Chapter 4 Byzantium North

From the very first reports about the Rus’ princes on the Dnieper River, we hear of their attraction to the Byzantine Empire. The same thing that had attracted the Huns and Goths to Rome drew the Viking merchant warriors to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople: earthly riches, along with power and prestige.

Sviatoslav’s death in 972 closed an important period in the history of Rus’ and its relations with its powerful southern neighbor. To the next two generations of Kyivan rulers, association with Constantinople was no less desirable than it had been for Sviatoslav. But Sviatoslav’s successors were concerned not only with money and commerce but also with the power, prestige, and high culture emanating from Byzantium. Instead of conquering Constantinople on the Bosphorus, as their predecessors had attempted to do, they decided to reproduce it on the Dnieper. This turn in Rus’ relations with the Byzantine Greeks and the new expectations of the Kyivan princes came to the fore during the rule of Sviatoslav’s son Volodymyr and the latter’s son Yaroslav. The two ran the Kyivan realm for more than half a century and are often credited with turning it into a true medieval state — one with a more or less clearly defined territory, system of government, and, last but not least, ideology. Much of the latter came from Byzantium.

As a prince of Kyiv, Sviatoslav’s son, Volodymyr, was less bellicose and ambitious than his father but turned out to be more successful in achieving his goals. Fifteen years old when his father died near the Dnieper rapids, Volodymyr had brothers who wanted the throne for themselves, and a new wave of Scandinavian arrivals eased his path to power.

Viking troops remained essential to Volodymyr’s army after his assumption of the throne, but the account in the Primary Chronicle reflects the serious tension between him and his retinue that characterized his reign. This “second coming” of the Vikings was very different from the first. Now they came not as traders or rulers but as mercenaries in the service of a ruler who was of Viking origin himself but whose prime allegiance was to his princely realm. Volodymyr did not dream of moving his capital to the Danube. He was satisfied with the opportunities available on the Dnieper. Volodymyr would eventually do away not only with the enormous power of the princely retinue but also with the influence of the tribal elites. He countered them by appointing his sons and members of his household to run different parts of his empire, setting the stage for the emergence of future principalities under the auspices of Kyiv.

The Viking Age had indeed come to an end in Rus’, the land named after the Vikings. That change found its way into the pages of the Primary Chronicle. Its authors usually described the princely retinue as consisting of Vikings, local Slavs, and Ugro-Finns. The collective name for the first two groups was Rus’, but, as time went on, it was applied to members of the prince’s retinue in general, then to his subjects in all walks of life, and eventually to the land he ruled.

Volodymyr took the throne in 980. He spent the first decade of his rule on warfare, ensuring that the realm created by his predecessor stayed together. Following in Sviatoslav’s footsteps, he again defeated the Khazars and the Volga Bulgars, reasserted his power over the Viatichians in the Oka basin, and pushed westward to the Carpathians, taking a number of fortresses from the Poles, including the town of Premyshl (Przemyśl) on today’s Polish-Ukrainian border. His main concern, however, was the southern frontier, where the Rus’ settlements were under continual attack by the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes. Volodymyr strengthened border defenses by building fortifications along the local rivers, including the Sula and the Trubizh. He settled those areas with prisoners of war and subjects from other parts of the realm. Rus’, born of conquest, now sought stability by defending its borders instead of attacking the frontiers of other states.

Under Volodymyr’s rule, Kyiv’s relations with Byzantium were also changing. Whereas his predecessor on the Kyivan throne, Helgi, allegedly had sent troops against Byzantium to obtain trade preferences, and Sviatoslav did the same to acquire new territory in the Balkans, Volodymyr invaded the Crimea in the spring of 989 in pursuit of marriage, if not love. He besieged the Byzantine town of Chersonesus, demanding the hand of the sister of Emperor Basil II. A few years earlier, the emperor had asked Volodymyr for military assistance, promising the hand of his sister Anna in return. Volodymyr sent his troops to help up the emperor. But Basil was in no hurry to fulfill his promise. After receiving this slap in the face, Volodymyr refused to turn the other cheek and instead attacked the empire. His tactic worked. Alarmed by news of the fall of Chersonesus, Basil dispatched his sister Anna to the Crimea.

Volodymyr’s request for marriage was granted in return for an assurance that the barbarian chieftain (as the ruler of Kyiv was regarded in Constantinople) would accept Christianity. Volodymyr went along. His baptism would start the process of the Christianization of Kyivan Rus’ and open a new chapter in the region’s history. Once the wedding party had moved back to Kyiv, Volodymyr removed the pantheon of pagan gods, including the most powerful of them — Perun, the god of thunder — from a hill above the Dnieper and put the Christian clergymen to work baptizing the population of Kyiv. The Christianization of Rus’ had begun — a long and difficult process that would take centuries to complete.

Our main source on the baptism of Rus’, the Kyivan chronicler, writes that Muslim Bulgars, Jewish Khazars, Christian Germans representing the pope, and a Greek scholar who spoke on behalf of Byzantine Christianity, the religion that Volodymyr chose, had all importuned Volodymyr. The story of the choice of faith as told in the Primary Chronicle is of course naïve in many ways. But it reflects certain real alternatives facing the Kyivan ruler, for he indeed did the picking and choosing. Volodymyr chose the religion of the strongest country in the region, in which the emperor was no less important an ecclesiastical figure — more important, in fact — than the patriarch. By choosing Christianity, he gained the prestige of marrying into an imperial family, which promptly elevated the status of his house and realm. Volodymyr’s choice of Christian name sheds additional light on his reasons for accepting Christianity. He took the same name as the emperor, Basil, indicating that in Byzantium he had found a political and religious model to emulate at home. A generation later, Kyivan intellectuals such as Metropolitan Ilarion would compare him and his baptism of Rus’ to Emperor Constantine and his role in establishing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.

To be sure, the Byzantine political and ecclesiastical elite helped Volodymyr make the “right choice.” They were unhappy with the marriage but not with the conversion. The Byzantines had begun sending missionaries to the region soon after the Rus’ Vikings attacked Constantinople in 860. Back then, Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, the same clergyman who left us the description of the Viking attack, had sent one of his best students, Cyril of Thessalonica, to the Crimea and then to the Khazar kaganate. Along with his brother Methodius, Cyril devised the Glagolitic alphabet to transcribe Christian texts into the Slavic languages. The two men subsequently became known as the apostles to the Slavs and gained sainthood. Attempts to convert Kyivan rulers were undertaken long before Volodymyr’s conversion, as attested by the story of his grandmother, Olha, who became the first known Christian ruler and the first Christian woman in Kyiv named Helen. Apart from propagating Christianity, the Byzantine elites began to gain influence over the “barbaric” rulers and peoples, who had no fancy genealogies and little in the way of sophisticated culture but a great deal of destructive power.

After Volodymyr’s conversion, the patriarch of Constantinople created the Metropolitanate of Rus’, one of few ecclesiastical provinces named after its population and not the city where the bishop or metropolitan would reside. The patriarch reserved for himself the right to appoint metropolitans to head the Rus’ church — most of them would be Greeks. The metropolitan in turn controlled the appointment of bishops, most of whom would come from the ranks of the local elite. The first monasteries were established, using a Byzantine statute. Church Slavonic, the first literary language of Kyivan Rus’, initially functioned predominantly as a translation tool, making Greek texts understandable to local elites. Volodymyr issued regulations defining the rights and privileges of the clergy and gave one-tenth of his income to the church.

Volodymyr’s choice would have a profound impact on his realm and on the history of eastern Europe as a whole. Instead of continuing warfare with Byzantium, the new Rus’ polity was entering into an alliance with the only surviving part and continuator of the Roman Empire and thereby opening itself to the political and cultural influences of the Mediterranean world. It would prove fateful that Volodymyr not only brought Rus’ into the Christian world but also made it part of Eastern Christianity. Many of the consequences are as important today as they were at the turn of the second millennium.

Volodymyr brought Christianity to Rus’, but it fell to his successors to define what that would mean for the politics, culture, and international relations of the realm and to secure a place for Rus’ in the Christian community of nations led by the Byzantine emperor. None of Volodymyr’s successors was more important in making those definitions than his son Yaroslav. While Yaroslav’s grandfather, Sviatoslav, became known in historiography as “the Brave,” and his father, Volodymyr, acquired the designation “the Great,” Yaroslav gained renown as “the Wise.” He could also have been named “Lawgiver” or “Builder,” indicating that the main accomplishments of his rule, which lasted well over a quarter century, from 1019 to 1054, were not won on the battlefield but attained in the realm of peace and culture, state and nation building.

One of Yaroslav’s enduring legacies is his large-scale construction. “Yaroslav built the great citadel at Kyiv, near which stands the Golden Gate,” wrote the Kyivan chronicler. The Golden Gate was the main entrance in the new ramparts that the prince caused to be built around the area known to archeologists as Yaroslav’s town. One can hardly overlook the parallel between Yaroslav’s Golden Gate and that of Constantinople, which served as a triumphal arch and official entrance to the imperial capital. Kyiv’s Golden Gate was built of stone (as was part of the wall surrounding the castle), and its foundations are still visible. A replica of the old gate was constructed on those foundations in the early 1980s.

The most striking of Yaroslav’s construction projects was the Cathedral of St. Sophia, which stood outside the city walls. The cathedral is an impressive building that features five naves, five apses, three galleries, and thirteen cupolas. The walls are built of granite and quartzite, separated by rows of bricks; inside, the walls and ceilings are embellished with mosaics and frescos. Construction was completed no later than the year 1037. There is a consensus among scholars that Yaroslav not only took the name of the cathedral and the main elements of its design from the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople but also brought its architects, engineers, and masons from the Byzantine Empire. He built not just city walls and churches but a capital for his realm modeled on the most beautiful and powerful city that any of the Rus’ had ever seen: Constantinople.

The Kyivan chronicler credited Yaroslav with promoting learning and scholarship in addition to building churches and supporting the Christian religion. “He applied himself to books and read them continually, day and night,” states the Primary Chronicle. “He assembled many scribes and translated from Greek into Slavic. He wrote and collected many books through which true believers are instructed and enjoy religious education.” Yaroslav’s rule marked the beginning of literacy in Kyivan Rus’, which adopted Church Slavonic, written in the alphabet specifically created by Saints Cyril and Methodius for the Slavs in order to translate texts written in Greek. Teachers, texts, and the language itself came to Rus’ from Bulgaria, whose rulers had accepted Christianity earlier than the Kyivan princes.

Under Yaroslav’s rule, as the chronicler points out, texts were not only read but also translated in Kyiv. Original writings were soon being produced as well. The “Sermon on Law and Grace,” written sometime between 1037 and 1054 by Metropolitan Ilarion, whom Yaroslav appointed, is one of the first examples of such original work. The sermon helped bring the recently Christianized Rus’ into the family of Christian nations, comparing Prince Volodymyr to Emperor Constantine, as noted earlier. Another important development was the beginning of historical writing in Kyiv. Most scholars believe that the first Kyivan chronicle was produced in the 1030s, during Yaroslav’s reign, probably in St. Sophia Cathedral. Only later did the work of chronicle writing move to the Kyivan Cave Monastery, which, modeled on Byzantine monasteries, traces its origins to the end of Yaroslav’s rule.

If Kyiv emulated Constantinople, other cities of the realm emulated Kyiv. That is how the construction of a new Church of St. Sophia began in Polatsk and in Novgorod (where a wooden church of that name had stood before). That is also how the town of Vladimir in northeastern Rus’ later acquired its own Golden Gate. More important was the spread of literacy and learning to the regional centers, breaking early Kyiv’s monopoly on the study of texts and historical writing. Novgorod literati soon began to write history as well, using the chronicle originally compiled in Kyiv as a basis. It is from a Novgorod chronicler that we learn about Yaroslav the Wise being not only a lover of books and a builder of castles and churches but also a lawgiver.

After coming to power in Kyiv, Yaroslav rewarded Novgorod, where he had served as prince on behalf of his father, Volodymyr, by giving the city freedoms it had not previously enjoyed. This was a token of appreciation for assistance in Yaroslav’s struggle for the Kyivan throne. The Novgorod chronicler associated that grant of special rights and privileges with Yaroslav’s compilation of a law code known as the Rus’ Justice, a codification of common law that had enormous impact on the legal system of Kyivan Rus’ and its successor states. We do not know whether the Rus’ Justice was indeed compiled under Yaroslav, and chances are that the task was accomplished later, under his successors. But it certainly could not have been done before Yaroslav — there were simply no educated people capable of such an undertaking prior to his rule.

Following in the footsteps of Constantinople and emulating Byzantine emperors meant achieving a degree of not only legitimacy but also independence that was bound to vex the Greeks of Constantinople. We know of at least two occasions on which Yaroslav did not shy away from showing his independence vis-à-vis the empire. The first was his elevation of a Rus’ native, Ilarion, author of the acclaimed “Sermon on Law and Grace,” instead of a Greek prelate sent from Constantinople, to the office of Rus’ metropolitan. In this case, Yaroslav was emulating the role played by Byzantine emperors in their church, but his decision was also a challenge to the patriarch of Constantinople, who reserved for himself the right to appoint Rus’ metropolitans. The elevation of Ilarion was controversial within the Rus’ church itself, and Kyiv reverted to the old practice after Yaroslav’s death in 1054. Constantinople sent Ilarion’s successor to the Rus’ capital.

Yaroslav presented his second direct challenge to Constantinople in 1043, when a Rus’ flotilla headed by one of his sons appeared near Constantinople and demanded money, threatening to attack the city otherwise. The reason for this return to Viking ways of doing business with Byzantium is not clear. Were Yaroslav’s efforts to build Constantinople in Kyiv too costly, and was he running out of funds? We can only speculate. It may have been a sign of dissatisfaction with something that the Byzantines had done earlier or a reminder that Rus’ was not a power to take lightly. Whatever the reason, the Greeks refused to pay and preferred to fight. The Rus’ flotilla defeated the Byzantine fleet but was almost destroyed by a storm and came back to Kyiv empty-handed. Viking practices no longer paid off.

If one treats Byzantine efforts to convert Rus’ to Christianity, which began immediately after the first Rus’ attack on Constantinople in 860, as a way of ending such attacks and ensuring peaceful relations with the barbaric Rus’, then such efforts clearly attained their purpose during the rule of Yaroslav. In general, unlike his predecessors, Yaroslav maintained peaceful and even friendly relations with Byzantium. But religion was hardly the main reason for the Kyivan prince’s largely peaceful relations with the empire. Under Yaroslav, expansion was no longer the main goal of the Rus’ princes. Keeping and governing what they had was their priority, and Byzantium as an ally and source of knowledge and prestige could offer much more than Byzantium an enemy.

Under Yaroslav’s rule, Rus’ became a full-fledged member of the Christian community of nations. Later historians would call him the “father-in-law of Europe” because he married his sisters and daughters to European heads of state. His father’s acceptance of Christianity from Byzantium and the subsequent importation of cultural influences from Constantinople to Rus’ soil were important preconditions for that development. Unlike his father, Yaroslav was not wed to a Byzantine princess, but his son Vsevolod was — to a daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus. Yaroslav himself married a daughter of Olaf Eriksson, the king of Sweden — a reflection of the Viking origins of the dynasty. His daughter Yelyzaveta (Elizabeth) was the consort of Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway. His son Iziaslav married a sister of the Polish king Casimir, who was already married to one of Yaroslav’s sisters. Yaroslav’s daughter Anastasia became the spouse of Andrew the White of Hungary, and another daughter, Anna, married Henry I of France.

Whatever the political reasons behind these marriages, in purely cultural terms they benefited the European rulers more than they did the princes of Kyiv. Anna’s case shows this best. Unlike her husband, Anna knew how to read and sign her name, an indication that the Kyivan chronicler’s praise of Yaroslav for his love of books and promotion of learning was hardly excessive. Anna wrote to her father that she found her new land “a barbarous country where the houses are gloomy, the churches ugly, and the customs revolting.” Paris under Henry I was clearly not Constantinople, but more importantly, in Anna’s eyes, it did not rank even with Kyiv.