Anna Vsevolodovna of Kyiv

Venerable Anna (Yanka) Vsevolodovna was a daughter of Grand Prince Vsevolod of Kiev and sister of Vladimir Monomakh. She founded the Saint Andrew's convent in Kiev, called after her the Yanchin convent, was its first abbess and, according to tradition, opened there the first school for girls in Kievan Rus. She is commemorated on 3 November, the day of her repose, and on 18 May, the day of the finding of her relics (according to Filaret of Chernigov), and the time of her canonization is not known.

Her youth

The sources do not agree on the time of her birth: it is given in the second half of the eleventh century, between 1046 and 1067, not later than 1055-1060, or around 1068. She was the daughter of Vsevolod Yaroslavich and, according to some sources, of a Byzantine princess, a relative or daughter of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos. In 1074 she was betrothed to Constantine Doukas, son of Emperor Constantine X, but the marriage did not take place, because he was forcibly tonsured a monk in 1081 and died soon after (according to another version, he perished in the battle against the Normans at Dyrrhachium). Anna travelled in Byzantium and remained unmarried.

The convent and the school

Around 1086 Grand Prince Vsevolod founded in Kiev, beside the church of Saint Andrew, a convent of nuns, the Andreyevsky, called by the people Yanchin, whose first abbess was his daughter, tonsured a nun after its founding. She put great effort into ordering the convent. According to an old tradition resting on Tatishchev's History of Russia, she opened here the first school for girls in Europe, where she gathered maidens and taught them writing, crafts, singing and sewing. It is said that she herself chose the teachers and the programme, on the model of the education of women in Byzantium. Later legends also attribute to her great skill in healing.

In 1089, after the death of Metropolitan John II, she led an embassy to Constantinople to bring a new metropolitan of Rus, John III. She visited Constantinople then, a centre of culture, and was impressed by the learning there, which is why she thought of giving Rus something like it. She is one of six women mentioned by their full names in the Primary Chronicle.

Her death

The date of her death is also disputed: 3 November 1112 or 1113 (Laurentian Chronicle) or 7 October 1110 (Hypatian Chronicle). She was buried in the Andreyevsky (Yanchin) convent, destroyed later by Batu. Her life was written by Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko, in the work Venerable Anna Vsevolodovna. She is counted among the venerable women, and the date of her canonization is not known.