Vladimir I of Russia
Vladimir of Kiev chose Christianity for the Rus in 988 after reportedly interviewing the alternatives. He was a younger son of Sviatoslav, ruled Novgorod, fled to Scandinavia when his brother killed another brother, came back with Varangian troops in 980 and took Kiev. He was a convinced pagan for the first eight years, erected idols on the hill above the city, and is credited by the chronicle with several hundred concubines and with instituting human sacrifice. The conversion story in the Primary Chronicle is a piece of literature rather than a report. Envoys are sent to examine the faiths: Islam is rejected because the Rus cannot live without drink, Judaism because a people whose God has scattered them is not a good bet, western Christianity because the churches have no beauty in them, and the Greek liturgy in Hagia Sophia leaves the envoys unable to say whether they were on earth or in heaven. The politics behind it are clearer. Basil II needed troops against a revolt, Vladimir supplied 6,000 Varangians, and the price was the emperor's sister Anna — a Byzantine princess born in the purple, which no foreign ruler had ever been given — with baptism as the condition. He took Chersonesos to make sure the bargain was kept. The Kievan population was baptised in the Dnieper, the idols were thrown in the river, and the church came with a Slavonic liturgy and an alphabet. The choice determined a civilisation. Byzantine Christianity brought a Slavonic liturgy rather than a Latin one, which made a literate vernacular culture possible early and separated the Rus from the Latin west permanently, and the schism of 1054 fell across a line his decision had drawn.
- Lived: 958 CE – 1015 CE
- Nationality: Russian
- Roles: leader
