Helena of Raška

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Helena of Raška, (after 1109 – after 1146), Queen Consort of Hungary.

Helena was the daughter of Duke Uroš I of Raška and his wife, Anna. Around 1129, King Stephen II of Hungary arranged her marriage with his cousin Béla, who had been blinded on the order of the king's father, King Coloman of Hungary. The king granted estates near Tolna to the couple.

Following the childless king's death, her husband was crowned King of Hungary on 28 April 1131. Helena exerted material influence over her blind husband during his reign. It was she who persuaded his husband's partisans, with her two sons in her arms, to massacre, at an assembly in Arad, 68 aristocrats they suspected of having suggested King Coloman to blind her husband.

When her husband died on 13 February 1141, their eldest son Géza II ascended the throne who was still a child. Therefore, Helena and her brother Beluš, whom she had invited to the court, governed the Kingdom of Hungary till September 1146 when he came of age.

[edit] Marriage and children

# c. 1129: King Béla II of Hungary (c. 1110 – 13 February 1141)

[edit] Sources

  • Soltész, István: Árpád-házi királynék (Gabo, 1999)
  • Kristó, Gyula - Makk, Ferenc: Az Árpád-ház uralkodói (IPC Könyvek, 1996)
Preceded by
?		 Queen Consort of Hungary
c.1131–c.1141		 Succeeded by
Euphrosyne of Kiev
Preceded by
?		 Queen Consort of Croatia
1131–c.1141		 Succeeded by
Euphrosyne of Kiev