Юрий Долгорукий: Киевский князь және Мәскеудің негізін қалаушы

the Grand Prince of Kiev

Yuri I Vladimirovich (Юрий Владимирович; ; c. 1099 – 15 May 1157), commonly known as Yuri Dolgorukiy (, ) or the Long Arm, was a Monomakhovichi prince of Rostov and Suzdal, acquiring the name Suzdalia during his reign. Noted for successfully curbing the privileges of the landowning boyar class in Rostov Suzdal and his ambitious building programme, Yuri transformed this principality into the independent power that would evolve into early modern Muscovy. Yuri Dolgorukiy was the progenitor of the Yurievichi (Юрьевичи Юрійовичі), a branch of the Monomakhovichi. Yuri spent much of his life in internecine strife with the other Rus' princes for suzerainty over the Kievan Rus, which had been held by his father (Vladimir Monomakh) and his elder brother before him. Although he twice managed to briefly hold Kiev (in September 1149 – April 1151, again in March 1155 – May 1157) and rule as Grand Prince of Kiev, his autocratic rule and perceived foreigner status made him unpopular with the powerful Kievan boyars, leading to his presumed poisoning and the expulsion of his son (later Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir Suzdal) in 1157. His rule marked the effective end of the Rus' as a unified entity until the Mongol invasions, with powerful provincial territories like Vladimir Suzdal and Galicia Volhynia now competing for the throne of Kiev.

Yuri was the sixth son of Vladimir Monomakh. It is unclear when Yuri was born. Some chronicles report that Yuri's elder brother, Viacheslav, said to him: "I am much older than you; I was already bearded when you were born." Since Viacheslav was born in 1083, this supposedly pushes Yuri's birth to c. 1099/1100. However, the Primary Chronicle records the first marriage of Yuri – on 12 January 1108. It means that Yuri was born before c. 1099/1100 (as he could not have been 6–9 years old at the time of marriage).

In 1108 Vladimir Monomakh sent his young son Yuri to govern in his name the vast Vladimir Suzdal principality in the north east of Kievan Rus'. In 1121 Yuri quarreled with the boyars of Rostov and moved the capital of his lands from that city to Suzdal. As the area was sparsely populated, Yuri founded many fortresses there. He established the towns of Ksniatin (in 1134), Pereslavl Zalesski and Yuriev Polski (in 1152), and Dmitrov (in 1154). The establishment of Tver, Kostroma, and Vologda is also popularly assigned to Yuri. In 1147 Yuri Dolgorukiy had a meeting with Sviatoslav Olgovich (then prince of Belgorod Kievsky) in a place called Moscow. In 1156 Yuri fortified Moscow with wooden walls and a moat. Although the settlement probably existed later or earlier, Dolgorukiy is often called "the Founder of Moscow".

For all the interest he took in fortifying his Northern lands, Yuri still coveted the throne of Kiev. It is his active participation in the Southern affairs that earned him the epithet of Dolgorukiy, "the far reaching". His elder brother Mstislav of Kiev died in 1132, and "the Rus lands fell apart", as one chronicle put it. Yuri instantaneously declared war on the princes of Chernigov, the reigning Grand Prince and his brother Yaropolk II of Kiev, enthroned his son in Novgorod, and captured his father's hereditary principality at Pereyaslav of the South. The Novgorodians, however, betrayed him, and Yuri avenged by seizing their key eastern fortress, Torzhok. In 1147, Dolgorukiy resumed his struggle for Kiev and in 1149 he captured it, but in 1151 he was driven from the capital of Rus by his nephew Iziaslav. In 1155, Yuri regained Kiev once again. After presumably being poisoned at the feast of a Kievan nobleman, Yuri unexpectedly died in 1157 which sparked anti Suzdalian uprising in Kiev. Yuri Dolgoruki was interred at the Saviour Church in Berestovo, Kiev, but his tomb is empty.