All language subtitles for THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Episode 3. Docudrama. English Subtitles. Russian History. (inglés)

With the Financial Support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

The Russian Military and Historical Society

present

The Birth of a Nation

He woke up suddenly, as if from a blow.

Korsun, 988

Somebody was by his side.

He couldn’t see him. He didn’t see anything. He was blind.

He, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, a winner, a ruler, a warrior

challenged the Eastern Roman Empire.

Ancient Korsun fell under his attack.

However, what was all the glory in the world worth if he was blind?

Somebody whom he didn’t know was standing close to him.

The darkness thinned out like before the dawn.

The words he had heard in his early childhood came to his mind:

“You’re the resurrection and life”.

Episode Three. The Daybreak

“It happened by the village of Bututin

when little prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovitch turned four.

When playing on a river’s bank, he stumbled and fell into the water,

into the fast current. The river was dragging him like a chip,

and he was crying and calling but nobody heard him.

The death seemed unavoidable, but a huge stone appeared on his way,

and he clang to that rock and saved himself.”

He sat on the huge rock for ages, trembling from cold and the recent fear.

Suddenly he realized with absolute clearness – he was alone.

If he wanted to survive, the only person he could count on was himself.

At the age of three, Vladimir was taken away from his mother.

He barely saw his father as Svyatoslav was almost constantly at war.

His brothers Yaropolk and Oleg were not his blood brothers, just half-brothers.

His mother Malusha wasn’t Svyatoslav’s wife, just a concubine

although she held an important position of a key-keeper

at the court of Princess Olga. Officially, Vladimir enjoyed the same rights

as his brothers Oleg and Yaropolk. He was the Prince’s son.

In practice, he was a “rabichich”, “a son of a slave” which was a stigma.

Vladimir’s uncle Dobrynya became the only close person at the Prince’s court.

Soon after the death of his mother Princess Olga

Svyatoslav prepared another military campaign in the southern lands,

at the border of the Eastern Roman Empire. Before that,

when he was absent from Kiev, Princess Olga ruled the state.

Now that she was gone Svyatoslav decided to involve his sons.

"They were not mature enough. The eldest barely turned 12; "

however, a general was assigned to each of them.

In 970, Svyatoslav sent Yaropolk to Kiev and Oleg to the Drevlians.

The residents of Novgorod came asking to assign a prince for them.

“And Svyatoslav said to them: “Ask Vladimir.”

And the residents of Novgorod accepted Vladimir.”

So, he went to Novgorod together with this uncle Dobrynya.

The lands of Novgorod that were the cradle of the Rurik kin

seemed a far-away province to Vladimir.

He thought that he was sent so far because he wasn’t needed closer.

He thought that the residents of Novgorod were rude and loud.

The Varangians who guarded him were a far cry

from the well-dressed Kiev soldiers. They had long beards,

faces painted with weird patterns and numerous amulets.

Vladimir craned his neck looking back at Kiev for as long as he could see it.

He dreamt of returning to that city one day – when he was adult

and strong like his father, followed by his enormous army.

Life in Novgorod turned out to be much more interesting

than Vladimir had expected. It was not a province at all.

A bright crowd at the market was talking different languages.

There were foreigners with bandit-like faces,

red-bearded Iranians in silk turbans, francs in velvet coats.

Everybody was there! Vladimir got used to the local customs quickly

and was on the best terms with the residents of Novgorod.

He studied the martial art of the Varangians vigorously

leaving the ruling to his uncle Dobrynya.

On that day, Vladimir got caught up in a combat.

Dobrynya called for the Prince thrice for him to come

to deliver the judgement. The defendant was a boy

not much older than the Prince himself. He killed an unknown man

at the market with an axe in the broad daylight.

According to the laws of Novgorod, anybody who killed a man

who hadn’t been convicted should be executed. The case was simple.

The only thing that the Price had to do was to approve the sentence.

However, Vladimir kept silence glancing at the murderer and.

The boy awaited his fate calmly and didn’t beg for mercy.

The name of the murderer was Olaf, a born Norwegian.

He was forced to flee from his country with his mother and his caregiver.

At the sea, the northern pirates of Esta captured their ship

and sold them into slavery. Klerkon became their host.

He treated them very cruelly. He killed Olaf’s caregiver

who was like a father for him with an axe. At that time,

Olaf was too young to revenge. After that, the boy’s uncle,

a soldier from Novgorod found him.

He bought him out of the slavery and brought him to Novgorod.

The murdered caregiver remained unrevenged for many years.

And that day, Olaf accidentally bumped into Klerkon

at the Novgorod’s market and crushed his skull with an axe.

Olaf reminded Vladimir of himself.

However, Vladimir would probably be unable

to revenge his offender with such advert bravery.

Prince said the following: because the murdered caregiver

was like a father to the defendant,

that murder should be considered blood vengeance.

The law wasn’t violated. Prince ruled to release the defendant

and enrol into the junior soldier squad. At that time,

Vladimir didn’t know that he saved a life of a man

who would become his only friend.

At that time, in thousands of miles from Novgorod

Vladimir’s father Svyatoslav started a war with Byzantium.

The commander of the Greek army, an experienced war leader Bardas Phocas

was avoiding an open battle instead luring the barbarians

deeper into the Empire’s interior.

Svyatoslav believed that the Greeks were cowardly fleeing

at the sight of his troops. In 120 km from the capital

Bardas Phocas stopped and gave battle.

The forces were more or less equal.

However, the Greeks were on their own land.

Too late did Svyatoslav realize that he had been lured into a trap

but he had nowhere to retreat.

Svyatoslav said: “We have no choice.

No matter whether we want it or not, we have to fight.

Let’s not put the Russian land to shame but leave our bones here

for the dead feel no shame. Let’s stand strong, and I’ll lead you.

If my head falls, care for yours on your own.”

The soldiers replied:

”We’ll fall where you fall”.

The battle started with the powerful advance of the Russian regiments.

Prince Svyatoslav fought alongside his soldiers.

The Russian were fighting with the courage of the desperate,

and that alone instilled fear. Only the heavy cavalry managed to stop

the mad onslaught of the barbarians.

The parties were fighting well until the darkness

but neither of the parties got the upper hand.

The battles went on for a year

until the Emperor John I Tzimiskes himself didn’t lead the army.

After a couple of bloodbaths the Russian troops were exhausted

beyond any measure. Svyatoslav and John engaged in negotiations.

According to the treaty of 971, the Russians were to leave Bulgaria

and the Greeks were to provide the Russian army with food for two months.

Rus and Byzantium concluded a peace treaty,

became military allies and restored trade relations.

Svyatoslav went back with his thinned-out army,

no more than a third from its initial number.

He didn’t know that John I Tzimiskes concluded a treaty on peace

and mutual cooperation not only with him but with the Pechenegs too

bolstering it with a huge amount of gold.

Svyatoslav went to the rapids in his boats. One general told him:

“Prince, pass the rapids by on the horseback

for the Pechenegs are standing by the rapids”.

But the Prince didn’t heed his advice and took the boats.

“Kirya, the Prince of the Pechenegs attacked him, and Svyatoslav was killed.

A jar was made out of his skull

bound round with metal, and they drank from it.”

Dobrynya said that he no longer had a father.

Vladimir remembered that moment for the rest of his life.

His elder son Yaropolk, Prince of Kiev, avenged on the Pechenegs for his father.

He started a military campaign against them

and damaged their ranks so badly that the Pechenegs even agreed

to pay tribute to Kiev. Svineld was an old general assigned to Yaropolk

who once campaigned with his grandfather Igor and his father Svyatoslav.

The Prince was married to a Greek woman,

a former nun from a Greek monastery whom Svyatoslav brought

from his campaign many years ago as a prisoner and married to his son

because of her rare beauty.

Yaropolk didn’t care that his wife was a Christian.

There were a lot of Christians in his milieu.

Kiev was one step away from baptizing.

The ambassadors from the Pope arrived to Yaropolk.

However, neither the missionaries nor the Pope’s ambassadors

had the time to do anything.

A war started in Rus.

Prince Oleg was at his traditional hunting trip in the Drevlians’ woods.

He was extremely surprised and then angry

when he saw another hunting party riding about in his forests.

Oleg was on his land, in his estate.

The arrival of strangers was not just an impertinence but a sacrilege.

The Prince’s hunting was a sacred custom

that was assigning the power of the land-bound gods over those lands

and their beasts. Lyut Svinelditch, the son of the Kiev general,

openly demonstrated to Oleg that he considered those lands to be his.

Oleg accepted the challenge. Together with his people,

he caught up with the other hunting party

and killed all the participants, up to the last man.

According to the law, Oleg was right.

But Kiev just couldn’t leave that murder alone.

Svineld, the father of the cheeky Lyut,

was one of the most influential Yaropolk’s nobles.

On finding out about his son’s death he demanded

that Yaropolk should declare war on Oleg. Yaropolk refused.

Lyut wasn’t his relative,

so the law of blood vengeance couldn’t be implemented.

Oleg, however, was Yaropolk’s blood brother.

The confrontation between the Prince and his general went on for two years.

Finally, the old Varangian Svineld who campaigned in a half of Europe

and outlived two Princes won over Yaropolk. In spring of 975,

the Kiev’s army invaded the lands of the Drevlians.

In his turn, Oleg summoned his troops and went to meet Yaropolk halfway.

That feudal war was the first to be fought between the Rurik kin members.

It was the first time when a brother declared war against a brother.

The parties began the battle, and in it, Yaropolk defeated Oleg.

Oleg and his troops ran to the city.

A bridge was thrown across the moat from the city gates.

People who were crowding on it were pushing each other.

Oleg was pushed down from the bridge.

"Yaropolk entered the city and seized the power;

then he sent to look for his brother.

People looked for him but failed to find.

“One Drevlian said: “I saw him being pushed from the bridge yesterday”.

So, Yaropolk sent people to look for his brother.

They were pulling the bodies out from the morning

until noon and found Oleg under the bodies.

They brought him out and put him on a carpet.

Yaropolk came, cried over him and said to Svineld:

“Look! This is what you wanted”. Svineld kept silence.

That was how Yaropolk became a fratricide, even if reluctant.

According to the law of blood vengeance,

the younger brother Vladimir was to revenge on him.

The war would go on and if Svineld was lucky

the brothers would exterminate each other.

All they could do at that time was to wait from Vladimir’s arrival

from Novgorod. However, he didn’t come.

Vladimir found out about those awful events in a month.

The Prince of Novgorod had to take the first independent decision

in his life. He didn’t really have a choice.

Svyatoslav had only three sons.

One of them was murdered, and he had to be revenged for.

That was a centuries-old custom.

Vladimir didn’t feel any warm emotions towards Oleg

who had in essence been a stranger to him.

However, it didn’t mean anything.

From that moment on, Yaropolk became a blood enemy to him.

The law of blood vengeance was implacable.

If Vladimir wanted to be a Prince, if he wanted to remain a ruler

in the eyes of his people and, finally, if he wanted to become a man

in his own eyes, he had to revenge.

In summer of 976, he left Novgorod. Vladimir took a desperate step.

He took the Prince’s treasury, some court members

and his loyal Dobrynya and went behind the sea.

Two people were sitting on the bow of the ship.

They were almost of the same age: a young Prince of Novgorod

and a former slave, a descendant of the Norwegian royals

and his confidant. Both were approaching the land of their forefathers,

the land of the Northern gods and heroes.

At that moment those two exiles were sailing towards the unknown.

When the difficult voyage ridden with storms was nearing its end

and they were passing the rocky shores of the Norwegian fjords,

water suddenly bubbled on their right.

The leaden waves rushed around, and the foamy abyss opened wide.

The rowers rushed to the oars and with one powerful movement

threw the boat further from the spot where the terrible hole

was already sucking the boiling sea in.

Vladimir shook imagining himself inside of that whirlpool,

approaching death with every circle. People said that the whirlpool

would sometimes spit out what it had swallowed.

It was possible to get out with one’s life even from that abyss;

but for that, one had to pluck up one’s courage and face the death.

The residents of Novgorod didn’t like to remember about Prince Vladimir.

A year ago, he fled behind the far seas like a beaten dog,

and they hadn’t heard from him since.

He must have perished; serves him right.

What kind of Prince would run away from a war?

A man appointed by Yaropolk of Kiev was ruling in Novgorod.

The life was going on.

Everything was well except for the unclear alarming rumours –

the Urmans were allegedly stirring again.

A mean squad was wreaking havoc in the Norwegian sea;

it was robbing everybody without discretion, and nobody could stop it.

When dragon’s faces appeared

out of the fog one chilly autumn morning, the city succumbed to panic.

The dragons moored one by one.

A young king was standing on the first of them.

Nobody seemed to be willing to maraud. Tall men, armed to their teeth,

like peas in a pod were calmly going out to the shore.

They carefully brought out a lady of heavenly beauty,

with a thick silver braid and a huge pregnant tummy.

If the king brought his wife, it meant he was planning to stay for long.

The residents of Novgorod moved their ranks closer.

The king turned, and Novgorod gasped.

It was the long-lost Prince Vladimir.

Instead of a cowardly puppy, a young wolf returned.

Vladimir

Vladimir escaped behind the seas with a handful of men,

but he returned with a strong army.

They were the powerful northern bandits, the Vikings.

A war with Yaropolk was imminent.

Preparing for a large-scale war, Vladimir found powerful allies.

In future,

that would become a characteristic trait of Vladimir as a war leader.

He was thinking everything over without a rush,

preparing for everything thoroughly and only then engaging in battles,

but attacking swiftly and mercilessly.

Many people from Novgorod volunteered to fight for Vladimir’s army.

People came from afar, even from the forests of Murom.

The Prince was preparing a campaign against Kiev,

and they expected huge gains.

Vladimir’s enormous army was going to Kiev along the ancient route

from the Varangians to the Greeks, the one which over a hundred years ago

Oleg the Prophet took too. The rumours about the Prince

were running in front of him as of a man who knew neither fear nor mercy.

On the way from Novgorod to Kiev in the land of the Kriviches

a rich town of Polotsk was situated. Kiev didn’t exercise any power over it.

The ruler of Polotsk Rogvalod was of the Scandinavian descend,

didn’t depend on the Rurik Princes and wasn’t connected to them in any way.

When the Northern Rus declared war on the Southern Rus,

Polotsk had to make a choice.

Each of the party was looking for a strategic partner to form a coalition.

The decision of Polotsk that was on the crossroads between Kiev and Novgorod

would determine the distribution of forces.

The decision that could ensure Polotsk’s support was easy.

Besides two sons, Rogvalod had an unmarried daughter.

Her name was Rogneda. In autumn of 976,

envoys from both Vladimir and Yaropolk arrived in Polotsk.

It was customary for the father to seal his daughter’s fate.

But it wasn’t the case with Rogneda.

Being her father’s favourite, she always did what she wanted.

“I’ll marry Yaropolk, I won’t marry Vladimir”, Rogneda said.

“I won’t take the shoes off a slave’s son”.

Everybody knew that Vladimir’s mother was a slave.

The offense was intended and public.

Vladimir calmly watched his uncle raging

when telling him about Rogneda’s words.

“I can’t let Kiev and Polotsk conclude an alliance”, he thought.

“Uncle is offended. This is bad. The girl has a character. This is good.”

Dobrynya couldn’t understand why Vladimir was keeping silence.

Maybe he didn’t hear well? “She said “I don’t want

to take the shoes off a slave’s son” about you, Prince!”

“Let it be so, then”, Vladimir replied calmly.

“If the bride doesn’t want it, we won’t take our shoes off”.

He smiled with a smile that made Dobrynya shudder.

Everything was upside down in the Prince’s palace.

The envoys from Kiev were soon to come

and take Rogneda to the wedding with Yaropolk.

Shouts and the trampling of hoofs were heard behind the window.

“They have arrived!” Rogneda pushed the servants aside

and rushed to the window, stumbling over dresses lying on the floor.

And she recoiled. People entering the yard were not from Kiev.

They were the bearded Varangians

whose horses were trampling the murdered Polotsk soldiers.

“Vladimir seized the city and captured Rogvalod himself,

and his wife, and his daughter. He had sex with her

in front of her father and mother. Then Vladimir killed her father

and took her for a wife and gave her a name of Goreslava.”

The wedding custom of taking the shoes off the groom

signified the bride’s acceptance of her husband’s power over her.

Vladimir’s cruelty and Rogneda’s stubbornness turned that ritual

into a terrible bloody reality.

He raped a virgin girl in front of her parents,

and then killed them in cold blood after the end of her ordeal –

it was a bit too much even for the heartless times of Prince Vladimir.

Vladimir burnt Polotsk to the ground. He seized the lands of the princedom.

Poor Rogneda, who was disgraced in front of her parents,

didn’t only become Vladimir’s wife but even bore four sons for him.

By the time of the war with Yaropolk

Vladimir had already been married and had his firstborn Vysheslav.

Polygamy was a normal occurrence in Rus as well as in other pagan states.

The more wives a man could have, the more influence and power he had

in the other people’s eyes. Vladimir was gaining more power,

and with his power, his harem grew too.

Personal relations of Vladimir and Rogneda were tumultuous

during all their life together.

For long years, they felt both passionate love

and hatred tied together with blood.

Rogneda gave birth to Vladimir’s son Izyaslav.

He had many wives by that time, so she got indignant.

“One day he came to sleep with her, and after he fell asleep

she wanted to kill him with a knife.

But he woke up and caught her hand.

And she reproached him:

“You killed my father and seized his lands,

and now you love neither me nor this child”.

He ordered her to put her bridal gown on and sit on a clean bed

in her chamber to execute her. She did it.

But she put a naked sword into the hand of her Izyaslav.

Vladimir came and cried: “Who could have thought you will be here!”

and threw his sword aside.

He summoned the nobles and told everything to them.

The nobles said: “Don’t kill her for the sake of the boy.

Give her back her lands and pay her back with your son”.

Vladimir founded a city and gave it to them. He called it Izyaslavl.”

When Vladimir approached Kiev,

people there already knew about the bloody wedding in Polotsk.

The city prepared for the siege well.

However, Vladimir had no intention either to spend months

by Kiev’s wall or to storm it.

He didn’t want to ruin the free Kiev, the magical city of his dreams.

All he wanted was Yaropolk. He sent his scouts to the city to find a traitor

among the people closest to Prince Yaropolk.

General Blud agreed to betray his Prince. Since recently,

he had taken Svineld’s place and was enjoying Yaropolk’s complete trust.

Vladimir promised Blud a place in his court and more influence.

Blud convinced his Prince to leave Kiev to prevent the deaths

of innocent people. So, Yaropolk and his army fled to the town of Rodin.

Prince Vladimir entered Kiev solemnly, without haste.

At the gates, he remembered his childhood dream –

to return there being strong and powerful like his father,

followed by his enormous army.

He got everything that he had ever wanted.

Any of his wishes were coming true. He was a chosen one,

the gods’ favourite. Who dared confront him?

Blud said to Yaropolk: “Do you see how many warriors your brother has?

We won’t be able to defeat them. Make peace with your brother!”

And Yaropolk agreed with him: “Let it be so”.

So, Blud sent his people to Vladimir. “Your dream has come true.

I’m bringing Yaropolk to you.” And Yaropolk came to Vladimir.

When he was entering the door, two Varangians lifted him up

with their swords under his armpits.

Blud closed the doors and didn’t let his people follow him.

That was how Yaropolk was slained.”

“Finally, we met, brother”.

Yaropolk didn’t even have time to realize what had happened.

Infinite surprise lapped in his eyes, and stayed there.

Vladimir performed the act of blood vengeance.

He was at the peak of the power.

He could be rightfully proud of himself.

Vladimir awarded traitor Blud generously in front of the entire Kiev

and honoured him for three days in a row. On the fourth,

he ordered to capture and to judge him, in public as well.

Prince said to surprised Blud:

“I honoured you like my comrade as I promised.

But now I’m judging you as a traitor and a murderer of your lord.”

And he handed him over to the executioners.”

Vladimir’s Varangian warriors decided

that it was fair and laughed at their Prince’s bandit humour.

They adored him. A chief like him who was blessed with luck

and didn’t stop at any obstacles was a pride of any Viking.

Kiev, the golden dream of his childhood, was now undividedly his.

The young Prince learnt the lessons of his troubled youth well.

Strength is what decided the outcome of anything.

To be an authoritative ruler, one needed to fight,

and be successful at wars. In the course of the first eight years of his rule,

Vladimir organized at least a dozen of large-scale campaigns.

He was at war even more often than his father.

But as opposed to Svyatoslav, his aim was not to capture

the far-away lands. The routes of almost all Vladimir’s campaigns

were within a wide circle with Kiev in its centre.

By 985, the following cities were under the direct authority

of Vladimir Svyatoslavovitch, Price of Kiev: Kiev, Pereslavl,

Lyubech, Chernigov, Peremyshl, Turov, Polotsk, Smolensk,

Pskov, Novgorod, Rostov, Murom, Tmutarakan, and Belaya Vezha.

The tribes of the Yatvyagi, Ves, Chudi, Miri, Vyatichi, Radimichi,

Lendzyan were paying tribute to him.

He founded the cities of Suzdal and Vladimir-Volynskiy.

In all the cities he controlled, Vladimir put his representatives in charge –

the most influential and experienced of the generals,

nobles and senior warriors. They had no connections

with the tribes of the lands which they had to rule

and were personally loyal to Prince Vladimir.

After putting his lands in order,

Vladimir decided to put the higher spheres in order too.

He wanted to transform Kiev into a sacral center of all the lands of Rus.

On a hill close to the Prince’s palace a heathen with giant idols was erected.

Vladimir chose the gods for Perun’s Hill personally.

Vladimir defined the part of the secular and religious authorities in the state.

In essence, it was an attempt to transform the beliefs into a state religion.

The establishment of the hierarchy of gods

with Perun as the top god was the first step towards monotheism.

Of course, Vladimir didn’t know about that.

He was simply strengthening his power – on the land, under the ground

and above the skies.

To dissuade people from doubting his authority,

he assumed the position of the higher priest as well.

Now Prince Vladimir led all the important sacrifices at the Perun’s Hill

which were carried out in the presence of the entire Kiev.

All folk, from the youngest to the oldest,

could see how closely Prince Vladimir resembled God Perun…

or maybe it was God Perun who closely resembled Prince Vladimir?

“He also held a feast in his chambers once a week

with all the nobles and people, warriors and managers,

best men at the Prince’s court and beyond it.

Much meat was served at those feasts – beef and poultry,

and expensive fish, and vegetables and butter,

and other food cooked by hand, and the drinks – various wines and brews.”

In the eyes of his people, Vladimir wanted to pose as generous

as the sun pouring its warmth and light.

His army held special importance to him.

Each soldier was to be personally loyal to the Prince.

Each had to feel his paternal care,

even if that warrior was old enough to be the young Prince’s father.

Vladimir loved those feasts with all his heart.

"He was young; all his actions were large-scale and powerful,

including his battles and his banquets.”

He was a winner by all scores, and the winner takes it all.

The life was no longer dragging him like a chip.

The life was intoxicating,

and he was ladling it with a full scoop, enjoying its sweetness.

And in time, his thirst intensified.

"It was lust to women that brought Vladimir down;

he had many wives. From Rogneda, he had four sons:

Izyaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav and Vsevolod, and two daughters;

from a Greek, he had Svyapolk, from a Check – Vysheslav,

and from another wife – Svyatoslav and Mstislav,

and from a Bulgarian – Boris and Gleb.

He had 300 concubines in Vyshgorod, 300 in Belgorod

and 200 in Berestov. And he was unstoppable in his lust,

having sex with married women and disgracing virgins.”

The incredible voluptuousness of the Prince of Rus

became the staff of legends in Europe. For Kiev,

the Vladimir’s male power and temperament were a cause for pride

and one more evidence of the fact that their Prince was indeed the best.

Maybe he wasn’t a human at all but a god in a human image.

Only Vladimir himself knew that excessive feasts,

endless pleasures of the flesh, grandioso events at the Perun’s Hill

were nothing more but attempts to dull the incomprehensible anguish

that had recently settled in his heart. The more time passed,

the clearer it became that it was impossible to forget it

either with the wine nor with bloody sacrifices.

The scales as if fell from his eyes.

It turned out that nobody needed either the grandioso idols

or the solemn feasts except maybe the Magi.

“The folk came to the Perun’s Hill only when forced to do so

on official holidays. Many soldiers, both the Varangians and the Slavs,

had no faith either in Thor or Perun anymore

and believed only in their swords and luck in battles.

They would only come to witness the sacrifice to go to the banquet after it.”

Vladimir seemed to be carrying a heavy load which nobody needed.

More and more often, he realized deep in his heart

that even he himself didn’t need that load anymore.

Even the closest people didn’t want to take part

in the Prince’s ceremonial rituals.

His old Norwegian friend Olaf never sacrificed anything to the idols,

was indifferent to them and even despised them.

“It was a tradition to often follow the king into the temple.

Once king talked to him, and Olaf replied:

“I’ll never get scared of the gods who have neither eyesight,

nor hearing nor consciousness. From that, I may draw a conclusion

on their nature, my Lord. I always imagine you

with a nice face expression except when you’re there

and making sacrifices for them.

When you’re there, you always seem unhappy to me.

From that I conclude

that the gods whom you worship must be ruling the darkness.”

In summer of 983, Prince Vladimir returned from his campaign

against the Yatvyags. His victory was absolute. Before that,

no Prince of Kiev had managed to conquer the lands

of that fierce Lithuanian tribe.

The Yatvyags were incredibly freedom-loving.

Their land was squeezed between the lands of Poland, Prussia

and the Western Slavs. That region was crucial for the entire Southern Baltic.

As always, the Prince of Kiev made a long-sighted cast.

At that war, the gods were gracious to Rus again.

As customary, that victory had to be honoured with a sacrifice

on the Perun’s Hill. The Prince was the Slavs’ higher priest.

Vladimir had to thank the gods personally in the pagan temple

he had built. But that time, Perun got nothing.

“The nobles and the Magi said: ”Let’s cast a lot

for a young boy and a girl. We’ll kill those who will be chosen

to be sacrificed to the gods”. There was one Varangian.

He came from the Greek lands and was secretly a Christian.

He had a son with a beautiful face and a beautiful soul.

And so, the lot fell on him.

The people sent to Theodor and told him: “The gods chose your son.

Let’s sacrifice him to the gods”. And the Varangian said:

“They are not the gods, it’s the wood. It is there today

but will rot tomorrow. There is only one God.

He created the heaven, the earth, humans, and stars, and the Sun,

and the Moon. He created life on the Earth.

And what did those gods do? They are made themselves.

I won’t hand my son over to the demons. If they are gods,

let them come on their own and take my son.

What do you serve them for?”

They shouted and cut the floor under them,

and that was how they killed them.

Nobody knows where they were buried”.

The name of the baptized Varangian was Theodor.

His son’s name was John. Vladimir knew the father well,

and he knew his son too. Theodor’s house was built

within the fortress’s walls. Theodor was a noble,

a member of the nobles’ council, he attended the Prince’s feasts.

He didn’t take part in the pagan ceremonies,

but then many people didn’t. Theodor the noble was a well-known

and east-to-understand person… until that morning.

The act of Christian Theodor impressed Prince Vladimir.

No, not with his resolve to die.

Vladimir saw a lot of decisiveness and deaths in his lifetime.

What impressed him was his calm certainty in his rightness.

In that, Vladimir couldn’t be mistaken. He knew people well.

Theodor also impressed him with something else –

something incomprehensible but so grand that it was too big to encompass.

His grandmother Princess Olga was Christian.

His Greek wife Yaropolka was Christian.

Some of his warriors were Christians. He knew the Christians…

or didn’t he?