Yaroslav III Yaroslavich (1230–1271) ( Russian: Ярослав Ярославич) was the first

Prince of Tver The title of Prince of Tver was borne by the head of the branch of the Rurikid dynasty that ruled the Principality of Tver. In 1247 Tver was allocated to Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky, and became an independent principality. In 1252, the principali ...

and the tenth Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1264 to 1271. Yaroslav and his son

Mikhail Yaroslavich Mikhail Yaroslavich (russian: Михаил Ярославич) (1271 – 22 November 1318), also known as Michael of Tver, was a Prince of Tver (from 1285) who ruled as Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1304 until 1314 and again from 1315–1318. ...

presided over Tver's transformation from a sleepy village into one of the greatest centres of power in medieval Russia. All the later dukes of

Tver Tver ( rus, Тверь, p=tvʲerʲ) is a city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is northwest of Moscow. Population: Tver was formerly the capital of a powerful medieval state and a model provincial town in the Russia ...

descended from Yaroslav Yaroslavich. He was a son of Yaroslav II and younger brother of Alexander Nevsky. In 1247, while still a minor, he received from his uncle the town of

. In 1252, Yaroslav and his brother Andrey seized Alexander's capital,

Pereslavl-Zalessky Pereslavl-Zalessky ( rus, Переславль-Залесский, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈslavlʲ zɐˈlʲɛskʲɪj, lit. ''Pereslavl beyond the woods''), also known as Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Yaroslavl ...

. Reinforced by Tatar units, Alexander presently fought it back, taking prisoner Yaroslav's children and leaving his wife as a casualty on the field of battle. Yaroslav fled to Ladoga whence he was summoned by Novgorodians to succeed Alexander as their military commander. In 1258 he visited the khan's capital in Sarai, and two years later led the Novgorod army against the Teutonic Knights. Upon Alexander's death in 1263, Yaroslav quarrelled with Andrey as to who should become Grand Duke next. They went to the

Golden Horde The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragment ...

for arbitration, which was in favour of Yaroslav. The latter, however, settled in Novgorod and married a daughter of one local boyar. Various Novgorodian factions still conspired against him and sought to place his brother Vasily of Kostroma or Alexander's son Dmitri of Pereslavl on the throne. In 1270, the armies of three princes stood for a week near the town of Staraya Russa, ready for battle. The metropolitan, however, managed to reconcile them. Yaroslav, on surrendering Novgorod to his nephew, accompanied him to Sarai. He died on his way back to Tver on 9 September 1271 and was succeeded in Tver by his eldest son Svyatoslav and then by a more famous one,

See also

Further reading