Fantastic as this procedure of conversion may at first sight appear, there was probably sound policy underlying it; the Russians would be reconciled to the deposition of their wonted gods, and the acceptance of fresh ones from their old enemies, the Greeks, by the consoling reflection that their Prince had, at the sword’s point, “captured” the new religion from alien hands. Priests have taught that there is but one way of entering the true faith; Vladimir demonstrated that there are at least two.
The conversion of the people followed in due course; the wooden statue of Peroun, with its silver face and moustache of gold, was thrown down, flogged with whips, and hurled into the Dniepr, whose waters cast it up again on the bank. The affrighted people rushed to worship their old god, but the Prince’s men pushed him back into the current, and Peroun the silver-faced was swept down the stream and vanished into the purple haze “where the dead gods sleep.”
On the banks of the same river that had engulfed their fallen idol the inhabitants of Kiev were mustered by command, and after the Greek priests had consecrated its waters, into it plunged at a given signal the whole wondering multitude, men, women, and children, and were baptized in one batch. A like scene was enacted at Novgorod, with the substitution of the Volkhov for the Dniepr, and throughout Russia the transition was effected in an equally successful manner. No doubt the cult of the ancient pantheism lingered for a while, especially in the remoter districts, but it was merged in time in the saint worship of the new religion, and the old heathen festivals and year-marks became, under other names, those of the Christian calendar. The feast of Kolyada and the birthday of the Sun slid naturally into the celebrations of the Nativity without losing aught of its festive character. In similar fashion the institutions of the Greek Orthodox Church everywhere took root in the country till they became part of the life of the people. Kiev henceforth is a city of churches and shrines, with its Cathedral of S. Sofia and its Golden Gate, in ambitious imitation of Constantinople.
The adoption of Christianity in its Greek form exercised a momentous influence on the history of Russia. Up to this point she had been travelling in the same direction as the growing nations around her, and seemed destined to take her place in the European family; but by taking as her ghostly sponsor the decaying Byzantine State, which could scarcely protect its own territories, instead of cultivating the alliance of the all-powerful Roman Papacy, she prepared herself for a gradual isolation from Western civilisation and Western sympathy. For although the actual temporal power of the Holy See did not extend much beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the Eternal City, the moral ascendancy which the Church possessed over some fifteen kingdoms and a crowd of lesser states gave her the disposal of an ever-available fund of temporal support, and enabled her to extend her protection or assistance to all the bodies politic, great or small, within her communion. Witness, for instance, the vast armies she was able to send careering into the “Holy Land” on behoof of Jerusalem-bound pilgrims, and later, the troops she could raise from various parts of the Empire for the reinforcement of the Teutonic Order in its struggles with the heathen Prussians and Pomeranians. Russia, by her adoption of the Greek instead of the Roman faith, put herself beyond the pale of Catholic Christendom, and in the hour of her striving with the Mongol Horde could look for no help from Western Europe; when she emerged from that strife she was less European than Asiatic. In like manner the Greek Empire, two hundred years later, fell unbefriended into the hands of the Ottomans. And in civilisation as well as in war the dominions of the princes of Kiev suffered from their lack of intercourse with Rome; the visits of cardinals and nuncios would have served as a constant link between Russia and the West, and have stimulated the growth of towns in the wild lands that led up to the Dniepr basin. What in fact Rome did for Hungary, on the latter’s entry into the Latin Church—raising her from the position of a semi-barbarous state to that of an important kingdom—that might she have done under similar circumstances for the Eastern principality. There is, of course, another side to this reckoning; Russia, at least, was spared some of the distractions and unhappinesses which radiated from the throne of the apostles, while her very isolation in matters of religious polity helped to preserve for her a strong individuality which other Slav or Magyar nations lost as the price of their intercourse with Catholic-Teutonic Europe. Possibly her history is not even yet sufficiently developed for a final assessment of the matter, but for present purposes it is necessary to note a turning-point in her political evolution—a turn towards the East.
Although Christianity was become opposed to the practice of polygamy, Vladimir’s first act after his baptism had been to increase his connubial establishment by marriage with the Imperial princess. Three more sons had been added to his already ample family, and, disregarding the lesson of the disturbances which had followed the partition of the realm between himself and his half-brothers, the Prince resolved to parcel out his dominions among his surviving sons and his nephew. Eight principalities were carved out from the parent stem, and became each the share of a dependent kniaz, to wit, Novgorod, Polotzk, Rostov, Mourom, the Drevlian country, Vladimir (in Volhynia), Tmoutorokan, and Tourov.
In 998 the Russian arms were turned successfully against the Krovatians on the Galician frontier, and against the ever troublesome Petchenigs, who continued to disturb the southern borders at intervals during the reign.
Another war broke out later in the north. Vladimir had given refuge, and possibly support, to Olaf, aspirant to the Norwegian crown, then held by Erik, and when Olaf at last succeeded in ousting his rival, the latter, in revenge, “came into the realm of King Vladimir,” in the vigorous words of the Icelandic saga, and “fell a-harrying, and slew men-folk, and burnt all before him, and laid waste the land; and he came to Aldeigia-burg[16], and beset it till he won the stead. There he slew many folk and brake down and burnt all the burg, and thereafter fared wide about Garth-realm[17] doing all deeds of war.” It was four years before Vladimir was able to drive the “spear-storm bounteous Eric” away from his northern coasts. The date of this war is uncertain; probably it stretched into the second decade of the new century. Vladimir, who had lost his Imperial throne-mate in 1011, was confronted in 1014 with a domestic trouble of another nature; his son Yaroslav, Kniaz of Novgorod, refused to continue the yearly tribute which that principality was wont to pay into the Grand Prince’s treasury, and declared himself independent of Kiev. Vladimir made ready to march against his rebellious son, who on his part prepared to resist his angry father, but the sudden failing of the old man’s powers and an inroad of the perennial Petchenigs delayed the struggle. 1015Vladimir’s favourite son Boris, Prince of Rostov, was put in charge of the forces sent against the invaders, and during his absence the monarch ended his days at Berestov (a village near Kiev), leaving the succession to the Grand principality an open question.
The character of this Prince, to whom the Church gave the title of “Holy,” and who was commemorated by his subjects as “the Great,” is a difficult one for the historian to appraise. The excesses of a stormy and well-spent youth were atoned for, in the eyes of the monkish chroniclers, by an old age of almsgiving and other decorative virtues, and in most respects the doings of his reign gave evidence of wise and wary management. The splitting up of his kingdom was a flaw in his statecraft which had, however, the sanction of custom in the times in which he lived.
The only member of the Grand Prince’s family within reach of Kiev at the moment of his death was his nephew Sviatopalk, ruler of the province of Tourov, in which capacity, according to the contemporary Chronicle of Ditmar, Bishop of Merseburg, he had, at the prompting of his father-in-law Boleslas, King of Poland, raised a rebellion against Vladimir. The attempt was frustrated and punished by the imprisonment of the rebel and his wife, but apparently a reconciliation had taken place between the uncle and nephew, and Sviatopalk was at large, and, what was more important, on the spot when the throne of Kiev became empty. The boyarins of the court, ill-disposed towards a prince who was outside the immediate family of their late master, tried to keep back the tidings of his death while they sent messengers to recall Boris from his fruitless campaign against the Petchenigs. The corpse was wrapped round in a covering, let down by ropes from a palace window in the dead of night, and borne hurriedly to the church of the Bogoroditza (Mother of God) at Kiev. Rumours of the Prince’s death, however, began to fly about the city, and all precautions were rendered abortive by the tell-tale sight of the crowds which flocked to lament over his body. Sviatopalk proclaimed himself Grand Prince, rallied the boyarins to his side by a timely distribution of gifts, and then proceeded to strike, with the instinct of self-preservation, at the several kinsmen who were within reach. Prince Boris was surprised and slain one night in his tent near the banks of the Alta, being, the Chronicles relate, engaged in prayer at the time of his murder. This circumstance procured for him the posthumous honour of sainthood, and he became a national fetish in the calendar of the Russian Church. His brother Glieb, decoyed from his principality of Mourom by a feigned message from his defunct father, was waylaid while travelling down the Dniepr and met the same doom—shared also in the attendant glory of subsequent canonisation. Sviatoslav, Prince of the Drevlian country, taking natural affright at Sviatopalk’s deeds, which seemed to foreshadow the extinction of the sons of Vladimir, fled towards Hungary; at the foot of the Karpathian Mountains, however, he was overtaken and killed by the Grand Prince’s men. From this scene of slaughter and violence there escaped a shivering fugitive, the Princess Predslava, a daughter of the luckless house of Vladimir, who made her way with all speed to Novgorod; there she found her brother Yaroslav red with the blood of his subjects, shed in cold vindictiveness rather than in hot quarrel. The hideous wrath and dole called forth by the doings of Sviatopalk mastered all other passions, and led the Prince to throw himself on the goodwill of his misused people; and the men of Novgorod, foregoing their private griefs, turned their rage and their weapons against the monster of Kiev. 1016A thousand Varangians and fourteen thousand Russians marched southward with Yaroslav against Sviatopalk, who on his part had got together a large force, including a troop of Petchenigs. A battle was fought on the Dniepr banks near Lubetch, which resulted in the overthrow of the usurper, who fled to Poland, leaving the throne of Kiev to his triumphant rival.
Yaroslav did not remain long time in peaceable possession. Boleslas “Khrabrie,” the warlike King of Poland, having by the Peace of Bautzen composed his outstanding differences with the Germanic Kaiser (Heinrich II.), burst into Russia at the head of a large army, defeated Yaroslav on the banks of the Bug, and reimposed his son-in-law upon the people of Kiev. The ousted prince withdrew to Novgorod, and but for the insistance of his subjects would have sought sanctuary, as his father had done under similar circumstances, in Skandinavian lands. The Novgorodskie, not wishing to be left to the wrath of Sviatopalk, kept their prince with them by the simple expedient of destroying all the boats available for his flight. Sviatopalk himself smoothed the way for a renewal of the strife on more equal terms. The Poles had been distributed in scattered winter quarters throughout the province of Kiev, and Boleslas himself had established his court in the city. Possibly the Russian Kniaz was impatient of the prolonged presence of the Poles in his lands, and deemed that heroic measures were needed to hasten their departure; anyhow he devised and carried out the plan of a general massacre of the unwelcome guests. Boleslas hastily left Kiev with the remnant of his men, bearing with him as much treasure as he could lay hands on, and retaining in his hold the Red Russian towns on his border. The departure of the Poles brought as a consequence the onfall of Yaroslav, and Sviatopalk was obliged to seek support among the Petchenigs before venturing to take the field against his cousin. 1019The two forces met near the banks of the Alta, and there was waged a fierce and stubborn battle, the like of which, wrote the Kievian chronicler, had never been seen in Russia. Towards evening Yaroslav’s men gained the victory, and Sviatopalk, half-dead with fatigue, delirious with fear, and unable to sit his horse, was borne litter-wise through the whispering night in wild flight across a wild country, hunted ever by phantom foemen, and moaning ever to his bearers piteous entreaty for added speed. The fugitive checked his spent course in the deserts of the Bohemian border, where he died miserably, and contemporary legend, recalling the circumstances of his birth, asserted that he was born for crime. In which case he fulfilled his purpose.