Saint Yaropolk Izyaslavich

Yaropolk Iziaslavich (died 22 November 1086/1087) was Prince of Turov and Prince of Volhynia from 1078 until his death. The son of Grand Prince Iziaslav I of Kiev by a Polish princess named Gertruda, he is visible in papal sources by the early 1070s, but largely absent in contemporary domestic sources until his father's death in 1078. During his father's exile in the 1070s, Yaropolk can be found acting on his father's behalf in an attempt to gain the favor of the German emperors and the papal court of Pope Gregory VII. His father returned to Kiev in 1077 and Yaropolk followed. After his father's death, Yaropolk was appointed as prince of Volhynia and prince of Turov in 1078 by the new grand prince, his uncle Vsevolod. By 1085, Yaropolk had fallen into a state of enmity with the grand prince, and by extension the grand prince's son Vladimir II Monomakh, forcing him to flee to Poland, his mother's homeland. He returned in 1086 and made peace with Monomakh, but was later murdered on a journey to Zvenigorod. Yaropolk was the son of Iziaslav I of Kiev (d. 1078), and Gertruda, daughter of the Polish monarch Mieszko II Lambert (died 1034). Since the Kievan succession war of 1015–1019, the Polish ruler Bolesław had taken an interest in Kievan Rus', hoping to gain control of the land of Red Ruthenia (Czerwien Grody), seized by Vladimir the Great. Despite some initial success, the expedition of Bolesław to Kiev in 1018 failed to establish Sviatopolk Vladimirovich (Bolesław's son-in-law), the prince of Turov, on the Kievan throne. The Polish ruler did at least gain the Red Ruthenia very briefly, though that was recovered for Kievan Rus' by Yaroslav and Mstislav Vladimirovich, the prince of Chernigov, in 1031. In 1042, Yaroslav forced Casimir of Poland to settle for a peaceful deal. Casimir recognised Ruthenian control of Red Ruthenia and returned 800 Ruthenian prisoners who had been in Polish custody since being captured two decades before by Bolesław.