychian boyars to rule their city but could not effectively claim the throne.

Thereupon he was sent to take Ryazan, but the stubborn opposition of the inhabitants led to the city being burnt.

Vsevolod had sent Yaroslav to oppose Mstislav the Bold in Novgorod in 1209.

After several battles, the two princes made peace, whereby Yaroslav had married Mstislav's daughter.

Vsevolod, upon his deathbed in 1212, had bequeathed to his son Pereslavl-Zalessky.

In the conflict between his elder brothers Konstantin and Yuri, Yaroslav had supported the latter.

He had accepted the offer of the Novgorodians in 1215 to become their prince but, desiring revenge for their former treachery, had instead captured Torzhok and blocked its supplies of grain to Novgorod.

Several months later, he was defeated by his father-in-law on the Lipitsa River and had to retreat to Pereslavl (a helmet that he lost during the battle will be retrieved by archaeologists in 1808).

Finally enthroned in Novgorod, Yaroslav had in 1222 overrun all of Estonia and besieged its capital, Kolyvan.

He had devastated Finland four years later and forcibly converted Karelia to Christianity.

Yaroslav’s next ambition had been to subjugate Pskov, but the Novgorodians had refused to make war against its neighbor.

Yaroslav had departed in anger and seized the Novgorodian enclave of Volokolamsk.

In 1234, he had returned to Novgorod.

He follows Danylo of Halych's advice and moves from Novgorod to Kiev in 1236, leaving his son Alexander as his representative in the north.

The defeat at the Kalka River had left the Kievan principality at the mercy of invaders, but the Mongol forces had retreated, not to reappear for thirteen years, during which time the princes of Rus' have gone on quarreling and fighting as before, until they are startled by a new and much more formidable invading force.

The main Mongol force, headed by Jochi's sons, and their cousins, Möngke Khan and Güyük Khan, arrive at Ryazan in December 1237.

Ryazan refuses to surrender, and the Mongols sack it.

The Principality is completely overrun with almost the whole princely family killed and the capital completely destroyed; it will later be moved to another location.