Yaroslav I the Wise (c. 978-1054) (Christian name: Yuri, or George) was thrice prince of Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. During his lengthy reign, the Kievan Rus reached a zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.

In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of king of Sweden, and gave Ladoga to her as a marriage gift. There are good reasons to believe that before that time he had been married to a woman named Anna, of disputed extraction.

In the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, one may see a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingigerd was known in Rus), their 5 daughters and 5 sons. Yaroslav married three of his daughters to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court: Elizabeth to Harald III of Norway (who had attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire); Anastasia to the future Andrew I of Hungary, and the youngest daughter Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France and was the regent of France during their son's minority. Another daughter may have been the Agatha who married Edward the Exile, heir to the throne of England and was the mother of Edgar Atheling and St. Margaret of Scotland.

Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya), and 6 sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons - Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod - reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor of Volynia and Vyacheslav of Smolensk.

Yaroslav’s tomb is in a vault at the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.