[3] Olga was the mother of Sviatoslav and thus the grandmother of Vladimir. [↑]
[4] Ruins of this city still exist near Sevastopol. Among the ruins is a church said to be the one in which Vladimir received baptism. [↑]
[6] Men riding one horse and leading another. [↑]
CHAPTER II
VLADIMIR MONOMACH
In 1093 Vsevolod died at the age of sixty-four. His successor was Sviatopolk, son of Izyaslav, a weak and worthless man. Then came trouble and turmoil. “Those were days,” an old song says, “when strife was sown, when it grew as grain in the field grows, when men’s lives were shortened by princes’ struggles, when the cry of the earth-tiller was heard only rarely, but often the scream of the crows wrangling over corpses.” Monomach, the bravest and ablest of all the descendants of Yaroslav, might have taken the Kief throne had he wished, since the Kief people begged him to do so, but he feared civil war and refused, saying: “Sviatopolk’s father was older than my father; he reigned first in Kief.”
Sviatopolk, greedy and cruel, showed his character quickly. Envoys from the Polovtsi came to sell peace to him. He cast them into prison. When the Polovtsi heard of this insult they made war with the utmost vigor.
Sviatopolk then freed the envoys and asked for peace, but could not get it. He began at once to prepare for war on a small scale, but at last took advice and asked aid of Monomach, who came, bringing with him his brother. The three princes with their combined forces attacked the Polovtsi, though Monomach urged peace, since the enemy outnumbered them notably. The Russians were beaten in a savage encounter and Rostislav, Monomach’s brother, was drowned while crossing a river; Monomach himself had a narrow escape when struggling to save him. Elated with triumph, the Polovtsi hastened toward Kief, ravaging all before them. Sviatopolk, who had taken refuge in the capital, summoned fresh warriors and went out to meet the enemy a second time, but was again defeated and fled back to Kief with but two attendants. [[34]]