Rogneda of Polotsk (to be more precise: Rogned') was reportedly Vladimir's first wife. According to the
Primary Chronicle, Vladimir wanted to forge an alliance with her father, prince
Rogvolod of Polotsk, but after she refused to marry Vladimir, he killed Rogvolod and forcibly married her anyway. According to a later tradition, only found in the
Suzdalian Chronicle under the year 1128, the daughter of Rogvolod was named
"Gorislava" rather than Rogned', she was raped by Vladimir before her parents' eyes, and Gorislava later ordered her son Iziaslav to commit a (failed) assassination attempt on Vladimir in revenge. Most modern scholars agree that this later story was invented for political purposes, deriving from a later Novgorodian tradition that tried to assert the superiority of
Yaroslav's descendants over Rogvolod's. It is safe to say that Rogned' and Gorislava were not the same woman (if the latter existed at all), and this later legendary story never happened. The
Primary Chronicle reports that Rogned' and Vladimir had six children: four sons named "Izyaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav, and Vsevolod", and two unnamed daughters. These have been identified as
Izyaslav of Polotsk (died 1001), Vsevolod of
Volhynia (died 995), and
Yaroslav the Wise (died 1054), with "Mstislav" being a bit of a mystery. He may or may not be the same person as
Mstislav of Chernigov, prince of Tmutorakan, but more likely this is a different Mstislav, who in the second list of sons
sub anno 988 is mentioned between Sviatoslav (who together with a "Mstislav" in the first list is identified as a son of a Czech wife) and Boris and Gleb (in the first list sons of a Bulgarian wife). Martin (2007) concluded that Rogned's son Mstislav had probably died before 988, as he is not mentioned in the list of land distributions. Following an old Yngling tradition, Izyaslav inherited the lands of his maternal grandfather, i.e.,
Polotsk. According to the
Kievan succession law, his progeny forfeited their rights to the
Kievan throne, because their forefather had never ruled in
Kiev supreme. They, however, retained the principality of Polotsk and formed a dynasty of local rulers, of which
Vseslav the Sorcerer was the most notable.
Yaroslav's parentage There is also a case for
Yaroslav's descent from Anna. According to this theory,
Nestor the Chronicler deliberately represented Yaroslav as Rogneda's son, because he systematically removed all information concerning Kievan ties with
Byzantium, spawning pro-Varangian bias (see
Normanist theory for details). Proponents allege that Yaroslav's true age was falsified by Nestor, who attempted to represent him as 10 years older than he actually had been, in order to justify Yaroslav's seizure of the throne at the expense of his older brothers. The
Primary Chronicle, for instance, states that Yaroslav died at the age of 76 in 1054 (thus putting his birth at 978), while dating Vladimir's encounter and marriage to Yaroslav's purported mother, Rogneda, to 980. Elsewhere, speaking about Yaroslav's rule in Novgorod (1016), Nestor says that Yaroslav was 28, thus putting his birth at 988. The forensic analysis of Yaroslav's skeleton seems to have confirmed these suspicions, estimating Yaroslav's birth at ca. 988-990, after both the
Baptism of Kievan Rus and Vladimir's divorce of Rogneda. Consequently, it is assumed that Yaroslav was either Vladimir's natural son born after the latter's baptism or his son by Anna. Had Yaroslav an imperial Byzantine descent, he likely would not have stinted to advertise it. Some have seen the willingness of European kings to marry Yaroslav's daughters as an indication of this imperial descent. Subsequent Polish chroniclers and historians, in particular, were eager to view Yaroslav as Anna's son. Recent proponents invoke
onomastic arguments, which have often proven decisive in the matters of medieval
prosopography, but these may be worthless in this case specifically because of the great shift to Christian names just then experienced in the Rus royal dynasty, an upheaval more than enough to explain all unprecedented names if they are Christian. It is curious that Yaroslav named his elder son
Vladimir (after his own father) and one of his daughters
Anna (as if after his own mother). Also, there is a certain pattern in his sons having Slavic names (as Vladimir), and his daughters having Greek names only (as Anna). However, in the absence of better sources, Anna's maternity remains a pure speculation. ==Greek wife==