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Sviatoslav I of Kiev (ca. 942 – 972), was the warrior prince (or konung) of Kievan Rus', who carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets in Bulgaria in 969. Sviatoslav's decade-long reign over Rus was marked by rapid (but in many cases unsustainable) expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe and the Balkans.

Personality and significance

Sviatoslav was the first ruler of Kievan Rus' whose name is indisputably Slavic in origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names most historians believe are derived from Old Norse). Virtually no information is known about his minority and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Derevlians around 942 and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until his majority (ca. 963). His tutor was a Varangian named Asmud.

Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "troops") in permanent warfare against neighbouring states. According to the Primary Chronicle:

Upon his expeditions he carried with him neither wagons nor kettles, and boiled no meat, but cut off small strips of horseflesh, game or beef, and ate it after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, but he spread out a horse-blanket under him, and set his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.

Sviatoslav was noted by Leo the Deacon to be of average height and build. He shaved his head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a braided sidelock as a sign of his nobility. He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a ruby and two pearls.

His mother converted to Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII in 945 or 957. Despite this, Sviatoslav continued to worship Perun and the other gods of the Slavic pantheon. Sviatoslav remained a stubborn pagan all of his life; according to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian. The allegiance of his warriors helped him create an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. His "legitimate" (the notion of legitimacy in pagan times was blurred) children included Yaropolk and Oleg. By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins, Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus to Christianity.

When Sviatoslav went on campaign he left his various relations as regents in the main cities of his realm: his mother Olga and later Yaropolk in Kiev, Vladimir in Novgorod, and Oleg over the Drevlians.

Eastern campaigns

Shortly after his ascession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand the Rus control over the Volga River valley and the Pontic steppe region.

His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. Sviatoslav employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the Khazars' superior cavalry. He began by rallying the Khazars' East Slavic vassal tribes to his cause with the slogan "Pay nothing to the Khazars!". Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and subdued. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he invaded Volga Bulgaria and exacted tribute from the local population, thus bringing under Kievan control the upper Volga River.

He then turned his attention to the Khazars, who had been until recently the dominant force in the Pontic steppe. According to legend, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Khazar rulers, consisting of the single phrase "I come for you!" ("Иду на вы!" in archaic Russian). This phrase is used in the contemporary Russian language to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions.

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, and possibly sacked (but did not occupy) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea. At Sarkel he established a Rus settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel", or "White Fortress".) He subsequently (probably in 968 or 969) destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.

Svyatoslav was content to crush the military might of the Khazar empire, without bothering to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains. Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued to exist in the region. The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.

Campaigns in the Balkans

In around 968 Sviatoslav received a request from the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II to assist in the latter's war against the Danube Bulgarian khanate. Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold to defray the expense of the voyage, and set sail with an army of sixty thousand men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.

The Bulgarian ruler Boris II was defeated by Sviatoslav and captured by the Byzantines in 971; he was carried off to Constantinople as a captive. The Bulgarian campaign weakened the First Bulgarian Empire and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines and the parties fell out as a result. Believing his territories in Bulgaria to be of vital strategic importance for his new empire, he moved his capital to Pereyaslavets, to the chagrin of his Rurikid relatives. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople (summer 970).

In 971, the new Byzantine Emperor, John I Tzimiskes, launched a counteroffensive. John, promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, defeated the Pecheneg mercenaries and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostol, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans and return west of the Dnieper river. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island near the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter.

Death and aftermath

John, meanwhile, had cultivated an alliance with the Pecheneg khan, Kurya, who had besieged Olga and Vladimir in Kiev in 969 until the siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretchich. Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pechenegs to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev.

According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Svyatoslav to avoid the Dnieper cataracts, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slayed by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between Sviatoslav's legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus.

Notes and references

1. This name is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Even in Rus, it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik (as were the names of Svyatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, Mstislav). Some scholars speculate that the name of Svyatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", was an artificial derivation combining those of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (they mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively). See А.М. Членов. К вопросу об имени Святослава, in Личные имена в прошлом, настоящем и будущем: проблемы антропонимики (Moscow, 1970).
2. If Olga was indeed born in 879, as the Primary Chronicle seems to imply, she should have been about 65 at the time of Svyatoslav's birth. There are clearly some problems with chronology.
3. Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Primary Chronicle, p. 84.
4. Vernadsky 276-277. The sidelock is reminiscent of Cossack and Turkic hairstyles and practices.
5. Based on his analysis of De Ceremoniis, Alexander Nazarenko hypothesizes that Olga hoped to orchestrate a marriage between Svyatoslav and a Byzantine princess. If her proposal was peremptorily declined (as it most certainly would have been), it is hardly surprizing that Svyatoslav would look at Byzantium and her Christian culture with suspicion. See А.Н. Назаренко. Древняя Русь на международных путях. Moscow, Russian Academy of Sciences, World History Institute, 2001. ISBN 5785900858. Page 302.
6. Primary Chronicle _____.
7. She is traditionally identified in Russian historiography as Dobrynya's sister.
8. Christian 298; Pletneva 18.
9. Dunlop ____
10. Christian 298.
11. The town was an important trade center located near the portage between the Volga and Don rivers. By the early twelfth century, however, it had been destroyed by the Kipchaks.
12. See, generally Christian 297-298; Dunlop ____. Artamonov proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil. Artamonov 428.
13. The Mandgelis Document refers to a Khazar potentate in the Taman peninsula around 985, long after Sviatoslav's death. Kedrenos reported that the Byzantines and Rus collaborated in the conquest of a Khazar kingdom in the Crimea in 1016 and still later, Ibn al-Athir reported an unsuccessful attack by al-Fadl ibn Muhammad against the Khazars in the Caucasus in 1030. For more information on these and other references, see Khazars#Late_references_to_the_Khazars.
14. Christian 298.
15. The exact date of Sviatoslav's Bulgarian campaign, which likely did not commence until the conclusion of his Khazar campaign, is unknown.
16. Byzantine sources report Khazars and "Turks" in Sviatoslav's army as well as Pechenegs. As used in such Byzantine writings as Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De Administrando Imperio, "Turks" refers to Magyars. The same author refers to Svyatoslav as Σφενδοσθλαβός.
17. Simultaneously, Otto I attacked Byzantine possessions in the south of Italy. This remarkable coincidence may be interpreted as an evidence of the anti-Byzantine German-Russian alliance. See: Manteuffel Th. Les tentatives d'entrainement de la Russie de Kiev dans la sphere d'influence latin, in Acta Poloniae Historica. Warsaw, t. 22, 1970. Page 41.
18. According to Leo the Deacon, Svyatoslav supported a rival claimant to the Byzantine throne, Καλοκυρός (Leo. Diac. V, 1-2, p. 77.2-78.2).
19. The use of a defeated enemy's skull as a drinking vessel is reported by numerous authors through history among various steppe peoples, such as the Scythians. Kurya likely intended this as a compliment to Sviatoslav; sources report that Kurya and his wife drank from the skull and prayed for a son as brave as the deceased Rus warlord. Christian 344; Pletneva 19; Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 90.

Resources

• Artamonov, Mikhail Istoriya Khazar. Leningrad, 1962.
• Chertkov A. D. Opisanie voin velikago kniazya Svyatoslava Igorevicha. Moscow, 1843.
• Christian, David. A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. Blackwell, 1999.
• Cross, S. H., and O.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1953.
• Dunlop, D.M. History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton Univ. Press, 1954.
• Pletneva, Svetlana. Polovtsy Moscow: Nauka, 1990.
• Sakharov, Andrey. The Diplomacy of Svyatoslav. Moscow: Nauka, 1982.
• Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
• Vernadsky, G.V. The Origins of Russia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.

Template:Succession

• Rulers of Kievan Rus
• 10th century births
• 972 deaths