Principality of Pereyaslavl

Principality Of Pereyaslavl

The Principality of Pereslavl was a regional principality of Kievan Rus from the end of 9th to 1302 based on the city of Pereyaslavl (now Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi) on the Trubezh river. It was usually administrated by younger sons of the Grand Prince of Kiev. It stretched over some extensive territory from the left banks of the middle Dnieper river on the west to its eastern frontier that laid not far west from the Seversky Donets where presumably was situated a legendary Cuman city of Sharuk(h)an.

The Primary Chronicle dates the foundation of the city of Pereyaslavl' to 992; the archaeological evidence suggests it was founded not long after this date. In its early days it was one of the important cities in Kievan Rus behind the Principality of Chernigov and that of Kiev. The city was located at a ford where Vladimir the Great fought a battle against the nomad Pechenegs.

The principality can be traced as a semi-independent dominion from the inheritance of the sons of Yaroslav the Wise, Svyatoslav receiving Chernigov, Vsevolod getting Pereyaslavl, Smolensk going to Vyacheslav and Vladimir-in-Volhynia going to Igor; this ladder of succession.

The Primary Chronicle had recorded that in 988 Vladimir had assigned the northern lands (later associated with Pereyaslavl) to Yaroslav. The town was destroyed by the Mongols in March 1239, the first of the great Rus' cities to fall.