'Jelena Lijepa' (
English: ''Helen the Beautiful'') was Queen of
Croatia. She was born a
Hungarian princess (Illona) and was the daughter of
Arpad King
Bela I, sister to King
Ladislaus I of
Hungary, grand-daughter of
Polish King
Mieszko II Lambert, and a great-grand-daughter of Csar
Samuil of Bulgaria. She became Queen of Croatia during her marriage with
Croatian King
Dmitar Zvonimir, a distant relative whom she married in
1063. They had a son, Radovan, who died in his late teens or early twenties.
Jelena had excellent family connections, being a daughter of
Arpad King
Bela I, a grand-daughter of Polish King
Mieszko II Lambert himself the uncle of
Canute the Great King of Danes and England, a great-grand-daughter of Csar
Samuil and the aunt to Ladislaus' daughter Piroska, christened Irene, the mother of future Byzantine Emperor
Manuel I and the wife of Byzantine Emperor
John II Komnenos, brother of the historian
Anna Comnena.
Jelena was very popular with the Croatians, and they often called her ''Jelena Lijepa''. She is thought to have been a joint ruler with her husband Zvonimir, and they saw their kingdom expand during his 14 year rule until his death in
1089. Upon the death of King Zvonimir, Jelena was said to have been quietly plotting the inheritance of the Croatian Crown for her brother, the King of Hungary, which caused a decade of war and instability in the kingdom. Jelena died around
1091.
She is not to be confused with
Jelena of Zadar, who was the wife of
Mihajlo Krešimir II in the 10th century.
External links
★ http://members.tripod.com/royalcroatia/zvonimir.htm