- Principality of Smolensk
The Principality of Smolensk (eventually Grand Principality of Smolensk) was a
Kievan Rus lordship between the eleventh- and fifteenth-century. It passed between the descendants of Grand PrinceIaroslav I of Kiev until 1125, when following the death ofVladimir Monomakh the latter's grandsonRostislav Mstislavich was installed in the principality, while the latter's fatherMstislav I Vladimirovich became the Rus' over-king. It gained its own bishopric, theBishop of Smolensk , in 1136.It was Rostislav's descendents, the
Rostaslavichi , who ruled the principality until the fifteenth-century. Smolensk enjoyed stronger western ties than most Rus' principalities. The principality contained a number of other important cities which usually possessed subordinate status, notable among which wereBriansk ,Vyazma andMozhaisk . The principality gradually came under Lithuanian overlordship in thefourteenth-century , being incorporated in the fifteenth. After the union between Lithuania and Poland, it passed into thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita ), becoming theSmolensk Voivodeship . In the seventeenth-century the Rus' under Russian control attempted to bring the city into their expanding state, and despite the defeat of the "Smolensk War " (1632–1634), captured the city in 1654. The Russian success was partially aided by the distraction caused to the Rzeczpospolita by the revolt ofDnieper Cossacks known as theKhmelnytsky Uprising .List of rulers
References
* Franklin, Simon, and Shepard, Jonathan, "The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200", (Longman History of Russia, Harlow, 1996)
* Martin, Janet, "Medieval Russia, 980-1584", (Cambridge, 1995)External links
* [http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/RUSSIA,%20Rurik.htm#_Toc111997329 Foundation for medieval genealogy]
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