The monarch of Vladimir-Suzdal's title,
veliky knyaz or
velikii kniaz (, ) is variously translated into English as "
grand duke" or "
grand prince". Consequently, Vladimir-Suzdal has been interchangeably described as a "grand principality" or "grand duchy". Linguist
Alan Timberlake (2000) found that the first time the phrase
velikȳi knęz shows up in the
Suzdalian Chronicle (in the
Laurentian,
Radziwiłł and
LPS manuscripts) is under the year 1186, where it is applied to
Vsevolod Yurievich. In his early reign from 1177 to 1186, he is simply referred to as "prince Vsevolod" (
knęz (zhe) Vsevolod). From 1157 to 1238, the principality's capital was
Vladimir on the Klyazma, which had been founded in 1108. In 1151
Andrey Bogolyubsky secretly left
Vyshgorod, the domain of his father in the
Principality of Kiev, and migrated to Suzdal. In 1157, he inherited leadership of the principalities of Vladimir, Suzdal and Rostov. He
sacked Kiev in 1169, installing his younger brother
Gleb as the new
Grand Prince of Kiev. The city of Vladimir was sacked by a
Mongol invasion in 1238. The second important city,
Suzdal', was also destroyed by Mongols. The entire principality was then overrun in 1242 by the Mongols under
Batu Khan, founder of the
Golden Horde. The state of
Vladimir-Suzdal (formally the grand principality of Vladimir) became dominant among the various petty northeastern Rus' principalities left after the dissolution of the Kievan Rus' state. The title of Grand Prince of Vladimir became one of the three titles (along with Kiev and Novgorod) possessed by the most important rulers among the Rus' nobility. In the forest region, Vladimir enjoyed hegemony for a time, but it too disintegrated into a series of petty states. By the 14th century, Vladimir-Suzdal had splintered into various appanage principalities including
Nizhny Novgorod (Novgorod-Suzdal),
Tver and
Moscow (Muscovy) who all claimed the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir, and sought to gain the favour of the Tatar-Mongol khan of the
Golden Horde to secure it. In the early 14th century, the khan awarded the title to
Yury of Moscow to counterbalance the strength of
Tver; and after the
Tver Uprising of 1327, which the Muscovites helped put down,
Özbeg Khan named
Ivan "Kalita" of Moscow the new grand prince of Vladimir. By the mid-14th century and especially during the
Great Troubles (1359–1382), the khan's alliance with Moscow made the latter militarily and administratively powerful enough to economically and demographically devastate its rivals, notably Tver. The khans therefore started awarding the grand princely title to Moscow's rivals. In 1353, of
Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal unsuccessfully tried to obtain the title of grand prince of Vladimir, and in 1371 it was awarded to
Mikhail II of Tver. But by that time it was too late for the Golden Horde to curb the rise of Muscovy.
Tokhtamysh allowed
Vasily I of Moscow to succeed his father
Dmitry Donskoy as grand prince of Vladimir in 1389. == List ==