Daniil Romanovich of Galicia

Born 1201; died 1264. Prince of Galicia and Vol’yn; son of Prince Roman Mstislavich.

In 1211, Daniil Romanovich was raised to the princely throne in Galich by the boyars, but in 1212 he was banished. In 1221 he began to reign in Vol’yn, and by 1229 he had completed the unification of the Vol’ynian lands. In 1223 he took part in the battle on the river Kalka against the Mongol-Tatars and in 1237 in the battle against the Teutonic order. In 1238, Daniil Romanovich took possession of Galich, giving Vol’yn to his brother, Vasil’ko Romanovich, and he then occupied Kiev. Carrying on a stubborn struggle against princely discord and the domination of the boyars and the ecclesiastical feudal lords, Daniil Romanovich had the support of the petty servitors and the urban population. He promoted the development of cities and encouraged craftsmen and merchants. The cities of Chelm. L’vov, Ugorevsk, and Danilov were built during his reign, and Dorogichin was restored. Daniil Romanovich moved the capital of the Galician-Vol’ynian Principality from Galich to Chelm.

After the invasion of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors into southwestern Rus’ (1240) and the establishment of a system of vassalage upon the Tatars, Daniil Romanovich undertook energetic measures to prevent new invasions and also to oppose the increasing aggression of the Hungarian and Polish feudal lords. In 1245, in the battle of Iaroslavl Galitskii, the forces of Daniil Romanovich crushed the regiments of the Polish and Hungarian feudal lords and Galician boyars, which ended the almost 40–year struggle for the restoration of the unity of Galician-Vol’ynian Rus’. Daniil Romanovich intervened in the war for the Austrian throne of the duchy, and in the early 1250’s he obtained recognition of his son Roman’s right to the throne. Accepting the royal title from the papal curia in 1254, Daniil Romanovich resolutely opposed attempts to spread the influence of the Catholic Church in Rus’. Daniil Romanovich’s reign was the period of the greatest economic and cultural upsurge and political consolidation in Galician-Vol’ynian Rus’.