Alexander Jagiellon
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| Alexander Jagiellon | ||
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| Reign | July 30, 1492-August 19, 1506 (Grand Duke of Lithuania) December 12, 1501-August 19, 1506 (King of Poland) |
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| Coronation | July 30, 1492 in Vilnius Cathedral as Grand Duke of Lithuania December 12, 1501 in Wawel Cathedral as King of Poland |
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| Born | August 5, 1461 | |
| Kraków, Poland | ||
| Died | August 19, 1506 | |
| Vilnius, Lithuania | ||
| Buried | Vilnius Cathedral, Vilnius, Lithuania (1506) |
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| Consort | Helena | |
| Issue | none | |
| Royal House | Jagiellon | |
| Father | Kazimierz IV Jagiellon | |
| Mother | Elisabeth of Austria | |
Alexander Jagiellon (Polish: Aleksander Jagiellończyk; Lithuanian: Aleksandras; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was the fourth son of Kazimierz IV Jagiellon. He was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania on the death of his father (1492), and King of Poland on the death of his brother Jan I Olbracht (1501).
His shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and nobility (szlachta), who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. For want of funds, Alexander was unable to resist the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights or prevent Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan III from ravaging Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Tatars. The most the King could do was to garrison Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena, the Tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself after the disastrous Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of the truce, Lithuania had to surrennder about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state.
During his reign, Poland suffered much humiliation at the hands of her subject principality, Moldavia. Only the death of Stephen, the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube River; while the liberality of Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.
Alexander Jagellon never felt at home in Poland, and bestowed his favor principally upon his fellow Lithuanians, the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate Michał Gliński, who justified his master's confidence by his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (August 5, 1506), news of which was brought to Aleksander on his deathbed in Vilnius. It is important to note that Alexander Jagellon was the last known ruler of the Jagiellon dynasty to have maintained the family's ancestral Lithuanian language. From his death, Polish became the sole language of the family, thus fully Polonizing the Jagiellon family.
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| Preceded by Kazimierz IV Jagiellon |
Grand Duke of Lithuania 1492–1506 |
Succeeded by Zygmunt I the Old |
| Preceded by Jan I Olbracht |
King of Poland 1501–1506 |
