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<title>Sviatoslav I of Kiev</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>10th-century conflicts</category>
<section id="8641" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
Sviatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: С~тославъ / СвąтославъE.g. in the Primary Chronicle under year 970 http://litopys.org.ua/ipatlet/ipat04.htm  Игорєвичь, Sventoslavŭ / Svantoslavŭ Igorevičǐ; , Svyatoslav Igorovič; Svetoslav; , Svyatoslav Igorevič; , , Sphendosthlabos; c. 942 – March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav, was a warrior prince of Kievan Rus. The son of Igor of Kiev and Olga, Sviatoslav is famous for his incessant campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe-Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire; he also subdued the Volga Bulgars, the Alans, and numerous East Slavic tribes, and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars. His decade-long reign over Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 969. In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life. Due to his abrupt death in combat, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to civil war among his successors.
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<section id="8642" fatherid="0" title="Personality" lv="" priority="-2" level="1">
Sviatoslav was the first true ruler of Kievan Rus' whose name is indisputably Slavic in origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names are ultimately derived from Old Norse). 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 Sviatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, Mstislav). Choice of personal names for the Russian princes of the 10th-16th centuries. Moscow: Indrik, 2006. ISBN 5-85759-339-5. Page 43. Some scholars speculate that the name of Sviatoslav, 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  (Moscow, 1970).
Virtually nothing is known about his childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 942 and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav's maturity (ca. 963).If Olga was indeed born in 879, as the Primary Chronicle seems to imply, she should have been about 65 at the time of Sviatoslav's birth. There are clearly some problems with chronology. His tutor was a Varangian named Asmud. "Quick as a leopard,"Primary Chronicle entry for 968 Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "troops") in permanent warfare against neighboring states.  According to the Primary Chronicle:
Sviatoslav was noted by Leo the Deacon to be of average height and build. He shaved his head and his beard (or possibly just had a wispy beard) but wore a bushy mustache and a one or two sidelocks 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.Vernadsky 276–277. The sidelock is reminiscent of Turkic hairstyles and practices and was later mimicked by Cossacks. For the alternative translations of the same passage of the Greek original that say that Sviatoslav may have not shaven but wispy beard and not one but two sidelocks on each side of his head, see eg. Ian Heath "The Vikings (Elite 3)", Osprey Publishing 1985; ISBN 9780850455656, p.60 or David Nicolle "Armies of Medieval Russia 750–1250 (Men-at-Arms 333)" Osprey Publishing 1999; ISBN 9781855328488, p.44 
His mother converted to Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 945 or 957. However,Based on his analysis of De Ceremoniis Alexander Nazarenko hypothesizes that Olga hoped to orchestrate a marriage between Sviatoslav and a Byzantine princess. If her proposal was peremptorily declined (as it most certainly would have been), it is hardly surprising that Sviatoslav would look at Byzantium and her Christian culture with suspicion. Nazarenko 302. Sviatoslav continued to worship Perun, Veles, Svarog and the other gods and goddesses of the Slavic pantheon. He remained a pagan for 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.Primary Chronicle _____. The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

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<section id="8643" fatherid="0" title="Family" lv="" priority="3" level="1">
<section id="8644" fatherid="8643" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that Sviatoslav was not the only (and the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child and he was raised by his mother or at her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.
Sviatoslav, had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.Whether Yaropolk and Oleg were whole or half brothers, and who their mother or mothers were, is a matter hotly debated by historians. By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,She is traditionally identified in Russian historiography as Dobrynya's sister; for other theories on her identity, see here. Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.Indeed, Franklin and Shepard advanced the hypothesis that Sfengus was identical with Mstislav of Tmutarakan. Franklin and Shepard 200-201.
When Sviatoslav went on campaign he  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.

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<section id="8645" fatherid="8643" title="Cousins" lv="" priority="-2" level="2">
The following people are mentioned as the Igor's nephews:
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<section id="8646" fatherid="8643" title="Sons" lv="" priority="-3" level="2">
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<section id="8647" fatherid="0" title="Eastern campaigns" lv="" priority="4" level="1">
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand the Rus control over the Volga 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. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus."Rus", Encyclopaedia of Islam
Sviatoslav began by rallying the Khazars' East Slavic vassal tribes to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than the Khazars.Christian 345. It is disputed whether Sviatoslav invaded the land of Vyatichs that year. The only campaign against the Vyatichs explicitly mentioned in the Primary Chronicle is dated to 966. According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "хощю на вы ити")Russian Primary Chronicle (ПСРЛ. — Т. 2. Ипатьевская летопись. — СПб., 1908, http://litopys.org.ua/ipatlet/ipat03.htm ) for year 6472. The chronicler may have wished to contrast Sviatoslav's open declaration of war to stealthy tactics employed by many other early medieval conquerors. This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "Иду на вы") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. 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 employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the Khazars' and Bulgars' superior cavalry.For Sviatoslav's reliance on nomad cavalry, see, e.g., Franklin and Shepard 149; Christian 298; Pletneva 18.
Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, and possibly sacked (but did not occupy) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea.Christian 298. The Primary Chronicle is very succinct about the whole campaign against Khazars, saying only that Sviatoslav "took their city and Belaya Vezha". At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").The town was an important trade center located near the portage between the Volga and Don Rivers. By the early 12th century, however, it had been destroyed by the Kipchaks. He subsequently (probably in 968 or 969) destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.See, generally Christian 297–298; Dunlop passim. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."Logan (1992), p. 202 The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.Artamonov 428; Christian 298.
Although Ibn Haukal reports Sviatoslav's sack of Samandar in modern-day Dagestan, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience.The campaign against Ossetians is attested in the Primary Chronicle. The Novgorod First Chronicle specifies that Sviatoslav resettled the Ossetians near Kiev, but Sakharov finds this claim dubitable. Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.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. 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.Christian 298.

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<section id="8648" fatherid="0" title="Campaigns in the Balkans" lv="" priority="5" level="1">
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.Most historians believe the Greeks were interested in the destruction of Khazaria. Another school of thought essentializes Yahya of Antioch's report that, prior to the Danube campaign, the Byzantines and the Rus' were at war. See Sakharov, chapter I. Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phocas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.
In 967 or 968The exact date of Sviatoslav's Bulgarian campaign, which likely did not commence until the conclusion of his Khazar campaign, is unknown. Nicephorus sent to Sviatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Sviatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.Mikhail Tikhomirov and Vladimir Pashuto, among others, assume that the Emperor was interested primarily in diverting Sviatoslav's attention from Chersonesos, a Byzantine possession in the Crimea. Indeed, Leo the Deacon three times mentions that Sviatoslav and his father Igor controlled Cimmerian Bosporus. If so, a conflict of interests in the Crimea was inevitable. The Suzdal Chronicle, though a rather late source, also mentions Sviatoslav's war against Chersonesos. In the peace treaty of 971, Sviatoslav promised not to wage wars against either Constantinople or Chersonesos. Byzantine sources also report that Kalokyros attempted to persuade Sviatoslav to support Kalokyros in a coup against the reigning Byzantine emperor. As a remuneration for his help, Sviatoslav was supposed to retain a permanent hold on Bulgaria. Modern historians, however, assign little historical importance to this story. Kendrick 157. Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.All figures in this article, including the numbers of Sviatoslav's troops, are based on the reports of Byzantine sources, which may differ from those of the Slavonic chronicles. Greek 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 Rus'-Magyar alliance resulted in the Hungarian expedition against the second largest city of the empire, Thessalonika, in 968.W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, 509
Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris IIBoris II was captured by the Byzantines in 971 and carried off to Constantinople as a prisoner. and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev. 
Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus furs, wax, honey, and slaves".
In summer 969, Sviatoslav  Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Niceforus responded by fortifying the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Niceforus was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.Kendrick 158
John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.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 41. Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phocas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Sklerus, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.Grekov 445-446. The Byzantine sources report the enemy casualties to be as high as 20,000, the figure modern historians find to be highly improbable. Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phocas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

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<section id="8649" fatherid="0" title="Death and aftermath" lv="" priority="6" level="1">
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.Constantine VII pointed out that, by virtue of their controlling the Dnieper cataracts, the Pechenegs may easily attack and destroy the Rus' vessels sailing along the river. According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper cataracts, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain 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, Kurya.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.
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'.

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<section id="8650" fatherid="0" title="In art and literature" lv="" priority="7" level="1">
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774, which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constaninople. Russia's southward expansion and Catherine II's imperialistic ventures in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.
In the 19th century, interest in Sviatoslav's career waned. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century.E. A Lanceray. "Sviatoslav on the way to Tsargrad.", The Russian History in the Mirror of the Fine Arts  Sviatoslav appears in the Slavophile poems of Velimir Khlebnikov as an epitome of militant Slavdom:
He is the villain of Samuel Gordon's novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars,London: Shapiro, Vallentine, 1926 a fictionalized account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.(Moscow: Det. lit., 1989).
In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.Alexander Verkhovsky. Anti-Semitism in Russia: 2005. Key Developments and New Trends The Press Center of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed, but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions.""The Federation of Jewish Communities protests against the presence of a Star of David in a new sculpture in Belgorod", Interfax, November 21, 2005; Kozhevnikova, Galina, "Radical nationalism and efforts to oppose it in Russia in 2005"; "FJC Russia Appeal Clarifies Situation Over Potentially Anti-Semitic Monument" (Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS Press Release), November 23, 2005; Dahan, David, "Jews protest trampled Star of David statue", European Jewish Press, November 22, 2005 When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

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<section id="8651" fatherid="0" title="See also" lv="" priority="-8" level="1">
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<section id="8652" fatherid="0" title="Notes" lv="" priority="-9" level="1">
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<section id="8653" fatherid="0" title="References" lv="" priority="-10" level="1">
Category:940s births
Category:972 deaths
Category:Rulers of Kievan Rus
Category:Rurikids
Category:Rurik Dynasty
Category:History of Ukraine
Category:History of Russia
Category:10th-century conflicts
Category:Medieval child rulers

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