Vladimir / Владимир
Sveneld returned to Kiev without Svyatoslav, but with bad news: the Pechenegs had killed the Grand Prince and turned his skull into a wine cup. Yaropolk was already Prince of Kiev and was now Grand Prince, with two brothers reigning in other cities – Oleg in Vruchy and Vladimir up north in Novgorod. Before long, trouble broke out. Sveneld’s son Lyut travelled to Oleg’s lands to hunt, without permission, on his land. Oleg found him and killed him. Sveneld took it badly and spent two years persuading Yaropolk to kill Oleg. Eventually they met in battle, Oleg’s army lost and Oleg was killed in the crush as his men fled for safety. Vladimir left for Rurik’s homeland to raise an army of Vikings and in two years he returned. On his way south, he took Yaropolk’s bride, secretly won Yaropolk’s war leader to his side, took Kiev and finally beseiged Yaropolk in Roden’. When Yaropolk came to discuss surrender, two of Vladimir’s Vikings ran him through.
Vladimir has avenged one brother by killing the other. He is now ruling in Kiev, with the army recruited to deal with Yaropolk no longer needed. The Vikings came to Vladimir with a suggestion – as they had taken the city, it was now theirs and they should relieve the inhabitants of a reasonable plunder – two grivnas per person (a Kievan grivna was about 150g of silver). Vladimir suggested they wait for a month while the citizens of Kiev collect the marten furs in which the payment would actually be made, but after waiting, Vladimir gave them nothing. “You tricked us,” the Vikings complained, “at least let us go to the Greek land.” Vladimir told them to go, but sent a message to the Emperor: “Some Vikings are on their way to you, whatever you do, don’t keep them in your capital, or they will do you the same evil as they did here. Instead split them up across several places. Oh, yes. Don’t send them back to me.”
Having got rid of his troublesome Vikings (and it says a lot for his power that he could do that without them spitting him like they did Yaropolk), he took care of affairs of the soul. As a pagan, he set up a number of idols and a place of sacrifice on the hill where St Basil’s church was later built (now the site of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The first among the idols was Perun, with a silver head and golden moustache, then Khors, Dazhd’bog, Stribog, Simargl and Mokosh’. He sent his uncle Dobrynya to rule in Novgorod and he also set up an idol there, suggesting the formalisation of paganism was a nationwide policy.
Vladimir takes power in Kiev and orders a nice red idol be set up on the hill.
The PVL says that in Kiev, they brought sacrifices, and brought their sons and daughters and these sacrifices went to the demons. There is a strong implication of regular human sacrifice, but at first glance, the wording seems unclear. However we know that at Uppsala, in the homeland of the Rus’ vikings, they carried out mass sacrifices of nine men at a time to Odin and that Ibn Fadlan had witnessed human sacrifice by the Rus’ he had seen on the Volga trade route. Furthermore, after his campaign against the Yotvingians, Vladimir orders a sacrifice and the human victim was to be chosen by lot. It seems that the sons and daughters were indeed the sacrifices sent to the demons. 1 About Russian paganism
Setting up pagan shrines and carrying out human sacrifices aren’t the only things the PVL objected to in Vladimir’s behaviour. Having killed Yaropolk, Vladimir took up with his brother’s widow, a Greek nun whom Svyatoslav had acquired on his campaigns, whom he gave to Yaropolk as a treat because she was very pretty. She fell pregnant and gave birth to a son, Svyatopolk. The PVL says “from a sinful root comes an evil fruit”, as the mother had been a nun and the father slept with her as a concubine, not a wife. There has been a suggestion that this woman was already pregnant when Yaropolk died. For its part, the PVL says Vladimir never loved Svyatopolk because he felt the boy was from two fathers. Nevertheless, despite already having two sons, Vladimir accepted Svyatopolk as his third legitimate son and heir, which one thought he would be unlikely to do if he thought Svyatopolk was literally Yaropolk’s son.2 Old testament parallel
Vladimir was a very keen collector of wives and concubines. Aside from Rogneda, the Greek nun (maybe called Irina, Eirene in Greek) and a Czech (Malfrida) or Viking woman (Olava) who are both claimed as mothers of the same children, he had “another wife”, who bore him two sons and a Bulgarian (possibly Volga Bulgar) woman possibly called Adela or Milolika (means “Nice face”), who gave birth to the saints Boris and Gleb. And that is not the half of it. It is said that his harem included three hundred women at Vyshgorod, another three hundred at Belgorod (25km / 15 miles east of Kiev) and two hundred at Berestovo (now inside Kiev, but then outside the city). You can see why the chroniclers got confused with the names.
He put aside all of these women upon his conversion to Christianity, when he married Anna, sister of the Roman Emperor Basil II the Bulgar Slayer. After Anna’s death, it is believed he may have married again, Having so many partners, it’s not surprising that Vladimir fathered a large number of children. Having broached the subject, we might as well go through the list now in order of seniority – as ever, the exact dates are argued about, especially with Yaroslav, but the PVL puts him as fourth of the living sons so I’ll leave the dates of birth out:
- Vysheslav, Prince of Novgorod, son of Vladimir’s first wife, the Viking princess (Olava, or in the Saga of Olaf Trygvasson – Allogia / or according to the PVL “The Czech woman”.
- Izyaslav, Prince of Polotsk, son of Rogneda.
- Svyatopolk the Accursed, Prince of Turov, then Grand Prince of Kiev, son of the Greek nun Irina(?)
- Mstislav, died in infancy, son of Rogneda.
- Yaroslav the Wise, Prince of Rostov, then Prince of Novgorod, finally Grand Prince of Kiev, son of Rogneda.
At this point, Vladimir has a number of children for whom the seniority is not as clear:
- Svyatoslav, Prince of the Drevlyane, son of Malfrida.
- Vsevolod, Prince of Volhynia, son of Rogneda.
- Mstislav the Brave, Prince of Tmutarakan and Chernigov, sources differ, Adela or Malfrida.
- Predslava, prisoner and concubine of King Boleslaw, daughter of Rogneda.
- Premislava, Duchess in Hungary, daughter of Rogneda.
- Mstislava, prisoner of King Boleslaw, daughter of Rogneda.
- Stanislav, Prince of Smolensk, possibly son of Adela.
- Sudislav, Prince of Pskov, son of Adela.
- Pozvizd, mother not known and some people think he might be Vladimir’s nephew.
- Boris, Prince of Rostov, later sources say son of a Bulgar Milolika (who might be Adela), also considered possibly son of Anna
- Gleb, Prince of Murom, later sources say son of Milolika / Adela, also considered possibly son of Anna
- Maria Dobronyega, Duchess of Poland, daughter of Anna.
Vladimir and his very many sons.
Having sorted out his spiritual and physical needs, Vladimir is now faced with some more traditional challenges for a new Grand Prince. In 981, he moves against Polish influence over the lands to the west of Kiev, taking Peremyshl’, Cherven and other cities in the region that later became called Chervonnaya Rus’ or Red Russia. Although many of the cities were on the border between Eastern Slavic and Polish (Western Slavic) lands, this campaign completes the collection of Eastern Slavic tribes into the Russian state. However, the same year, he had to deal with a revolt by the Vyatichi some way to the North East of Kiev, whom Svyatopolk had incorporated seventeen years previously. Vladimir settled the matter by reimposing the same tribute that his father had. However, the Vyatichi rebelled again in 982, requiring Vladimir to conquer them yet again. Whatever he did this time seemed to have settled the matter. I’m guessing it involved the sharp spear you see below.
Vladimir goes to sort the Vyatichi out.
The next year, in 983, Vladimir turns his gaze West again, this time fighting the Yotvingians who lived just to the west of the Dregovichi. Upon his return to Kiev, we see the example of human sacrifice referred to above: the young man chosen to be sacrificed was the particularly handsome and virtuous son of a Christian Viking who had returned to Kiev from Constantinople. The PVL says the Devil wanted him dead because the youth’s goodness was like a thorn in his heart. Men were sent to collect the lad for sacrifice, but his father, not unreasonably, refused saying that the idols were not gods, but just wood. His God had created Heaven and Earth, the stars, the sun, the moon and humanity, but their gods were themselves made by men. He would not hand over his son to be offered to those demons. A crowd gathered to take the young man, but the father said that if the idols were truly gods, then one of them should come and collect his son personally. The furious crowd killed the pair of them.
Vladimir uses dice to choose the next human sacrifice.
In 984, Vladimir is faced with a rebellion by the Radimichi and sent his commander Wolftail (Волъчий Хвостъ) to deal with it. The armies met near the river Pishchanye and things went so badly for the Radimichi that the PVL says the other Russians still mocked them by saying “The Pishchanye people run from the wolf’s tail” 150 years later.
The name’s Tail. Wolf Tail.
The next year (985), Vladimir and his uncle Dobrynya led an army against the Volga Bulgars, the Russians travelling by boat along the rivers and his Turkic allies accompanying them on horseback. They defeated the Bulgars but on Dobrynya’s suggestion, did not demand tribute from them. The PVL says it was because of their boots – Dobrynya didn’t feel it right to demand tribute from people with such nice footwear. Instead the Bulgars promised to maintain peace with Russia until a stone floated on water or some hops sank.
Going to visit the Bulgars by boat and on horseback.
Now they were all friends again, in 986, the Bulgars (who had converted to Islam several decades earlier) sent missionaries to Vladimir. They had heard what he was like and, although they mentioned circumcision, not eating pork, not drinking wine etc., they seemed to put their accent on the seventy beautiful wives with which the faithful would be rewarded in paradise. Vladimir listened to the bit about the several dozen lovely ladies with open delight, but was less impressed with the ban on pork, and even less so concerning the alcohol. His famous quote “Drinking is the joy of the Russians, we can’t do without it,” put an end to the matter and the Bulgars went away disappointed.
Next came a mission from the Pope who gave the following message: “The Pope says your land is the same as our land, but our faith is different from yours because our faith is Light. We bow down before the God who created Heaven and Earth, the stars and moon and everything that breathes, while your “gods” are just wood.” in response, Vladimir asked “What are your teachings?” The missionaries replied “Fasting according to one’s strength - if one eats or drinks, it is all to the glory of God, as St. Paul said.” “Go back to where you came from,” replied Vladimir, “Our fathers and mothers never accepted that.”
The Catholic missionaries come to Kiev, but leave empty handed.
Having heard of the failure of the Roman Catholics, some Jews from Khazaria came and said “We heard that the Bulgars and Christians came, each teaching you about their faith. The Christians believe in a man we had crucified, but we believe in the single God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Vladimir asked them what their law was and they said “To be circumcised, to not eat pork or hare meat, to respect the Sabbath.” “And where is your land?” enquired Vladimir. “In Jerusalem” they replied. ”Is it really there?” he checked. “God was angry at our fathers and scattered us to various countries for our sins and gave our land to the Christians.” Vladimir then asked “How can you teach others if you are rejected by God and exiled? If God loved you and your law, then you wouldn’t be scattered to many countries. And you want the same to happen to us?”
Khazar missionaries try and fail to convince Vladimir to convert to Judaism.
Finally, I hope you can guess who was successful in persuading Vladimir of the truth of their religion. that’s right, the Orthodox from the Roman Empire. The PVL says they sent a philosopher who first of all criticised the practices of the other religions. The criticism of Islam seems somewhat inaccurate, that Muslims washed in spat-out water – this was the very practice that so disgusted Ibn Fadlan when he saw the Russian / Viking warriors doing it. Given the Islamic insistence on cleanliness at prayer, the reference to a great stink later on and Ibn Fadlan’s shock at the poor practices he witnessed on his visit to the Bulgars, maybe they simply hadn’t brought their customs up to scratch yet. Catholicism was wrong for using wafers and not bread in the communion, and possibly for not offering communion in both forms, a common Latin practice, one condemned by the Orthodox, but only hinted at in the PVL. Judaism was wrong for first turning against the Old Testament prophets, then against Christ himself and not repenting for decades afterwards. Finally God lost his patience, sent the Romans against Jerusalem and forced the surviving Jews into exile.
The Greek philosopher brings out his visual aids.
Vladimir asks why on earth God would allow himself to be treated in this way. The philosopher asked for leave to give the background to what happened and then spends several pages of the PVL (sixteen in the Laurentian codex) retelling the Bible. If you would like to know more, I would recommend this Bible for Children rather than the PVL. It goes into more detail and has far better pictures. Having got to Revelation and the Final Judgement where humanity is divided into the saved and the damned, Vladimir sighs and says “It is good for those on the right, but woe to those on the left.” The philosopher replied “If you want to stand with the good people on the right, you need to get baptised.” “I shall wait a little,” said Vladimir, thinking to test the faiths a little more, but sent the philosopher back to the Roman Empire with many gifts and in great honour.
In 987, Vladimir called a council of his noblemen and elders of the cities and asked them what they thought of what he had been told by the various missionaries. They gave him their advice: “Nobody is likely to criticise their own religion; rather, they will praise it. If you really want to find out what their religions are like, you have many servants, send them to watch the services and find out how they all worship.”
Vladimir sends out his ambassadors.
Vladimir chose ten “remarkable and intelligent” men; first they went to the Bulgars and came back with tales of the dreadful things they had seen. Then he sent them off first to Germany, then to Constantinople. They witnessed the Western service, then headed off to the Roman Empire. When they arrived, the Emperors asked what they had come for, and when they heard, they told the Patriarch to make sure everything was on top form. He arranged everything, put on his finest clerical robes, organised the choir, lit the incense and put on a festival service. They placed the envoys in the best places and let them observe the service and explained it to them. They were amazed by the beauty and splendour of the service.
We didn’t know if we were in Heaven or on Earth.
On arriving home, loaded down with gifts from Emperors Basil and Constantine, Vladimir asked them to report back to the council on what they had seen. They were particularly unimpressed by the Muslim Bulgars, saying there was no merriment among them, only sadness and an awful stink. They told of visiting the Roman Catholic services and seeing no beauty there. Finally, they told of what they had seen in Constantinople. They were led to the church where the Romans worshipped and they did not know if they were in Heaven or on Earth, for nowhere else on Earth were there such sights and beauty. They said “we don’t know how to explain it, we only know that God is there with the people and their divine service is better than in all other countries. We cannot forget that beauty, for every person who tastes something sweet will not then take something bitter, so we cannot remain in paganism here.” The other noblemen said “If the Greek law was bad, then your grandmother Olga would not have accepted it, and she was one of the wisest of all people”. Vladimir asked “So where do we accept baptism?” “Wherever you like”, they replied.
At around this time, Rogneda attacked Vladimir and tried to kill him. The story goes that he intended to execute her himself. To symbolise the ending of the marriage, he had her dress in her wedding dress and came into her chambers with a sword to kill her. He did not account for his son Izyaslav, who would have been around ten at the time. Izyaslav confronted his father bearing a sword and refused to let him kill his mother. Vladimir decided to send Rogneda and Izyaslav away from Kiev to rule the principality of Polotsk, Rogneda’s homeland. Izyaslav founded a city, Izyaslavl’, which later became the centre of its own minor principality.
Izyaslav defends his mother Rogneda from Vladimir.
Vladimir attacks Korsun’.
In 988, however, Vladimir went to war with the Roman Empire, besieging Korsun’ / Chersonesus in Crimea. The PVL says the Russians surrounded the city, Vladimir promised to stay there for three years if needs be. To speed things up, he started to build a ramp up to the walls. The Romans dug a tunnel and removed the soil from the ramp at night and piled it up in the middle of the city. However much soil the Russians brought, the Romans took away until a man from Korsun’ called Anastas wrote a message on an arrow to tell the Russians to dig through the pipes supplying the city with drinking water. Anastas seems to be one of Vladimir’s trusted servants – this is not the last we hear of him. When Vladimir saw the message, he swore that if the plan worked, he would get baptised.
Vladimir gets his men to cut the pipes.
Once the pipes were cut, the city didn’t last long. Vladimir took Korsun’ and sent a message to Basil and Constantine asking for their sister Anna’s hand in marriage in return for giving the city back. Basil and Constantine replied saying that they would not send their sister to marry a pagan, but that if Vladimir would get baptised, they could come to a deal. Vladimir agreed, again, to convert to Christianity and so the Emperors persuaded their extremely unwilling sister to go to Crimea to marry the Grand Prince. However, the PVL doesn’t tell the whole story: part of the peace deal was for Vladimir to send six thousand warriors to help Basil II put down a rebellion by a relative of Nicephorus Phocas – Bardas. This unit was to stay in the Roman Empire and formed the basis of the Varangian Guard. It is possible that these are the Vikings referred to earlier on in the PVL, but with a mix-up with the dates – not the first time that has happened.
Anna arrives in the Crimea.
When she arrived, Vladimir was suffering from an eye disease which had blinded him. Anna went to Vladimir and advised him to get baptised as soon as possible, as otherwise his blindness would not be cured. Vladimir said “If he can do this, then the Christian God is truly great.” The Bishop of Korsun’ and Anna’s priests baptised Vladimir, who took the Christian name Basil / Василий in honour of the senior Roman Emperor, Basil the Bulgar Slayer. When the Bishop laid his hand on him, Vladimir’s blindness was cured. He exclaimed “Now I have known the true God!” and many of his entourage who witnessed this were so amazed that they too converted. The Bishop then treated Vladimir to a lesson in Orthodox theology, much of which is related in the PVL, then let Anna and Vladimir return to Kiev.
Vladimir is baptised.
Upon Vladimir’s return, he ordered that the idols he had set up on the hill should be pulled down. Perun’s image was dragged down the hill and twelve men set to beat the idol with rods. Although the local pagans wept, the idol was taken to the water and pushed in. Vladimir ordered that if it should float ashore before it reached the rapids, it should be pushed back into the Dnieper again; the PVL says its final resting place was still called Perun’s Shoal. Next Vladimir ordered everyone in the city to come to the river for baptism, anyone who didn’t would be considered his enemy. Apparently, everyone was very happy to do so as, if the religion had been bad, Vladimir wouldn’t have accepted it.3 Elite conversion bringing the people with it They stood in the water of the Dnieper up to their necks while the priests baptised them.
The Baptism of the people of Kiev in 988 by Klavdiy Lebedev.
The PVL then quotes the Devil (I’m not sure what the source for this might be, but it wasn’t the first time Nestor managed to get the Devil to give a sound-bite for the PVL) as saying “Oh no, they are driving me away from here! … I will no longer be able to rule in these countries!”.
Sad? Good, serves you right.
End of Part 1. In the next episode, we follow Vladimir’s fate as a Christian ruler, see how he deals with his small army of children, discover how he meets his end, and, of course, we rate his achievements.
- I had wanted to go into Russian paganism in a bit more detail, as Vladimir’s creation of a central shrine in Kiev has been seen as a sign of him trying to set up a fixed state religion on traditional grounds, before he finally gave up and plumped for Christianity. However, unlike Roman, Greek or Egyptian religion, where the sources are plentiful, and even Norse religion, where we have two main expositions of the myths, by Snorri Sturluson and Saxo Grammaticus, there is almost no Slavic mythology remaining as a cohesive narrative.
We have names of gods, supposed equivalents in classical and Norse myth, a few bits of information written by Christians or Muslims, archaeological remains of iconography and attempts by scholars to extract pagan themes from later folklore and popular religious practice. I can tell you the story about how Thor travelled to Utgard and wrestled with old age, tried to lift the world serpent, caused the tides (sorry if that spoils the story) etc., but no-one can tell you a similar story about a Russian god and be remotely confident someone from 1100 years ago would recognise it. I would suggest first looking at the Wikipedia article. It goes into depth in what we can piece together from what evidence remains, but it is a subject that does require a really deep dive to get anything sensible, so I shall go no further here.
↩︎ - This story reminds me of the story of Onan in Genesis 38. Back in Old Testament times, if a man died before his wife was able to bear him an heir, his younger brother was expected to take on the responsibility of marrying the widow and siring a son. This child would then legally be considered the son of the deceased brother and carry on the line of the dead man. Onan’s sin was to refuse to honour this duty, not doing things that might affect his eyesight.
It has been suggested that calling the son Svyatopolk, echoing Yaropolk’s name, was a sign that a similar cultural expectation might have been at play; conversely, most of Vladimir’s children are something –slav(a), like his grandfather Svyatoslav. ↩︎ - This attitude was fairly widespread among pagans in societies that were converting to Christianity. The stratified nature of society was reflected in the beliefs about religion. A free man could get a hearing from a local chief, the local chief could get a hearing from a nobleman, or maybe a king, but a free man would not get in the door. To speak with gods, one would need to be at the very top of society. If the elites decided to change the gods they dealt with, they were the experts. ↩︎
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