Yaroslav The Wise - Family Life and Posterity

Family Life and Posterity

In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden, and gave Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

The Saint Sophia Cathedral houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their five daughters and five sons. Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

• Elizabeth of Kiev to Harald III of Norway (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
• Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;
• Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France and was the regent of France during their son's minority;
• (possibly) Agatha who married Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, and was the mother of Edgar Ætheling and St. Margaret of Scotland.

Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and 6 sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor (1036–1060) of Volyn and Vyacheslav (1036–1057) of Smolensk. About the last one there are almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son Boris who challenged Vsevolod sometime in 1077-1078.