SFÂRŞITUL LUPTELOR PENTRU SUCCESIUNE ÎN MOLDOVA: ÎNŢELEGEREA DIN 1435
THE END OF THE WAR OF SUCCESSION IN MOLDAVIA: THE 1435 AGREEMENT

Summary/Abstract: At the end of August 1435, the two half-brothers Elias and Stephen reached an agreement to end the succestion conflict to the throne of their father, Alexander the Good of Moldavia. The settlement was mediated by the Polish King’s envoys, after the battle of Podraga. This agreement, recorded by two documents, one issued by each contender, became the bedrock of a complicated relationship between the two brothers, which, nonetheless, ensured the internal peace of Moldavia up to 1442. The Romanian historians did not reach a conclusion regarding the nature of this specific power-sharing arrangement. Some historians considered it an “imperfect association”, while others labeled it a “genuine diarchy”. A thorough analysis of the two charters can actually reveal the principles lying behind the agreement. Stephen recognized his brother’s genealogical seniority and he accepted Elias to play the “father’s” role in relationship to him. These principles were essential in some of the lateral and collateral succession systems, such as the one of the Kievan Rus’. However, Elias, son and husband of Lithuanian princesses, was probabily inspired by the very similar power-sharing arrangement of the Algirdas and Kęstutis brothers, Gediminas’s sons, based on the same principle of genealogical seniority.

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