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.
Read more about this topic: Yaroslav The Wise
Famous quotes containing the words family, life and/or posterity:
“O how terrible it must be for a young man—
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living”
—Gregory Corso (b. 1930)
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Men of genius are not be analyzed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.”
—Robert Menzies (1894–1978)