Family tree Bas » Dobrawa van Bohemen (< 931-977)

Personal data Dobrawa van Bohemen 

• She was born before 931.
• (Geschiedenis) .Source 1

  Dubravka van Bohemen (voor 931-977) was een dochter van Boleslav I van Bohemen en Biagota. Zij werd in 965 de echtgenote van Mieszko I van Polen. Deze verbintenis bezegelde een bondgenootschap tussen Polen en Bohemen. Volgens de overlevering speelde Dubravka een wezenlijke rol in de kerstening van Polen. Zij gaf het leven aan een zoon (Boleslaw I van Polen) en een dochter (Swietoslawa van Polen). Haar dood in 977 luidde het einde in van het bondgenootschap tussen Polen en Bohemen.
  
  Voor haar huwelijk met Mieszko was zij eerst voorbestemd om non te worden. Zij trouwde echter met de Duitse edelman Günther van Merseburg. Haar huwelijk met Mieszko was daardoor haar tweede huwelijk.

• (Levens event) .Source 2

  Dobrawa (Dabrówka) (Czech: Doubravka, Polish: Dobrawa) (ca. 940/45 – 977) was a Bohemian princess of the Premyslid dynasty and by marriage Duchess of the Polans.
  
  She was the daughter of Boleslav I the Cruel, Duke of Bohemia, whose wife may have been the mysterious Biagota.[1][2]
  
  According to earlier sources, Dobrawa urged her husband Mieszko I of Poland to accept baptism in 966, the year after their marriage. Modern historians believe, however, that the change of religion by Mieszko was one of the points discussed in the Polish-Bohemian agreement concluded soon before his marriage with Dobrawa. Her role in his conversion is not considered now to be as important as it is often represented in medieval chronicles.
  Contents
  Life
  Date of birth
  
  Dobrawa's date of birth is not known. The only indication is communicated by the chronicler Cosmas of Prague, who stated that the Bohemian princess at the time of her marriage with Mieszko I was an old woman.[3] The message is regarded as tendentious and of little reliability, and some researchers believe that the statement was made with malicious intent.[4] It is possible that in the statement about Dobrawa's age, Cosmas was making a reference to the age difference between her and her sister Mlada. That would give him a basis for determining Dobrawa as "old." It also found that Cosmas confuses Dobrawa with Mieszko I's second wife Oda, who at the time of her marriage was around 19–25 years old, a relatively advanced age for a bride according to the customs of the Middle Ages. Some researchers have taken up speculative views, such as Jerzy Strzelczyk, who assumed that in the light of contemporary concepts and habits of marriage of that time (when as a rule marriages were contracted with teenage girls) is assumed that Dobrawa had passed her early youth, so, it's probable that she was in her late teens or twenties.[5]
  Early years
  
  Nothing is known about Dobrawa's childhood and youth. In 1895 Oswald Balzer refuted reports that previous to her marriage with Mieszko I, Dobrawa was married to Gunther, Margrave of Merseburg and they had a son, Gunzelin. This view is based on the fact that Thietmar of Merseburg in his chronicles named Gunzelin, Gunther's son, brother of Boleslaw I the Brave, Dobrawa's son.[6] Currently, historians believed that Gunzelin and Boleslaw I are in fact cousins or brothers-in-law.[7]
  Marriage with Mieszko I and role in the Christianization of Poland
  
  In the second half of 964[8] an alliance between Boleslav I the Cruel, Duke of Bohemia, and Mieszko I of Poland was concluded. In order to consolidate the agreement, in 965 Boleslav I's daughter Dobrawa was married to Mieszko I. There was a difference of religion between the spouses; she was a Christian, he was a pagan.
  
  Two independent sources attribute Dobrawa's important role in the conversion to Christianity of Mieszko I and Poland. The first is the chronicles of Thietmar, who was born two years before the death of Dobrawa. He wrote that the Bohemian princess tried to persuade her husband to accept Christianity (even at the cost of breaking their marriage and with it the Polish-Bohemian Alliance). It the end, she finally obtained the conversion of Mieszko I and with him, of all Poland.[9]
  
  In turn, the 12th century chronicler Gallus Anonymus says that Dobrawa came to Poland surrounded by secular and religious dignitaries. She agreed to marry Mieszko I providing that he was baptized. The Polish ruler accepted, and only then was able to marry the Bohemian princess.
  
  However, modern historians allege that the baptism of Mieszko I was dictated by political benefits and should not be attributed to any action of Dobrawa, who according to them had virtually no role in the conversion of her husband.[10] They note that the conversion of Mieszko I thanks to Dobrawa formed part of the tradition of the Church which stressed the conversion of Pagan rulers through the influence of women.[11]
  
  On the other hand, literature doesn't refuse to give Dobrawa a significant role in the Christianization of the Poles. In her wedding procession, she arrived to Poland with Christian clergymen, among them possibly Jordan, the first Bishop of Poland (since 968).
  
  Tradition attributes to Dobrawa the establishment of the Holy Trinity and St. Wit Churches in Gniezno and the Church of the Virgin Mary in Ostrów Tumski, Poznan.
  
  Dobrawa's marriage cemented the alliance of Mieszko I with Bohemia, which continued even after her death. On 21 September 967 Mieszko I was assisted by Bohemians in the decisive Battle against the Volinians led by Wichmann the Younger.
  
  When, after the death of Emperor Otto I in 973, a struggle for the supremacy in Germany began, both Dobrawa's husband and brother Boleslav II the Pious, Duke of Bohemia, supported the same candidate for the German throne, Duke Henry II of Bavaria.
  Issue
  Bust in the Krasinski palace, Ursynów, Warsaw
  
  The marriage of Mieszko I and Dobrawa produced three children:
  
  Boleslaw I the Brave (Chrobry) (b. 967 - d. 17 June 1025).
  a daughter, perhaps named Swietoslawa, perhaps identical to the legendary Sigrid the Haughty (b. 968/72 - d. ca. 1016), perhaps married firstly with Eric the Victorious, King of Sweden, and later wife of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, by whom she is said to have been mother of Canute the Great, King of Denmark, Norway and England.
  
  Gunhilda of Poland, who married Swyen I "Forkbeard", King of Denmark and England
  
  There is an hypothesis asserting the existence of another daughter of Mieszko I who was married to a Pomeranian Slavic Prince. She could have been the daughter of either Dobrawa or one of Mieszko's previous pagan wives.[12] Also, a theory has been advanced (apparently recorded by Thietmar and supported by Oswald Balzer in 1895) that Vladivoj, who ruled as Duke of Bohemia during 1002–1003, was another son of Dobrawa and Mieszko I.[1] Although modern historians have rejected this hypothesis, Czech historiography has supported the notion of mixed Piast-Premyslid parentage for Vladivoj.[13]
  Death and burial
  
  Dobrawa died in 977. In his study of 1888, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski wrote that "her tomb was discovered in Gniezno Cathedral. It was a simple stone marked with a cross. Purple robes and a weighty gold loincloth were the only objects found in her tomb."[14] A similar view of Dobrawa's burial place was expressed earlier, in 1843, by Edward Raczynski in his study Wspomnienia Wielkopolski to jest województw poznanskiego, kaliskiego i gnieznienskiego (Memories of the Greater Poland districts of Poznan, Kalisz and Gniezno).[15] However, the burial place of the Bohemian princess is now considered to be unknown.[16]
  
  Dobrawa's death weakened the Polish-Bohemian alliance, which finally collapsed in the mid-980s.

• She died in the year 977.
• A child of Boleslaw I "de Verschrikkelijke" van Bohemen and Biagota
• This information was last updated on January 11, 2013.

Household of Dobrawa van Bohemen

(1) She is married to Günther van Merseburg.

They got married

Child(ren):

1. Gunzelin von Kuckenburg  
2. Ekkehard I von Meissen  ????-1002 
3. Bruno van Merseburg  

(2) She is married to Mieszko I van Polen.

They got married in the year 965.Source 2

Child(ren):

1. Vladivoj van Bohemen  
2. Boleslaw I "de Koene" van Polen  966-1025 
3. Swietoslawa van Polen  970-1014 

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Timeline Dobrawa van Bohemen

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