Rogneda of Polotsk

Rogneda Rogvolodovna (Рогнеда Рогволодовна; Christian name: Anastasia; c. 960), also known as Ragnhild (Ragnheiðr), is a person mentioned in the Primary Chronicle as having been a princess of Polotsk, the daughter of Rogvolod (Ragnvald), who came from Scandinavia and established himself at Polotsk in the mid-10th century. Vladimir the Great is narrated as having killed her father and taking her as one of his wives.

In a closely related, but separate story in the Suzdalian Chronicle, the daughter of Rogvolod of Polotsk is called Gorislava, and Vladimir rapes her in front of her parents before killing her father and taking her as a wife, after which Gorislava attempts to kill Vladimir in revenge.

Rogned' in the Primary Chronicle
Around the year 980, Vladimir, then the prince of Novgorod, was entangled in a war of succession with his brother Yaropolk, the prince of Kiev. Searching for allies, Vladimir proposed to Rogvolod a marriage-tie by wedding his daughter Rogned' (Rogneda), but she declared: "I do not wish to take off a slave's son's shoes" ("не хочу розути робичича" ), "but I do want to take off Yaropolk's". Afterwards, Vladimir led an army to devastate Polotsk, killing Rogvolod and his two sons, while taking Rogneda as a wife. According to Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin, Vladimir was most likely seeking to bolster his political legitimacy rather than being motivated solely by vengeance.

The Primary Chronicle indicates that Vladimir had four sons with Rogneda. The first list, which identifies the mothers of his sons, includes the names of Iziaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav and Vsevolod as the sons of Rogneda. After Vsevolod are the names of Sviatopolk, Vysheslav, Sviatoslav and another son called Mstislav (possibly Mstislav of Chernigov). A third list identifies the lands that were distributed to them by Vladimir, which appears to be ordered by age, with Vysheslav first, then Iziaslav, Sviatopolk, Sviatoslav, and then Yaroslav; the absence of Mstislav suggests he had died before the distributions were made, and after the initial distributions but before Vladimir's death in 1015, Vysheslav and Iziaslav had died, leaving Sviatopolk as the eldest surviving son. After Vladimir converted to Christianity and took Anna Porphyrogeneta as his wife, he had to divorce all his previous wives, including Rogneda. After that, she entered the convent and took the name Anastasia.

Gorislava in the Suzdalian Chronicle
The later Suzdalian Chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogvolod's daughter – here called "Gorislava" – plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him. As was the Norse royal custom, she was sent with her elder son to govern the land of her parents, i.e. Polotsk. Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl (now called Zaslawye).

Modern scholars have examined the differences and similarities between the stories of Rogned' in the Primary Chronicle and Gorislava in the Suzdalian Chronicle. Earlier scholars have proposed that Rogned' (Rogneda) was later "renamed" Gorislava, an idea especially promoted by the 16th-century Nikon Chronicle as included in Nikolay Karamzin's History of the Russian State (1816–26). But the first source to suggest these two women were one and the same person, who was somehow renamed, does not appear until the Moskovskii letopsnyi svod 1479 g., 500 years after the events they narrate. Francis Butler (2012) and several other scholars believe that the legend of Gorislava was written later than the legend of Rogned', and that the women were initially named differently before later traditions identified them as the same person. Nevertheless, the two narratives contain a brief passage that is almost word for word the same. Aleksandr Koptev (2010) reasoned that 'her attempt to kill her own husband seems to me an obvious later addition to the original story of Rogneda'. He added: 'Shakhmatov is almost certainly correct when he suggests that the story derives from the later Novgorodian tradition, which asserted the superiority of the clan of Jaroslav's descendants in comparison to Rogvolod's descendants ruling in Polotzk.'

Legacy
Around 1823, Kondraty Ryleev wrote a narrative poem entitled Rogneda. This poem became a literary source for her portrayal in the nationalist Russian opera Rogneda by Alexander Serov, which premiered in 1865.

Issue
By Vladimir the Great:


 * 1) Izyaslav of Polotsk (born c. 979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
 * 2) Yaroslav the Wise (born no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (988–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known.
 * 3) Mstislav (possibly Mstislav of Chernigov, Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036); other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
 * 4) Predslava, concubine of Bolesław I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
 * 5) Premislava (died 1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
 * 6) Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Bolesław I Chrobry among the other daughters
 * 7) Ariogia (?)