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IVAN II OF RUSSIA

'Ivan II Ivanovich the Fair' (Иван II Иванович Красный in Russian) (March 30, 1326November 13, 1359) was the second son of Ivan Kalita who succeeded his brother Simeon the Proud as Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of Vladimir in 1353. Until that date, he had ruled the towns of Ruza and Zvenigorod.
Upon succeeding his brother and because of increased civil strife among the Golden Horde, Ivan briefly toyed with the idea of abandoning traditional Moscow allegiance to the Mongols and allying himself with Lithuania, a growing power in the west. This policy was quickly abandoned and Ivan asserted his allegiance to the Golden Horde.[1]
Contemporaries described Ivan as an apathetic ruler, who didn't flinch even when Algirdas of Lithuania captured his father-in-law's capital, Bryansk.[2] By his second wife, Alexandra Ivanovna Velyaminova, daughter of a Moscow mayor, he had several children, including Dmitri Donskoi, who succeeded him.

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1. Medieval Russia, 980-1584, Janet Martin, , , Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 0521368324
2. Russia, Alfred Rambaud, Edgar Saltus, , , P. F. Collier & Son, 1902, [1]


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