Danylo King of Rus or Danylo of Galicia (properly Danylo Romanovich or Даниил Романович), (1201-1264) Knyaz of Halych (1205–1206, 1211–1212, 1229–1231, 1233–1235, 1238–1255), Peremyshl (1211, today's Przemyśl, Poland), Vladimir and Volhyn (1212–1231), King of Galicia (1253–1264).

In 1205, after the death of his father, Roman Mstyslavich, the ruler of Galicia and Volhynia, the boyars of Galicia forced the four-year-old Danylo into exile with his mother Anna (probably of Greek extraction) and brother Vasylko. After the boyars proclaimed one of their own as prince in 1213, the Poles and Hungarians invaded the principality, ostensibly to support the claims of young Danylo and Vasylko, and divided it between themselves. In 1221 Danylo re-established his rule over Volhynia, where the boyars and populace had remained loyal to his dynasty. By 1238, he had defeated the Teutonic Knights, and regained most of Galicia, including the capital at Halych.

The following year, Danylo acquired Kiev, the traditional capital of the defunct state of Kievan Rus'. Faced with the Mongol menace, he sent his commander Dmytro to defend the city. However, after a long siege its walls were breached and despite fierce fighting within the city, Kiev fell on December 6, 1240 and was largely destroyed. A year later, the Mongols passed through Galicia and Volhynia while campaigning against the Poles and Hungarians, destroying Halych. On 17 August 1245, Danylo defeated a combined force of the Prince of Chernihiv, disaffected boyars, and Hungarian and Polish elements at Yaroslav and finally took the remainder of Galicia, thus reconstituting his father's holdings. He made his brother Vasylko ruler of Volhynia and retained the Galician title for himself, though he continued to exercise real powers in both places.

Danylo's domestic policies focused on stability and economic growth. During his rule, German, Polish, and Ukrainian merchants and artisans were invited into Galicia, and numbers of Armenians and Jews established themselves in the towns and cities. Danylo founded the towns of Lviv (1256) and Kholm (naming the former for his son), and fortified many others. He appointed officials to protect the peasantry from aristocratic exploitation and formed peasant-based heavy infantry units.

Yet Danylo's successes and his failed defense of Kiev attracted the further attention of the Mongols. In 1246, he was summoned to the capital of the Golden Horde at Sarai on the Volga River and was forced to accept Mongol overlordship. According to the Ukrainian historian Orest Subtelny, Danylo was handed a cup of fermented mare's milk by the Mongol khan Batu and told to get used to it, as "you are one of ours now."

While formally accepting the Mongols as overlords, and supplying them with soldiers as required, Danylo built a foreign policy around opposition to the Golden Horde. He established cordial relations with the rulers of Poland and Hungary, and requested aid from Pope Innocent III in the form of a crusade. In return for papal assistance, Danylo offered to place his lands under the ecclesiastical authority of Rome. The pope encouraged Danylo's resistance to the Mongols and his Western orientation, and in 1253, a papal representative crowned Danylo at Dorohochyn on the Bug River. The following year, Danylo repelled Mongol assaults on Ponyzia and Volhynia and dispatched an expedition with the aim of taking Kiev. Despite initial successes, in 1259, a Mongol force under Burundai entered Galicia and Volhynia and offered an ultimatum: Danylo was to destroy his fortifications or Burundai would assault the towns. Danylo complied and pulled down the city walls.

In the last years of his reign, Danylo engaged in dynastic politics, marrying a son and a daughter to the offspring of Mindovg of Lithuania and acquiring territorial concessions in Poland from the latter. He also arranged for the marriage of his son Roman to Gertrude, the Babenburg heiress, but was unsuccessful in his bid to have him placed on the ducal throne of Austria.

By his death in 1264, Danylo had reconstructed and expanded the territories held by his father, held off the expansionist threats of Poland and Hungary, minimized Mongol influence on Western Ukraine, and raised the economic and social standards of his domains. He was succeeded in Galicia by his son Lev.

References

• Subtelny, Orest. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. ISBN 0-8020-5809-6.
• Encyclopedia of Ukraine (online) (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/D/A/DanyloRomanovych.htm)

External links

Genealogy of Danylo's family (http://genealogy.euweb.cz/russia/rurik9.html)