Yaroslav Osmomysl (c. 1135 – 1 October 1187) was a knyaz of Halych (now in western Ukraine). He is best-known for appearing in The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. His sobriquet, meaning “Eight-Minded” in Old East Slavic, was granted to him in recognition of his wisdom. Some scholars even assert that Yaroslav was fluent in eight foreign languages. Also a great reformer.
Yaroslav’s daughter Eufrosinia and her husband Igor Svyatoslavich are central figures of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Yaroslav is mentioned in the text as a powerful and respected potentate:
Eight-minded Yaroslav of Halych!
You sit high on your gold-forged throne;
you have braced the Hungarian mountains with your iron troops;
you have barred the [Hungarian] king’s path;
you have closed the Danube’s gates,
hurling weighty missiles over the clouds,
spreading your courts to the Danube.
Your thunders range over lands;
you open Kyiv’s gates;
from the paternal golden throne
you shoot at sultans beyond the lands.
It was this Yaroslav Osmomysl of Halych who welcomed Byzantine Prince and future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (rule 1183-1185) in his court and provided shelter. A Byzantine historian who provided the details of that event, named Kyiv Rus the Tauro-Scythians. Are there any facts that could support that claim? Wikipedia article continues:
Osmomysl’s remains have found their final resting place only recently after a long period of disturbance. Originally, he was buried in the Assumption Cathedral in ancient Halych (now the village of Krylos, in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine). In 1939 his stone sarcophagus was discovered by Ukrainian archaeologist Jaroslaw Pasternak, after his long search for the cathedral that was destroyed by Mongol-Tatar hordes and never rebuilt later. It appeared that the burial was looted earlier and Yaroslav’s bones were found mixed with the bones of a young princess of an unknown family. The sarcophagus is displayed in the History Museum of Ivano-Frankivsk.
Here is how Yaroslav’s sarcophagus looked when first discovered:
And here is the sarcophagus of the famous Tauro-Scythian King Scilurus >
There are also three famous funeral rituals of Kyiv Rus which do not have analogies in the Scandinavian/Viking tradition/Sagas. ‘Gardariki, Ukraine‘ ebook has a closer look at them.
P.S. Is there a certain similarity between Yaroslav Osmomysl and actor Charles Dance appearances?
