Vladimir The Great

Vladimir, Grand Prince of Russia before and after the year 1000, won the

name not only of Vladimir the Great but of St. Vladimir, though he was

as great a reprobate as he was a soldier and monarch, and as

unregenerate a sinner as ever sat on a throne. But it was he who made

Russia a Christian country, and in reward the Russian Church still looks

upon him as "coequal with the Apostles." What he did to deserve this

high onor we shall see.



Sviatoslaf, the son of Olga, had proved a hardy soldier. He disdained

the palace and lived in the camp. In his marches he took no tent or

baggage, but slept in the open air, lived on horse-flesh broiled by

himself upon the coals, and showed all the endurance of a Cossack

warrior born in the snows. After years of warfare he fell on the field

of battle, and his skull, ornamented with a circle of gold, became a

drinking-cup for the prince of the Petchenegans, by whose hands he had

been slain. His empire was divided between his three sons, Yaropolk

reigning in Kief, Oleg becoming prince of the Drevlians, and Vladimir

taking Rurik's old capital of Novgorod.



These brothers did not long dwell in harmony. War broke out between

Yaropolk and Oleg, and the latter was killed. Vladimir, fearing that his

turn would come next, fled to the country of the Varangians, and

Yaropolk became lord over all Russia. It is the story of the fugitive

prince, and how he made his way from flight to empire and from empire to

sainthood, that we are now about to tell.



For two years Vladimir dwelt with his Varangian kinsmen, during which

time he lived the wild life of a Norseman, joining the bold vikings in

their raids for booty far and wide over the seas of Europe. Then,

gathering a large band of Varangian adventurers, he returned to

Novgorod, drove out the men of Yaropolk, and sent word by them to his

brother that he would soon call upon him at Kief.



Vladimir quickly proved himself a prince of barbarian instincts. In

Polotsk ruled Rogvolod, a Varangian prince, whose daughter Rogneda,

famed for her beauty, was betrothed to Yaropolk. Vladimir demanded her

hand, but received an insulting reply.



"I will never unboot the son of a slave," said the haughty princess.



It was the custom at that time for brides, on the wedding night, to pull

off the boots of their husbands; and Vladimir's mother had been one of

Queen Olga's slave women.



But insults like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed.

Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle

Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept

his hand still red with her father's blood.



Then he marched against Kief, where Yaropolk, who seems to have had more

ambition than courage, shut himself up within the walls. These walls

were strong, the people were faithful, and Kief might long have defied

its assailant had not treachery dwelt within. Vladimir had secretly

bought over a villain named Blude, one of Yaropolk's trusted

councillors, who filled his master's mind with suspicion of the people

of Kief and persuaded him to fly for safety. His flight gave Kief into

his brother's hands.



To Rodnia fled the fugitive prince, where he was closely besieged by

Vladimir, to whose aid came a famine so fierce that it still gives point

to a common Russian proverb. Flight or surrender became necessary.

Yaropolk might have found strong friends among some of the powerful

native tribes, but the voice of the traitor was still at his ear, and at

Blude's suggestion he gave himself up to Vladimir. It was like the sheep

yielding himself to the wolf. By the victor's order Yaropolk was slain

in his father's palace.



And now the traitor sought his reward. Vladimir felt that it was to

Blude he owed his empire, and for three days he so loaded him with

honors and dignities that the false-hearted wretch deemed himself the

greatest among the Russians.



But the villain had been playing with edge tools. At the end of the

three days Vladimir called Blude before him.



"I have kept all my promises to you," he said. "I have treated you as my

friend; your honors exceed your highest wishes; I have made you lord

among my lords. But now," he continued, and his voice grew terrible,

"the judge succeeds the benefactor. Traitor and assassin of your

prince, I condemn you to death."



And at his stern command the startled and trembling traitor was struck

dead in his presence.



The tide of affairs had strikingly turned. Vladimir, late a fugitive,

was now lord of all the realm of Russia. His power assured, he showed

himself in a new aspect. Yaropolk's widow, a Greek nun of great beauty,

was forced to become his wife. Not content with two, he continued to

marry until he had no less than six wives, while he filled his palaces

with the daughters of his subjects until they numbered eight hundred in

all.



"Thereby hangs a tale," as Shakespeare says. Rogneda, Vladimir's first

wife, had forgiven him for the murder of her father and brothers, but

could not forgive him for the insult of turning her out of his palace

and putting other women in her place. She determined to be revenged.



One day when he had gone to see her in the lonely abode to which she had

been banished, he fell asleep in her presence. Here was the opportunity

her heart craved. Seizing a dagger, she was on the point of stabbing him

where he lay, when Vladimir awoke and stopped the blow. While the

frightened woman stood trembling before him, he furiously bade her

prepare for death, as she should die by his own hand.



"Put on your wedding dress," he harshly commanded; "seek your handsomest

apartment, and stretch yourself on the sumptuous bed you there possess.

Die you must, but you have been honored as the wife of Vladimir, and

shall not meet an ignoble death."



Rogneda did as she was bidden, yet hope had not left her heart, and she

taught her young son Isiaslaf a part which she wished him to play. When

the frowning prince entered the apartment where lay his condemned wife,

he was met by the boy, who presented him with a drawn sword, saying,

"You are not alone, father. Your son will be witness to your deed."



Vladimir's expression changed as he looked at the appealing face of the

child.



"Who thought of seeing you here?" he cried, and, flinging the sword to

the floor, he hastily left the room.



Calling his nobles together, he told them what had happened and asked

their advice.



"Prince," they said, "you should spare the culprit for the sake of the

child. Our advice is that you make the boy lord of Rogvolod's

principality."



Vladimir did so, sending Rogneda with her son to rule over her father's

realm, where he built a new city which he named after the boy.



Vladimir had been born a pagan, and a pagan he was still, worshipping

the Varangian deities, in particular the god Perune, of whom he had a

statue erected on a hill near his palace, adorned with a silver head. On

the same sacred hill were planted the statues of other idols, and

Vladimir proposed to restore the old human sacrifices by offering one of

his own people as a victim to the gods.



For this purpose there was selected a young Varangian who, with his

father, had adopted the Christian faith. The father refused to give up

his son, and the enraged people, who looked on the refusal as an insult

to their prince and their gods, broke into the house and murdered both

father and son. These two have since been canonized by the Russian

Church as the only martyrs to its faith.



Vladimir by this time had become great in dominion, his warlike prowess

extending the borders of Russia on all sides. The nations to the south

saw that a great kingdom had arisen on their northern border, ruled by a

warlike and conquering prince, and it was deemed wise to seek to win him

from the worship of idols to a more elevated faith. Askhold and Dir had

been baptized as Christians. Olga, after her bloody revenge, had gone to

Constantinople and been baptized by the patriarch. But the nation

continued pagan, Vladimir was an idolater in grain, and a great field

lay open for missionary zeal.



No less than four of the peoples of the south sought to make a convert

of this powerful prince. The Bulgarians endeavored to win him to the

religion of Mohammed, picturing to him in alluring language the charms

of their paradise, with its lovely houris. But he must give up wine.

This was more than he was ready to do.



"Wine is the delight of the Russians," he said: "we cannot do without

it."



The envoys of the Christian churches and the Jewish faith also sought to

win him over. The appeal of the Jews, however, failed to impress him,

and he dismissed them with the remark that they had no country, and

that he had no inclination to join hands with wanderers under the ban of

Heaven. There remained the Christians, comprising the Roman and Greek

Churches, at that time in unison. Of these the Greek Church, the claims

of which were presented to him by an advocate from Constantinople,

appealed to him most strongly, since its doctrines had been accepted by

Queen Olga.



As may be seen, religion with Vladimir was far more a matter of policy

than of piety. The gods of his fathers, to whom he had done such honor,

had no abiding place in his heart; and that belief which would be most

to his advantage was for him the best.



To settle the question he sent ten of his chief boyars, or nobles, to

the south, that they might examine and report on the religions of the

different countries. They were not long in coming to a decision.

Mohammedanism and Catholicism, they said, they had found only in poor

and barbarous provinces. Judaism had no land to call its own. But the

Greek faith dwelt in a magnificent metropolis, and its ceremonies were

full of pomp and solemnity.



"If the Greek religion were not the best," they said, in conclusion,

"Olga, your ancestress, and the wisest of mortals, would never have

thought of embracing it."



Pomp and solemnity won the day, and Vladimir determined to follow Olga's

example. As to what religion meant in itself he seems to have thought

little and cared less. His method of becoming a Christian was so

original that it is well worth the telling.



Since the days of Olga Kief had possessed Christian churches and

priests, and Vladimir might easily have been baptized without leaving

home. But this was far too simple a process for a prince of his dignity.

He must be baptized by a bishop of the parent Church, and the

missionaries who were to convert his people must come from the central

home of the faith.



Should he ask the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be

too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The

haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a

promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests

and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the

new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object

of winning a new religion.



Gathering a large army, Vladimir marched to the Crimea, where stood the

rich and powerful Greek city of Kherson. The ruins of this city may

still be seen near the modern Sevastopol. To it he laid siege, warning

the inhabitants that it would be wise in them to yield, for he was

prepared to remain three years before their walls.



The Khersonites proved obstinate, and for six months he besieged them

closely. But no progress was made, and it began to look as if Vladimir

would never become a Christian in his chosen mode. A traitor within the

walls, however, solved the difficulty. He shot from the ramparts an

arrow to which a letter was attached, in which the Russians were told

that the city obtained all its fresh water from a spring near their

camp, to which ran underground pipes. Vladimir cut the pipes, and the

city, in peril of the horrors of thirst, was forced to yield.



Baptism was now to be had from the parent source, but Vladimir was still

not content. He demanded to be united by ties of blood to the emperors

of the southern realm, asking for the hand of Anna, the emperor's

sister, and threatening to take Constantinople if his proposal were

rejected.



Never before had a convert come with such conditions. The princess Anna

had no desire for marriage with this haughty barbarian, but reasons of

state were stronger than questions of taste, and the emperors (there

were two of them at that time) yielded. Vladimir, having been baptized

under the name of Basil, married the princess Anna, and the city he had

taken as a token of his pious zeal was restored to his new kinsmen. All

that he took back to Russia with him were a Christian wife, some bishops

and priests, sacred vessels and books, images of saints, and a number of

consecrated relics.



Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the

trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now

the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them

all, was treated with the greatest indignity. The wooden image of the

god was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the Borysthenes,

twelve stout soldiers belaboring it with cudgels as it went. The banks

reached, it was flung with disdain into the river.



At Novgorod the god was treated with like indignity, but did not bear

it with equal patience. The story goes that, being flung from a bridge

into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water,

threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice,

"Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me."



In consequence of this legend it was long the custom in that city, on

the day which was kept as the anniversary of the god, for the young

people to run about with sticks in their hands, striking one another

unawares.



As for the Russians in general, they discarded their old worship as

easily as the prince had thrown overboard their idols. One day a

proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to

the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without

a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and

the boyars would never submit to it."



These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal. He built churches, he

gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the

love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even

forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country.



But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In

his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was

shed as freely as water. These wars were largely against the

Petchenegans, the most powerful of his foes. And in connection with them

there is a story extant which has its parallel in the history of many

another country.



It seems that in one of their campaigns the two armies came face to face

on the opposite sides of a small stream. The prince of the Petchenegans

now proposed to Vladimir to settle their quarrel by single combat and

thus spare the lives of their people. The side whose champion was

vanquished should bind itself to a peace lasting for three years.



Vladimir was loath to consent, as he felt sure that his opponents had

ready a champion of mighty power. He felt forced in honor to accept the

challenge, but asked for delay that he might select a worthy champion.



Whom to select he knew not. No soldier of superior strength and skill

presented himself. Uneasiness and agitation filled his mind. But at this

critical interval an old man, who served in the army with four of his

sons, came to him, saying that he had at home a fifth son of

extraordinary strength, whom he would offer as champion.



The young man was sent for in great haste. On his arrival, to test his

powers, a bull was sent against him which had been goaded into fury with

hot irons. The young giant stopped the raging brute, knocked him down,

and tore off great handfuls of his skin and flesh. Hope came to

Vladimir's soul on witnessing this wonderful feat.



The day arrived. The champions advanced between the camps. The

Petchenegan warrior laughed in scorn on seeing his beardless antagonist.

But when they came to blows he found himself seized and crushed as in a

vice in the arms of his boyish foe, and was flung, a lifeless body, to

the earth. On seeing this the Petchenegans fled in dismay, while the

Russians, forgetting their pledge, pursued and slaughtered them without

mercy.



Vladimir at length (1015 A.D.) came to his end. His son Yaroslaf, whom

he had made ruler of Novgorod, had refused to pay tribute, and the old

prince, forced to march against his rebel son, died of grief on the way.



With all his faults, Vladimir deserved the title of Great which his

country has given him. He put down the turbulent tribes, planted

colonies in the desert, built towns, and embellished his cities with

churches, palaces, and other buildings, for which workmen were brought

from Greece. Russia grew rapidly under his rule. He established schools

which the sons of the nobles were made to attend. And though he was but

a poor pattern for a saint, he had the merit of finding Russia pagan and

leaving it Christian.