Born: c. 950 in Kiev, Ukraine

Died: July 15, 1015 in Berestova

Occupation: Prince

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Russian ruler


Grand prince of Kiev and first Christian ruler in Russia, whose reign consolidated the Eastern Slavs and Finnish-Baltic tribes into a single Russian state.

Although information concerning Vladimir's youth is scarce, it is known that he was the youngest son of Grand Prince Sviatoslav Igorevich of Kiev and Maluska (Malfried), a servant girl who was possibly the daughter of the ruler of Liubeck Malk. Vladimir was born in Kiev sometime after the year 950, but the recorder of the Chronicle of Bygone Years (Primary Chronicle), the main contemporary source, does not give his birth date. His father was of Norman-Russian descent in the Rurik lineage and a brave warrior who had fought against the Volga Bulgars, the Khazars, the Bulgarians, and the Byzantine Empire. Despite his grandmother grand princess Olga's influential conversion to Christianity, Vladimir was reared in a pagan tradition; his father remained adamantly opposed to Christianity during his lifetime.

In 969, Sviatoslav, then constantly involved with warfare and administration in his newly conquered lands on the Danube, entrusted the administration of certain Russian regions to three of his 12 sons. The eldest son Yaropolk was appointed to rule Kiev, the second son Oleg was installed in the territory of the Drevliane, and the young Vladimir, with an older relative as his advisor, was established in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's territorial divisions among his sons did not imply a permanent partition of his empire but was simply a temporary method of maintaining his authority in these independent regions. But Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs (a Mongol tribe), while returning from a disastrous military campaign in 972, resulted in a fratricidal civil war. Vladimir and his brothers fought over the succession for the next five years.

Yaropolk, who may have initiated the struggle in an effort to unite all the family lands under a single Kievan prince, killed Oleg in battle and conquered his lands. Vladimir, whose army was vastly inferior, was forced to flee to Scandinavia. Two years later, with the help of his Varangian relatives, Vladimir raised an army of mercenaries and adventurers and returned to Russia. After liberating Novgorod from Yaropolk's governor, Vladimir's army opened a campaign to seize the land of the East Slavs. He then proposed a marriage alliance with Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk. When Rogvolod refused the hand of his daughter Rogneda, Vladimir ruthlessly attacked Polotsk, torched the city, executed Rogvolod and his two sons, and married Rogneda. Within a year, Rogneda--now given the Slavic name Gorislava--gave birth to Iziaslav, a legitimate Russian prince.

Vladimir marched southward against Yaropolk and Kiev. Receiving traitorous advice from a general named Blud, Yaropolk believed the people of Kiev favored his younger brother and planned to surrender the city and negotiate with Vladimir. But Yaropolk was treacherously murdered in 977 by the Varangian mercenaries. Vladimir, utilizing his various armies of Novgorodians, Varangians, Slovenians, Krivichians, and loyal Kievans, forged a new commercial union of Kiev and Novgorod by 980.

The civil war had considerably weakened the domination that Kiev had held over the borderlands. Vladimir had to secure those borders, particularly the eastern and southern frontiers where nomadic tribes posed a constant threat to his Kievan empire. In 981-82, he defeated the Viatichians in two campaigns and forced them to accept the hegemony ("leadership") of Kiev. Vladimir's victory over the Radimichi in 984 completed the unification of all the eastern Slavic peoples. His next objectives were the Volga Bulgars, descendants of the Huns, and the powerful Khazar tribes. In 985, Vladimir initiated a series of campaigns that resulted in victory over the Volga Bulgars, but he was still forced to send expeditions in 994 and 997 to reassert his control. Sometime prior to 989, he had subdued the Khazars and then constructed a series of forts along the southeastern border to prevent the warlike Pechenegs from attacking his empire. As another means of providing security, loyalty, and unity, he had replaced independent and rebellious local tribal chieftains with his own relatives and loyal officers.

Vladimir even employed religion as a unifying factor by accepting the deities of the various local tribes. He also tried to establish a pagan cult center in Kiev that would have produced a religious bond between the prince and his people. In time, Vladimir may have realized that the pagan polytheism of his empire would remain isolated from the mainstream of the monotheistic civilizations surrounding Russia. The single God of Christianity would also better support the concept of an absolutist ruler in his personal realm. According to the famous story recorded in the Primary Chronicle, he sent emissaries to investigate various religions in order to help him arrive at a conclusion. Vladimir would eventually choose the "heavenly beauty" of the Greek Orthodox rites over those of Islam, Judaism, and Latin Christianity. His retainers probably added the argument that his grandmother Olga had, in her great wisdom, adopted the Greek faith. In truth, it is most likely that the economic and political ties to Constantinople offered by a marriage proposal involving the Byzantine emperor's sister swayed the mind of the pragmatic Kievan prince.

Years earlier, when Vladimir had wrested the Black Sea port of Tmutoraken from the Khazars, he had brought his realm into contact with the powerful Byzantine Empire. With rebellions threatening Byzantium, Emperor Basil II (976-1025) had sought military assistance from Vladimir. During the insurrection of Bardas Phocus in 987-88, Vladimir had sent a Kievan-Varangian force of 6,000 warriors to help the Emperor. As an inducement, Basil had proposed that Vladimir could marry his sister Anna if Vladimir were to accept Christianity.

The Russians proved to be decisive against Bardas Phocus at the Battle of Abydos, and Vladimir was baptized and given the Christian name of Basil in honor of the Emperor in February 989. But the Emperor, sensing that the danger had passed, was less inclined to send Anna to the prince of Kiev. An angry Vladimir returned to the battlefield and conquered the Crimea in 989. His victories gave him control of several Orthodox episcopal centers, and his attack on the Byzantine port of Chersonesus (modern Korsun) was purposely carried out to eliminate Basil's reluctance. When Vladimir informed Basil that it would be the same with his city as with Chersonesus, the Emperor finally dispatched Anna to marry Vladimir and recognized the presence of the Kievan state on the Black Sea.


Christianity Replaces Paganism

Obtaining church books, vestments, and priests from the Crimean bishops, Vladimir returned to Kiev in the summer of 990 along with his bride, priests, icons, and sacred relics. He ordered that the statues of pagan gods be destroyed and pagan sanctuaries were replaced by Orthodox Christian churches. Then the population of Kiev was forced to march to the Dnieper River where they were baptized by the Crimean priests. Couriers were dispatched to the other cities of Vladimir's kingdom with instructions for the destruction of paganism and the mass baptisms of the populace. He inaugurated a massive program for the construction of churches, cathedrals, monasteries, libraries, and schools. The children of the upper class were ordered to attend the church schools whose basic purpose was to train future clergymen. Vladimir ignored the Patriarch of Constantinople and there was very little religious contact between Constantinople and Kiev until long after his reign. The authorities at Constantinople were so skeptical about Vladimir's faith that they used a Crimean bishop to head the Russian Church and did not appoint a patriarch to Kiev until 1037.

Vladimir's foreign policy with established states was nonaggressive, and he lived in harmony with King Stephen of Hungary, Prince Boleslav of Poland, and Prince Uldarick of Bohemia. While he did not wage war on his Christian neighbors following his conversion, he did protect the Kievan borders along the Black Sea from the nomadic and warlike Pechenegs from 992-97. Because he could not guarantee the safety of his citizens from these invaders, Vladimir constructed a chain of fortifications along the northern banks of the steppe Rivers Oster, Desna, Trubezh, Sula, and Stugna. Colonists were sent from the northern tribes--Novgorodians, Slavians, Krivichians, Chudians, and Viatichians--to augment the local defenders against the Pechenegs.

Following the example of his father, Vladimir used his sons to rule the vast regions of his empire. Yaroslav was governor of Novgorod; Boris of Rostov; Sviatopolk of Turov; Gleb of Murom; Iziaslav of Polotsk; Sviatoslav of Drevlians; and Mstislav of Tmutoraken. He also utilized the upper-class sons educated in the church schools to create a new bureaucracy. Cleverly abolishing the old tribal boundaries, Vladimir established new administrative centers in the regions governed by his sons and other administrators.

In domestic policy, Vladimir made a few innovative changes. In addition to suppressing tribal autonomy, he integrated the officers of the old tribal system of military organization into a princely class of administrators, revenue collectors, and military officials. They were treated lavishly which insured Vladimir's popularity and loyalty from this new class.

The administration of justice was also reformed by Vladimir. His legal innovations preceded the Russkaia Pravda (Russian Law Code) of his son Yaroslav in the 1030s. He introduced a principle of fixed fines in the justice system to replace the traditional dependence upon vengeance and blood feuds. The principal purpose was to replace tribal justice with a princely justice of centralized administration based on legal codifications of fines and punishments. His legal reforms were not influenced by the Church, which had to convince the well-intentioned Vladimir that it was not improper to execute bandits after due process of law.

In religion, Vladimir often consulted with the bishops on issues of state and church. There is a Church tradition that Vladimir initiated the collection of the tithe ("tax"), a Western church custom, from the princely courts, custom duties, estates, herds, and crops of his realm. Many churches, including the cathedral of the Dormation of the Holy Virgin in Kiev, were known as tithe churches because they were built with the tax. He issued the Church Statute of 996 which decreed the tithe and also established the foundation for Church courts. Vladimir's decision to accept the Greek Church also influenced the culture of Russia: Byzantine architecture, icon art, eastern thought, and monasticism were adopted by the Russian people.

In 1014, Yaroslav, reflecting the dissatisfaction of his subjects, refused to send the annual two-thirds of the tribute money collected in Novgorod to Vladimir's treasury. Vladimir responded by preparing for a military campaign, but he died in 1015 before he could march against his son and the succession was left in question. The news of his death was kept secret because his unscrupulous and ambitious son Sviatopolk wanted an undivided inheritance. In his later years, Vladimir had given signs that he might bequeath his entire kingdom to Boris, probably one of the sons born of Anna. Unfortunately, Vladimir's death resulted in a bloody conflict which culminated in the murder of Boris and Gleb and the brief reign of Sviatopolk the Accursed (1015-19).

Vladimir had brought a new civilization to Russia by his acceptance of Orthodox Christianity. He had unified the vast Russian lands and given the people a feeling of nationalism. In addition to being remembered as a powerful and successful prince, Vladimir was canonized in the 13th century as the baptizer of the Russians, "equal to the apostles."

FURTHER READINGS


Cross, Samuel Hazzard, and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetsor. The Russian Primary Chronicle. Medieval Academy of America, 1953.

Vernadsky, George. Kievan Russia. Yale University Press, 1948.

Volkoff, Vladimir. Vladimir: The Russian Viking. Overlook Press, 1985.

de Grunwald, Constantine. Saints of Russia. Macmillan, 1960.

Grekov, Boris D. Kiev Rus. Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959.