Russia's Vladimir the Great

Vladimir I is often credited with bringing Christianity to Russia, though he actually embraced paganism first as Grand Prince of Kievan Rus. Wishing to unite Russia under one religion, Vladimir changed the spiritual path of his country forever.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from house
stop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly and I am Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we're going back in the way back machine to the

(00:21):
advent of Christianity in Russia, which is kind of fascinating
and it's quite a ways back, and it's an interesting story,
and it's centers around Vladimir the First, who sometimes called
Vladimir the Great and sometimes Vladimir the Red Son and
sometimes St. Vladimir because he is credited with bringing Christianity
to Russia. So, Vladimir was born around and his father

(00:44):
was Fiatislav the First, who was Grand Prince of Kiev
and at this point Kiev was the capital of Kievan
russ which was the first Eastern Slavic state. His mother,
according to legend, was actually a slave Milusha, his grand
other Olga's housekeeper. Yeah, so there's some um that it

(01:05):
would sound a little bit weird for someone who's born
to like the Staff, who was kind of slavery Staff,
to be considered a royal. But despite having a non
noble mother, as the natural son of Siatislav, Vladimir's was
still considered an air as a child, his grandmother Olga

(01:26):
was a huge part of his life. Grand Prince Fiatislav
spent a great deal of time away from Kiev on campaigns,
and because Olga had proved to be a capable regent
when she ruled while he was a child, she filled
in as the head of state and the head of
the family. And Olga's involvement in Vladimir's early life is
really noteworthy because she was a really early adopter of

(01:49):
Greek Orthodox Christianity in Kievan Rush. She had traveled to
Constantinople to be baptized into the religion right around about
the same time that Vladimir was born, probably a little before,
depending on which account you're reading, and that was really
unusual at the time. There were not many people baptized
into Christianity living in Kievan Ruce then it was primarily pagan,

(02:11):
so Grand Prince Sviatoslav died in nine Two before his death,
he had divided up Kevin Ruce among his three sons,
so Vladimir had two older brothers. Yara Polk was the
oldest and Oleg was the middle. Sviatoslav's death started just
really a lot of infighting among the three brothers about

(02:31):
who should be his successor, and at the time euro
Polk was Prince of Kiev and Vladimir was Prince of
Novogrod to the north and nearro. Polk is said to
have been really ambitious and quite pushy, and those are
traits that played out very clearly when he ousted Vladimir
from his position in Novogrod. So he perceived him as

(02:52):
a threat and used his power to get rid of
one of the potential um people who would compete with
him for the leadership of Kievan rus And. So Vladimir
fled to Scandinavia with the plan to gather an army.
While he was away, Yuropolk also fought his brother Oleg
of the Drevelyans, and Oleg was killed in battle in

(03:14):
nine seventy seven, and in nine seventy nine, Vladimir, who
at that point would have been around twenty three years old,
returned to Russia with an army of his own and
openly declared war on Europolk. Vladimir launched a seed on
Kiev in nine eight. He duked euro Polk into a
negotiation meeting and then killed him while he was unprotected.

(03:36):
So for all of that army raising. It was kind
of just uh wit and sneakery that got rid of
the competition in that case. And so with Europolk out
of the picture and Oleg already died in his dealings
with Europolk, Vladimir the First became the sole ruler of
Kievan russ So, since he's often referred to as St.

(03:58):
Vladimir and he's associated with Christianity, it may come as
a surprise to some people that once he took over
as Grand Prince of Kiev, he made a conscious effort
to embrace paganism and to bolster its presence in Kevin Rys.
Vladimir is also characterized as being kind of brutal and
bloodthirsty at this point in his life, and some of

(04:20):
his early acts as grand prints include he built a
pagan temple in the capitol and he actually began thanking
the gods for good fortune with human sacrifice. Uh And
some attribute his leader shift to Christianity as having been
catalyzed actually by part of an early sacrifice where his

(04:40):
chosen victim was a Christian and he came to view
that victim, who was a young boy, and that victim's
father who was killed by an angry mob while he
was trying to refuse to give up his son for
a religion he didn't believe in. Uh as kind of
the thing that really got Vladimir thinking about the different

(05:01):
aspects of religion and how different people view um spirituality
and you know, to clearly very strongly held beliefs that
were at odds with one another, and some historians really
pinpoint that moment as what catalyzed him to kind of
become a little bit of a religious scholar and a
religious analyst going forward. He also had five wives and

(05:25):
an alleged eight hundred concubines, which seems excessive. Yeah, I mean,
I'm presuming some of those people never even met him
at that point. It's just kind of like a show
of power, well and a show of wealth too, because
he would need to house and feed and exclude all
of those concubines. And he also, uh was pretty popular
at this point because he expanded kievan Ruth's borders pretty significantly,

(05:49):
So UH he kind of really instituted the paganism thing.
But he was doing a lot of um, really good
things for the country in terms of expanding its power base.
So it's kind of you know that that was his
early stage. He really kind of got in there and
made some reforms really quickly and really kind of established

(06:09):
his position. Having been exposed to different ideologies during his
campaigns and feeling pretty unsatisfied as a pagan, he's said
to have started thinking about religion and faith more and more,
and he also started to think about uniting all of
the various factions within his rule under one religion. So

(06:29):
once words spread that the Grand Prince was sort of
shopping for a faith and really turning over concepts of
spirituality and faith in his mind. Uh, it said that
holy men from all over traveled to Kievan Ruth to
kind of pitch their ideologies to Vladimir. Some histories suggests
that he actually called them there, although he does have

(06:50):
a different directive leader where he does ask for information
about religions, but others say that these people just kind
of took the initiative to go tell him about their
religion when they found out he was ready to hear
about how other people worshiped. According to the Chronicle of Nestor,
in seven he gathered advisors and Kiev city elders and

(07:11):
he had the following query. There have come to me Bulgarians,
who said, except our religion. Then came the Germans, and
they praised their religion. After them came the Jews, But
after them came the Greeks, who spoke slightingly of all
the other religions, but praised their own. They spoke much
about the beginning of the universe and the existence of

(07:33):
the whole world, their cunning of speech, and talk so
pleasantly that it is a pleasure to hear them. They
say that there is another world, and that if anyone
enters into their faith, he would live after his death
and would not die for eternity, but if he accepts
any other faith, he would burn in the other world. Now,
what council do you give me? What is your answer?

(07:55):
And his advisors uh gave a pretty interesting, I think response,
which is that they were like, hey, you know what
everybody is going to say their religion is the best.
Of course, you know there will be those who uh
downplay the benefits or the validity of another religion, and
they're all going to tell you that there's is the

(08:15):
one uh. And they said, you know, the only way
you're really going to get a real sense of this
is if you witness them, and so the elders suggested
that he may make use of his resources and send
you know, trusted men to go visit the places where
all of these faiths were practiced. And Vladimir thought this
was a great plan, and so uh he sent ambassadors

(08:37):
out to all these religions, and they worshiped with other
people and saw their their behaviors and their rituals. And
then they came and reported back to him. I feel
like we should call this are you there, God, it's
me Vladimir. I also call it choosing my religions. So,
based on all these reports and the information that he
gathered while listening to the holy men who came to

(08:59):
give Grand Prince Vladimir the First determined the following Islam
was too restrictive for Russians. Western Catholic Christianity had already
been rejected by his ancestors, and his research ambassadors found
it lacking in beauty. He rejected Judaism as weak, having

(09:19):
been of no benefit and helping the Jews keep their
own territory, and Eastern Byzantine Christianity also known as Eastern
Orthodox Christianity, was really the most appealing to Vladimir his envoys,
saying it's praises when they came back, and they rather
repsodically talked about the services that they attended. His advisers
invoked his grandmother Olga's name when they were talking to him, saying,

(09:42):
if the Greek religion were not the best, your wise
grandmother would not have adopted it. However, even though at
this point he seemed pretty convinced and he had settled
on the Greek Orthodox religion, he didn't convert right away.
He was kind of like, yeah, that's the best one.
I'm going to come back to this. I got some
other stuff to do. But his final the final tipping
point in his conversion, actually happened during a military campaign.

(10:07):
It's possible that his pride kept him from asking for
instruction on baptism into the religion. So his next step
was to march into Byzantine, the home of the Greek
Orthodox religion and a friend of kevin Us, and take
the city of Courson. He then demanded a marriage to

(10:27):
Byzantine Emperor's Basil the second and Constantine the eight sister Anna,
saying that he would attack Constantinople if they did not agree,
and the marriage to Anna was approved, but on the
condition that Grand Prince Vladimir would convert and be baptized
prior to the wedding. So there have been some theorists
that say, like he kind of orchestrated this whole thing

(10:48):
knowing that they would force him to be baptized, which
he wanted to do anyway. So in kind of a
magical case of I was totally going to do that anyway,
Vladimir agreed to this whole arrangement. UH, several priests traveled
with Anna to Courson and to perform the baptism and ceremony,
and there is an additional mystical element link to this event. Allegedly,

(11:12):
Vladimir had been having vision problems and in the moment
of his baptism, he was instantly cured of them, and
it cemented his new faith. So Vladimir at the first
returned to Kiv with his new Christian bride and a
handful of priests and immediately tore down the pagan temple
and started instituting Christianity in his country. There's even a

(11:34):
dramatic story of Vladimir ordering his men to drag a
particular wooden statue to a river and beat it with
rods and disdain for the devil, and in punishment of
him for seducing the people with false idolatry. And Vladimir
decreed shortly thereafter that all of Russia must be baptized,
and again from the chronicle of Nestor, those who day

(11:55):
after tomorrow do not appear on the bank of the
river rich or poor will be considered as rebels and traders.
The day following, Vladimir, accompanied by priests, those of the
Empress and those of Kerstone, went to Naper which there
was gathered an innumerable crowd of men who entered into
the water, some up to the neck, others only to
the chest. The children stayed on the bank and were

(12:18):
covered with water. Some plunged into the river, others swam
here and there while the priests read their prayers, and
this formed a spectacle tremendously curious and beautiful to see.
At last, when all of the people were baptized, each
returned to his home. So that entry in the chronicle
is about the mass baptism at Kiev. However, in Novgora

(12:38):
and some of the other smaller cities, things really did
not go nearly that smoothly. There was a lot of
resistance to the baptism order. Military troops kept crowds in order,
and the baptism went on, but paganism was still practiced
in secret in many areas for quite some time, and
it as an interesting aside. The date of the what's
called quote the Baptism of Russia is a matter or

(13:00):
of some debate. It's sometimes listed as September one, sometimes
of August one of that year. Other accounts listed as
happening the following year in and many virsions have it
taking place not just on one momentous day, but actually
over the course of time as officials travel from one
city to another. And apparently scholars are still kind of

(13:20):
deeply debating this, and there has not been a consensus
about it. So although Vladimir is most famous for converting
Russia's official religion, he had many other achievements during the
time that he ran in the country. It said that
his bloodthirst, which had been evident earlier in his time,
had vanished, and he became a thoughtful politician. He fostered

(13:45):
literacy in Russia and established schools where children from all
walks of life were welcome to learn uh and they
primarily were taught about religion and trained for religious service.
And allegedly he even nused some of the scholars that
he had counted on when he was making his decisions
about transitioning Russia over to Christianity as teachers there at
the school. So they were kids from all walks of life.

(14:08):
We're getting an education from pretty highly educated men, which
is pretty unusual at time. He started multiple outreach programs
for the poor, even establishing a tradition of delivering food
to the needy, and he also held a feast every
Sunday for Kiev citizens. And he's also said to have
sown the seeds for religious art and architecture in Russia.

(14:29):
So whenever you see that amazing Russian iconography that has
become so famous, a lot of that can be traced
back to the roots that Vladimir swed. Vladimir's Christian wife,
Anna died in ten eleven. We should note that he
did have other wives and lots and lots and lives
of children. And then in ten twenty four, Vladimir's two

(14:51):
oldest sons, Swiatta polk Tarovsky and Yaroslav of Novgorod, revolted
against their father. Uh Seattle, Polk was put in prison
and Vladimir made preparations to go to war with the
Aaroslav But Vladimir actually died before battle ever began, on
July fifteen, at the age of fifty nine, and he

(15:12):
had ruled at that point for thirty five years and
had completely changed Russian culture, which is pretty astonishing and
it is very bizarre to me. I think what drew
me to this particular subject is the reversal that he has,
like that he kind of has this moment where he
decides he needs to become a scholar and make a

(15:32):
really informed decision about how to go forward and unite
his country. And you don't hear about that happening all
that often where someone completely renounces their early way of
life and changes their country and then does a lot
of other good works in the process. So it's pretty neat.
Well see why they call him St. Vladimir? Yeah, And
well and I was because you you did the research

(15:53):
legwork on this one, um. And what really struck me
was that sort of how tied to the Russian or
the docs religion. A lot of what we think of
as Russian culture still is, like you see all that
are really dramatic architecture, really dramatic artwork. Um My dad

(16:13):
tells a story about when he was in the Army
having the duty of going to a Russian Orthodox funeral
for one of the people in his unit. Um, and
just how really stunningly amazing it the whole, like the
church and the ceremony and the artwork and all of
that stuff was just like sort of an assault on

(16:35):
your senses. Just very dramatic, very Russian artwork and architecture
and spirituality all together. And it all has its roots here,
which is really neat. I also have a little bit
of male I normally ask you that, and I was
busy listening you were thinking about them, I was thinking
about damp And we're going to them the real space

(16:58):
mail today because we have done a lot of email
and Facebook stuff, but we continue to get wonderful postcards
from people and letters. First, all go to a letter
that we got from our listener, Chaplain Rick. He is
a U. S Army chaplain who has stationed in Europe.
So first, thank you for your service, Rick, uh. And
he shares with us some really interesting travels. He's gotten

(17:20):
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(17:42):
he also sent us a beautiful um magnet with an
image of chest of schlash nuche Fonstein, which I love.
It's gorgeous, so thank you. And we also got a
beautiful postcard from our listener Andrew of the Inn Area Islands,
which is where he is at, and he mentions, uh,

(18:03):
the really interesting aboriginal history there and it would make
an excellent podcast topic and it is absolutely beautiful, So
thank you for that, Andrew. Uh. And then we also
got a postcard from our listener Christina the Traveler, who
has been in Romania for holiday, and she mentions that
she visited brand Castle, which is most often associated with Dracula,

(18:25):
and she says, did you know that the brand Castle
is not about Dracula, nor is it about lad Trepis trepsick.
I'm so sorry. I probably mispronounced that. Uh, it's about
Lad's wife, Queen Marie. His castle that he spent more
time at is on the other side of the mountains. Uh.
But I still have Romania, she says, And she sent
us a beautiful picture with a bunch of different Romanian

(18:45):
castles on it, including brand And We've gotten so many
postcards and I'm hoping to work my way through those
and also do um another edition of Listen While, where
we co laid all of the different things people do
while they listen to the podcast. So thank you to
all of you for writing those. I love getting a
gorgeous postcard, so I appreciate those a bunch. Uh. If

(19:06):
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