[9][11] According to Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin, Vladimir was most likely seeking to bolster his political legitimacy rather than being motivated solely by vengeance.

[citation needed] The later Suzdalian Chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogvolod's daughter – here called "Gorislava" – plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him.

[citation needed] Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl (now called Zaslawye).

[15] Earlier scholars have proposed that Rogned' (Rogneda) was later "renamed" Gorislava,[13][16] an idea especially promoted by the 16th-century Nikon Chronicle as included in Nikolay Karamzin's History of the Russian State (1816–26).

[16] But the first source to suggest these two women were one and the same person, who was somehow renamed, does not appear until the Moskovskii letopsnyi svod 1479 g., 500 years after the events they narrate.