Leonid A. Belyaev^1,2,*, Svetlana B. Grigorian^1,**, Aleksandr L. Korzinin^2,***, and Serafim G. Shulyaev^1,****

¹Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
²North-West Institute of Management of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Saint Petersburg, Russia

*E-mail: labeliaev@bk.ru
**E-mail: lana384@yandex.ru
***E-mail: alex.kor77@gmail.com
****E-mail: firangel@mail.ru

Keywords: Russian state of the mid- to second half of the 16th century, Ivan IV the Terrible, Prince Yuri Vasilyevich, monastery archaeology, epigraphy, cemetery.

The article presents the study of the tomb of the first royal nun buried in the central part of the apse in the funerary vault of the Smolensk Catholicon of the Moscow Novodevichy Convent. Princess Uliania Dmitrievna was the wife of Yuri Vasilyevich, the younger brother of Ivan the Terrible. After the death of Prince Yuri of Uglich, Princess Uliania, aged 28–29, took monastic vows and retired to the Novodevichy Convent, where she died on May 8, 1574. The article analyzes the burial installations of the princess and its archaeological context. The authors are the first in historiographic studies to reconstruct the biography of Princess Uliania (Alexandra as a nun) and her family life, the family ties of her kin with the Staritsky princely house, noble families, and to examine the reasons that influenced the choice of the Novodevichy Convent for the widow of Yuri Vasilyevich.

DOI: 10.31857/S0869606325030116