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The marriage of the daughter of Vasil′ko Rostislavič remains largely a mystery, even to the question of whether it was the daughter of Vasil′ko who was married at all. Baumgarten records the marriage, but no primary source evidence exists for the identity of the Rusian woman. [5] The identity of her suitor, on the other hand, is well established as the Moravian duke Vratislav. [6] In the continuation of the chronicle of Cosmas of Prague under the year 1132 there is a listing that Vratislav, duke of Brno, took a wife from Rus′. [7] Other than a lengthy account of her beauty and comparisons to Helen of Troy (which is resulted in the name Helena being ascribed to her [8] ), neither the identity of this woman nor of her father (most common in Latin chronicles) is established. That being said, I cannot support Baumgarten’s opinion that the woman is the daughter of Vasil′ko without further evidence.
The political situation at the time also raises questions as to the cause of the marriage. At the time of the marriage in 1132, Vasil′ko had been dead for some time, and it is unclear who would have been handling his daughter’s marriage. Her eldest brother Igor′ was ruler of Halyč, and married to a daughter of Vsevolod Ol′govič, and thus may have had some power in the west of Rus′ and could have contracted his sister’s marriage. [9] Vratislav was in exile from roughly 1129–30, potentially in Rus′, as his cousin Otto III was contemporaneously. [10] This opens up the possibility of a meeting in Rus′, or in a subset of Rus′ such as Halyč, which would create an arranged marriage. Further, in 1132 he took his position as Duke of Brno, [11] a city in Moravia that was, most likely, on the east–west land route between Kyiv and Prague, and would have played a major trading role for both Moravia and Halyč. The gain for both sides may have been economic, while also creating a new tie between Rus′ and Moravia, though all of this is pure conjecture as the identity of the bride rests solely on Baumgarten’s identification. Due to this, I have not listed this marriage in any of the tables.