Andrey Bogolyubsky


Andrey I Yuryevich Bogolyubsky was Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal from 1157 until his death. During repeated internecine wars between the princely clans, Andrey accompanied his father Yuri Dolgorukiy during a brief capture of Kiev in 1149. 20 years later, his son led the Sack of Kiev. He was canonized as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1702.

Biography

According to the Primary Chronicle, Andrey's parents married on 12 January 1108, as part of a peace agreement between the Rus' and the Cumans. Andrey's father was Yuri Vladimirovich, Prince of Rostov and Suzdal commonly known as Yuri Dolgoruki, a son of Volodimer II Monomakh, progenitor of the Monomakhovichi. Andrey's mother was an unnamed Cuman princess, a daughter of Aepa son of Osen'. From this marriage, Andrey Bogolyubsky was born in 1111. Yuri proclaimed Andrey a prince in Vyshgorod.

Seizing power (1155–1162)

Andrey left Vyshgorod in 1155 and moved to Vladimir, a little town on the river Klyazma founded in 1108. In doing so, he removed the Icon of the Blessed Mother of God from Vyshgorod to Vladimir, an action condemned as theft by the Kievan Chronicle, while the Suzdalian Chronicle made no judgement on it. In 1153 he was the Prince of Murom-Ryazan. After his father's death in 1157, Andrey ousted his younger brothers Mikhail "Mikhalko" Yurievich and Vsevolod "the Big Nest" from Rostov and Suzdal in 1162, thus uniting his father's patrimony in Vladimir-Suzdal under his sole rule. He expelled his four brothers to the Byzantine Empire together with their mother, Yuri's second wife.
Andrey established for himself the right to receive tribute from the populations of the Northern Dvina lands.

Construction works

He commenced the construction of fortifications around the town of Vladimir in 1158, as well as the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. In 1162 or 1164, Andrey sent an embassy to Constantinople, lobbying for a separate metropolitan see in Vladimir, but he was overruled by the patriarch of Constantinople. Fortifications around Vladimir were completed in 1164. The same year Andrey attacked the Volga Bolgars; he won a victory, but according to later traditions, a son was killed in battle, to whose memory he supposedly ordered the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl in 1165.

Sack of Kiev and brief overlordship (1169–1171)

In March 1169 Andrey's troops sacked Kiev, devastating it as never before. Andrey did not take part in the attack; he stayed in Vladimir-Suzdal while his troops sacked the capital. After plundering the city, stealing much religious artwork, many books and valuables and devastating houses and religious buildings alike, Andrew claimed the title of Grand Prince, although he kept his residence at Vladimir, and emphasized the Byzantine religious heritage of Vladimir to assert Vladimir's prestige and ecclesiastical independence from Kiev. Andrey had his brother Gleb appointed as prince of Kiev, in an attempt to create a position of overlordship for himself. This overlordship lasted for less than two years, ending with Gleb's death on 20 January 1171.
Andrey's attempts to control other parts of Kievan Rus' were barely successful either; his Siege of Novgorod was a failure, and the Suzdalians were defeated. Although he managed to later blackmail the Novgorodians by imposing a blockade on the trade hub, securing the princehood for his son Yury Bogolyubsky in 1171, the Novgorodians immediately expelled him upon Andrey's death in June 1174.

1171–1173 Kievan succession crisis

Gleb's death in 1171 caused another Kievan succession crisis, and Andrey became embroiled in a two-year war to regain control over Kiev. When the Rostislavichi of Smolensk and Iziaslavichi of Volhynia jointly secured the throne of Kiev, Andrey assembled another coalition and marched on Vyshhorod in 1173, where the Yurievichi–Olgovichi forces of Suzdalia and Chernigov were utterly defeated.

Death

The defeat of Andrey's second coalition at Vyshgorod, the expansion of his princely authority, and his conflicts with the upper nobility, the boyars, gave rise to a conspiracy that resulted in Bogolyubsky's death on the night of 28–29 June 1174, when twenty of them burst into his chambers and slew him in his bed.
According to the story of Andrey Bogolyubsky's death as recorded in the Kievan Chronicle of the Hypatian Codex, and the Radziwiłł Chronicle, his "right hand" was cut off by an assailant called "Peter" :
  • Kievan Chronicle ''sub anno 6683 :
  • Radziwiłł Chronicle sub anno 6683 :
However, the Radziwiłł Chronicle''s adjoining miniature depicts his assailants cutting off his left arm. Moreover, when examined the exhumed body of Andrey Bogolyubsky in 1965, he "found a lot of cut marks on the left humerus and forearm bones". A 2009 special historical study by Russian historian A.V. Artcikhovsky would later confirm Rokhlin's observations.
Andrey's death triggered the 1174–1177 Suzdalian war of succession.

Descendants

Children:
  • A son,, reportedly buried in the Dormition Cathedral of Vladimir on 28 October 1164 or 1165. According to later traditions, reported by Janet Martin, Iziaslav's death was related to the successful 1164 Suzdalian campaign against Volga Bulgaria, and Andrey supposedly commissioned the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl to commemorate this son in 1165. However, this connection is not mentioned in any chronicle until the 16th century; the Nerl church could be as old as 1158; and the Suzdalian Chronicle reports that everyone in Andrey's druzhina, which included Iziaslav, was in good health after the battle.
  • A son, ; according to the Kievan Chronicle, he died on 28 March 1172. According to Janet Martin, Mstislav's death was related to the ill-fated 1171–1172 Suzdalian winter campaign against Volga Bulgaria. The Kievan and Suzdalian Chronicle agree that it was Mstislav Andreevich who commanded the Suzdalian-led coalition that sacked Kiev in 1169, and then installed his uncle Gleb as prince of Kiev.
  • A son, Yury Bogolyubsky alias Iurii Andreevich, born 1160. Prince of Novgorod, 1171–1173. Briefly the husband of Queen Tamar of Georgia until she divorced him.

    Legacy

  • In the Suzdalian Chronicle, columns 367–369 contain the Short eulogy to Andrey Bogolyubsky.
  • In the Kievan Chronicle, columns 580–595 contain the Long eulogy to Andrey Bogolyubsky, also known as the Tale About the Slaying of Andrej Bogoljubskij.
  • The ancient icon, Theotokos of Bogolyubovo, was painted in the 12th century at the request of Andrey Bogolyubsky.
  • Andrey had the castle, Bogolyubovo, built near Vladimir, and it would become his favorite residence
  • His victory over the Bulgars is remembered yearly during the Honey Feast of the Saviour.

    Primary sources

  • Primary Chronicle.
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  • Kievan Chronicle
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  • * — A modern annotated Ukrainian translation of the Kievan Chronicle based on the Hypatian Codex with comments from the Khlebnikov Codex.
  • Radziwiłł Chronicle
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    Literature

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  • Paszkiewicz. H.. The Origin of Russia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • * Review:
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  • Reprinted in Pelenski, The Contest for the Legacy of Kievan Rus.
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