When did Švitrigaila possess Halych?

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to answer the question: when could prince Švitrigaila, son of Algirdas (Świdrygiełło Olgierdowicz, Svidrigailo Olgerdovich), possess Halych, situated in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, along with the adjacent territory? Until recently this fact was known only from a short mention in a document from the beginning of the 15th century, and it remained unclear, how to date this page in his riotous biography. Documents found in the archives of Warsaw and Lviv and published in the appendix allow us to date his Halych tenure to the period between October, 1405 and June, 1408, when Švitrigaila deserted to Moscow for Vasily I’s service, where he was granted the town of Vladimir and other possessions. It is shown that his short tenure in Halych allowed Švitrigaila to establish and strengthen his ties with the Ruthenian nobility under the rule of the Polish king. Even in May, 1408 (if the date of the document surviving in a 16th-century copy is correct), i. e., on the eve of his departure for Moscow, Švitrigaila was granting land near Halych to local nobles. Later he would use these ties to reconcile with his brother, king Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, and to return to the dominions of the Gediminids, as he certainly did later.