Yuri II Boleslav (; ; c. 1305/1310 – April 7, 1340), was

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Ruthenia ''Ruthenia'' is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Rus'. Originally, the term ''Rus' land'' referred to a triangular area, which mainly corresponds to the tribe of Polans in Dnieper Ukraine. ''Ruthenia' ...

and ''Dominus'' of the Galicia–Volhynian lands (1325–1340). A foreigner and a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

by birth, he was the son of

Trojden I, Duke of Masovia Trojden I (1284/86 – 13 March 1341) was a Polish prince, Duke of Czersk from 1310, ruler over Warsaw and Liw from 1313, and regent of Płock in the years 1336–1340. He was a member of the House of Piast. Trojden was the second son of B ...

and a member of the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

Piast dynasty The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented List of Polish monarchs, Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I of Poland, Mieszko I (–992). The Poland during the Piast dynasty, Piasts' royal rule in Pol ...

. Highly unpopular in Orthodox Ruthenia, his murder prompted a war of succession, known as the

Galicia–Volhynia Wars The Galicia–Volhynia Wars were several wars fought in the years 1340–1392 over the succession in the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, also known as Ruthenia. After Yuri II Boleslav was poisoned by local Ruthenian nobles in 1340, both the Gran ...

Biography

Bolesław was born between 1305 and 1310 to Trojden I of Masovia and Maria, daughter of

Yuri I of Galicia Yuri I of Galicia (, 24 April 1252 (1257/1262) – 18 March 1308/1315) was King of Ruthenia and Prince of Volhynia. Reign In 1264–1301, Yuri ruled as Prince of Belz. Initially a ruler of Kholm and Podlachia, after his father's death he unit ...

. Since his father was still a ruler of the family's Masovian lands, in 1323 Bolesław succeeded

Leo II of Galicia Leo II of Galicia, also known as Lev Yuriiovych (, died in 1323) was Prince of Lutsk and Galicia, one of the last two Romanovichi kings of Rus` (r. 1308–1323; according to some sources, 1315–23). He was a member of the senior branch of ...

and became the ruler over Ruthenia as Yuri II. He also received the

Duchy of Belz Duchy of Belz or Principality of Belz was a duchy, formed in the late 12th century in Kievan Rus. During its history the duchy was a constituent part of some other political entities such as the Kingdom of Rus, the Kingdom of Hungary, Duchy of Ma ...

after the childless death of Andrew of Galicia. In 1331, he married the daughter of

Grand Duke of Lithuania This is a list of Lithuanian monarchs who ruled Lithuania from its inception until the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1795. The Lithuanian monarch bore the title of Grand duke, Grand Duke, with the exception of Mindaugas, who was crown ...

Gediminas Gediminas ( – December 1341) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1315 or 1316 until his death in 1341. He is considered the founder of Lithuania's capital Vilnius (see: Iron Wolf legend). During his reign, he brought under his rule lands from t ...

and sister of

Aldona of Lithuania Aldona (baptized ''Ona'' or ''Anna''; her pagan name, Aldona, is known only from the writings of Maciej Stryjkowski; – 26 May 1339) was Queen consort of Poland (1333–1339), and a princess of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. She was the daught ...

, wife of

Casimir III of Poland Casimir III the Great (; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, retaining the title throughout the Galicia–Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king fr ...

. The name of Bolesław's wife is disputed;

Teodor Narbutt Teodor Narbutt (; 8 November 1784 – 27 November 1864) was a Polish–Lithuanian romantic historian and military engineer in service of the Russian Empire. He is best remembered as the author of a nine-volume Polish-language history of Lithuani ...

claimed her pagan name was Eufemia and her Christian name was Maria. In opposition,

Oswald Balzer Oswald Marian Balzer (23 January 1858 in Chodorów – 11 January 1933 in Lwów) was a Polish historian of law and statehood who was one of the most renowned Polish historians of his time. In 1887 he became a professor at the University of L ...

claimed that Eufemia was a Christian name. It is widely believed that Narbutt's account was a fabrication. In a treaty of 1338 Yuri ІІ offered

succession to the throne of Galicia-Volhynia. In 1324, Yuri granted city rights to

Volodymyr Volodymyr (, ; ) is a Ukrainian given name of Old East Slavic origin. The related Ancient Slavic, such as Czech, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, etc. form of the name is Володимѣръ ''Volodiměr'', which in other Slavic languages became Vladimi ...

and

Sanok Sanok (in full the Royal Free City of Sanok — , , ''Sanok'', , ''Sianok'' or ''Sianik'', , , ''Sūnik'' or ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of southeastern Poland with 38,397 inhabitants, as of June 2016. Located on the San ...

in 1339, both under

Magdeburg Law Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...

.Sanok city privilege in Latin (Digitalbibliothek of AGAD, Nr 7226.)
He was poisoned in 1340 by Orthodox Ruthenian

boyar A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Bulgaria, Kievan Rus' (and later Russia), Moldavia and Wallachia (and later Romania), Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. C ...

s and died without an heir, before his father who continued to rule the

Duchy of Mazovia The Duchy of Masovia was a District duchy, district principality and a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385), Kingdom of Poland, existing during the Middle Ages. The state was centered in Mazovia in the northeastern Kingdom of Poland, a ...

. Yuri's murder sparked the

fought in the years 1340–1392 over succession in the Kingdom of Ruthenia, which ultimately resulted in the kingdom ceasing to be an independent state, but instead being split between Poland (Galicia) and Lithuania (Volhynia).

Ancestry

Notes

References

Jan Řežabek Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Nu ...

, ''Jiří II", poslední kníže veśkeré Malé Rusi, kritickí pokus'', «Časopis musea království českého», ročnik LVII, Praha, 1883. *

''Genealogia Piastów'' (1895) (see: Digitalbibliothek of Great Poland

* Maciej Wilamowski ''Piastowie. Leksykon biograficzny'', Kraków 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boleslav, Yuri II 14th-century births 1340 deaths Kings of Ruthenia Dukes of Masovia 14th-century murdered monarchs Deaths by poisoning Eastern Orthodox monarchs Piast dynasty Romanovichi family Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism