Uliana of Tver


Uliana Aleksandrovna was a grand duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Algirdas. She was the daughter of Alexander of Tver and Anastasia of Galicia, daughter of Yuri I of Galicia.

Life

After her father and eldest brother were murdered by Öz Beg Khan in 1339, Uliana was placed in care of Simeon of Moscow, who married Uliana's elder sister Maria in 1347.
In 1349, Algirdas, the grand duke of Lithuania, sent an embassy to the Golden Horde, proposing to the khan, Jani Beg, to form an alliance against Simeon of Moscow; this proposal was not accepted and the envoys, including Algirdas' brother Karijotas, were imprisoned and held for ransom. In 1350, Algirdas then concluded peace with Simeon and married Simeon's sister-in-law Uliana. She was the second Russian princess to marry Algirdas. Simeon first asked for the opinion of Metropolitan Theognostus whether a Christian lady could be married off to a pagan ruler. The same year, Algirdas' brother Liubartas married Olga, daughter of Konstantin Vasilyevich of Rostov and niece of Simeon.

Death and burial

There are conflicting claims about Uliana's last years and her burial place. One account claims that Uliana became a nun under the name Marina in the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Vitebsk and was buried there. Another claim, based on a silver plaque discovered during an 1810 construction, has it that she was buried in the Cathedral of the Theotokos in Vilnius. The Nikon Chronicle recorded that she was a nun at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and was buried there. The latest discovery was made during a restoration of the Transfiguration Church in Polotsk in March 2012. An inscription was found that recorded Uliana's death on the feast of Saint Alexius, which is March 17 in Eastern Orthodoxy. On December 5, 2018, Uliania of Tver was canonized by the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Issue

According to the research of Polish historian Jan Tęgowski, Uliana was frequently pregnant during her union with Algirdas, giving birth to eight sons and eight daughters in about 24 years, though other sources provide different data:
It seems that the children, unlike children from Algirdas' first marriage with Maria of Vitebsk, were brought up in pagan culture. Uliana's son Jogaila, and not Algirdas' eldest son Andrei of Polotsk, inherited the throne and became the grand duke of Lithuania in 1377. Uliana, as dowager grand duchess, appeared in national politics and was involved in the Lithuanian Civil War, as well as an unsuccessful attempt to wed Jogaila with Sophia, daughter of Dmitry Donskoy, and convert him to Eastern Orthodoxy. The plans failed when Jogaila converted to Roman Catholicism, married Jadwiga of Poland, and was crowned as the king of Poland in 1386.