Uliana of Tver

Who was Uliana of Tver?

Uliana Alexandrovna of Tver was a daughter of Prince Alexander of Tver and Anastasia of Halych. She was the second wife of Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania.

After her father's and eldest brother's murder by Öz Beg Khan in 1339, Uliana was placed in care of Simeon of Moscow, who married Uliana's elder sister Maria in 1347.

In 1349, Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, sent an embassy to the Golden Horde, proposing to khan Jani Beg to form an alliance against Prince Simeon of Moscow; this proposal was not accepted and the envoys, including Algirdas' brother Karijotas, were imprisoned and held for ransom. In 1350, Algirdas then concluded peace with Simeon and married Simeon's sister-in-law Uliana. Simeon first asked an opinion of Metropolitan Theognostus whether a Christian lady could be married off to a pagan ruler. The same year, Algirdas' brother Liubartas married Olga, daughter of Konstantin Vasilyevich of Rostov and niece of Simeon.

According to research of Polish historian Jan Tęgowski, Uliana and Algirdas had eight sons and eight daughters. It seems that the children, unlike children from Algirdas' first marriage with Maria of Vitebsk, were brought up in pagan culture. Uliana's son Jogaila inherited the throne and became Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1377. Uliana, as queen mother, appeared in national politics and was involved in the Lithuanian Civil War as well as an unsuccessful attempt to wed Jogaila with Sophia, daughter of Dmitri Donskoi, and convert him to Eastern Orthodoxy. The plans failed when Jogaila converted to Roman Catholicism, married Jadwiga of Poland, and was crowned King of Poland in 1386.