Mstislav Mstislavich, son of Mstislav Rostislavich, had liberated Galicia-Volhynia, a principality in post-Kievan Rus from the late twelfth century, from Hungarian rule in 1221.

Within the next two decades, Mstislav’s son-in-law, Daniil Romanovich, the son of Roman Mstyslavich, had reunited all of south western Rus, including Volhynia, Galicia and the ancient Rus' capital of Kiev, which Daniil had captured in 1239.

He had defeated the Polish and Hungarian forces in the battle of Yaroslav (Jarosław) in 1245, but at the same time had been compelled to acknowledge, at least nominally, the supremacy of the Mongol Blue Horde.

Pope Innocent IV had in that year granted permission for Daniil to be crowned king, although his realm will continue to be ecclesiastically independent from Rome.

Thus, Daniil becomes the only member of the Rurik dynasty to be crowned king, made so in 1253 by the papal archbishop Opizo in Drohiczyn on the Bug River.

Galicia-Volhynia is important enough that in 1252 Daniil had been able to marry his son Roman to the heiress of the Austrian Duchy in the vain hope of securing it for his family.