Mysterious prince Izyaslav

Nicholas Zharkikh

Shortened text of the section. Full text in ukrainian version.

What is this – researchers cannot agree. The Sofia 1st chronicle, written around 1418, called him "Mstislavich". Here again there was a lack of clarity – which Mstislav was his tentative father? Another hundred years later, the author of the Nikon chronicle called him Mstislavich ⇒ Romanovich ⇒ Rostislavich.

It is clear from this that the authors of late Moscow chronicles were curious (just like us) what kind of "man without a passport" he was. But they did not show competence in this case, there were no sources unknown to us at their disposal (therefore, there are no new details of the event), and these additions should be considered research assumptions.

Researchers on this issue are divided into a sect of blunt-minded people, who consider this Izyaslav Mstislavich, and a sect of sharp-minded people, who consider him Volodymyrovych.

There is no agreement in the sect of blunt-ends on the question of who was father of this Izyaslav – or Mstislav Romanovych, or perhaps Mstislav Mstislavich.

The conclusion (in my opinion) can only be that this Izyaslav joined the company of princes without a family and a genus, in which until now there was only Oleg of Kursk.