Like her mythological namesake, she intimidated with her beauty. There was a long line of candidates at her fingertips - including Aleksander Jagiellończyk, who was said to be ... weakly impotent. How did he become her husband? And was the beautiful Helena really a Moscow spy?
From his marriage to a descendant of the Byzantine emperors, Ivan III the Stern had four children:the eldest, unknown daughter who died in early childhood, the younger daughter of Helena and the sons of Vasyl and Jerzy.
Beautiful Helena
Zofia, an extremely educated woman, took care of the proper education of her only daughter, which is why the princess not only mastered the art of reading and writing, but also knew Greek. Due to her origin, she very quickly became a desirable candidate for a wife, especially since she was very beautiful and the fame for her beauty quickly spread abroad.
As soon as she was old enough, there were candidates for her hand. Of course, even if it were as ugly as a November night, the most powerful of the world would still send matchmakers to the Moscow court of matchmakers but her beauty was an added bonus.
The Habsburgs, who competed for domination in Central Europe with the Jagiellonians, whose empire then included not only Poland and Lithuania, but also the Czech Republic and Hungary, looked at the beautiful princess with a greedy eye. In 1490, even the imperial envoy Joerg von Thurn came to Moscow with a proposal to give Helen over to Maximilian I of Habsburg, which would involve an alliance against the Jagiellonians. The whole matter is spiced up by the fact that the ruler was formally married to Maria of Burgundy, with whom he was married per procura.
As soon as she was old enough, there were candidates for her hand. Of course, even if it were as ugly as a November night, the most powerful of the world would still send matchmakers to the Moscow court of matchmakers.
Another candidate for the hand of the beautiful princess was the Duke of Mazovia, Konrad III the Red, the son of Barbara Olelkówna, duchess of Kiev. The ruler gained the support of the Teutonic Knights for his plans, which, however, did not help him much, because the times of the Teutonic Knights had long passed.
Wawel also thought about the marriage of a beautiful princess and one of the royal sons. Apparently, the project was first introduced by the then court marshal of Lithuania, Jan Zabrzeziński, to whom this idea was in turn given by the Lithuanian boyar Ivan Patrikieev. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk, however, did not react enthusiastically, and his wife did not even want to hear about the admission of an Orthodox Christian into the family.
However, when rumors of the Habsburgs' intentions reached the royal ears, the king changed his mind . Already in April 1490, the tutor of the princes Kallimachus wrote a letter to Duchess Sophia, in which he submitted a marriage proposal, but it remained unanswered.
"We won't let it"
The matter was resumed after Moscow's attack on Lithuanian lands, which in June 1492 marked the beginning of the war between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Lithuania. In October this year, the Lithuanian Seym decided to marry Grand Duke Alexander with the daughter of Ivan III, Helena, which was supposed to improve relations between the two countries, but the official legation with the task of concluding a truce and pre-marriage negotiations went to Moscow only in autumn two years later. If the chroniclers are to be believed, the envoys, having seen the future bride of their ruler, were literally speechless, dazzled by her extraordinary beauty they thought the princess was as beautiful as an angel.
The pre-wedding negotiations lasted over two weeks, and after their completion, an agreement was signed, as a result of which, on February 6, 1494, Stanisław Kieżgajło, on behalf of Prince Alexander, became engaged to Helena.
Unexpectedly the most sensitive issue in the negotiations was the confession of Alexander's future wife . Ivan wanted his only daughter to remain faithful to Orthodoxy, which is why he forced the Polish side to promise that her future husband "would not be bored with the Roman order and that she would hold her Greek order." The deputies shyly asked what would happen when Helena voluntarily wanted to change her religion, to which they heard from the prince:"We will not give this will." In addition, the fiancée's father firmly demanded that his daughter build an Orthodox church in the Vilnius castle.
The text is an excerpt from the book by Iwona Kienzler "Foreign wives and mothers of the rulers of Poland", which has just been published by the Bellona publishing house.
Ultimately, however, everyone was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations:the beautiful young lady was to go to Vilnius. Both Lithuanians and Poles hoped that with the wedding of Alexander and Helena, relations with Moscow would improve, cunning and Ivan wanted to turn his daughter into a spy at the Lithuanian court . The future was to show that the girl would choose to be faithful to her husband and her new homeland, exposing herself to the anger of her parents.
Meanwhile, the fiancée, who was less than eighteen at the time, might have been disturbed by marriage plans for her, also for reasons other than the question of faith. It was well known that her fiancé, despite his rather strong stature, has serious health problems. He was said to be a frail sickly and, worse, impotent.
Source:
The text is an excerpt from the book by Iwona Kienzler "Foreign wives and mothers of the rulers of Poland", which has just been published by Bellona.