(Preger 1907 : 176 ; Mango 1953 : 460 ). The institution of a military command-post on
the Straits of Kerch marks one Byzantine measure to contain the Rus in the aftermath of
Sviatoslav, but from 976 the emperor Basil II was too preoccupied with his rebel
generals and Bulgarian insurgents to pay much attention to the Rus, who were anyway
themselves in disarray.
More to the point was the question of what stand any powerful Rus ruler should take
towards Christianity and its burgeoning practitioners. Olga had personally associated
herself with the sacred palace of the Greeks and their ruling family’s God, whereas
Sviatoslav took a flamboyantly contrary line. His regime was to rest on personal com-
mand over the steppes and on the material patronage that plundering wealthy targets
and supervision of trade routes could yield. The gods by which he swore to uphold terms
with the Greeks in 971 were the Slav god of lightning and power, Perun, and Volos, god
of herds. Sviatoslav had envisaged long-term hegemony over the Bulgarians, a wholly
Christian people, and the core-lands of Rus could have continued to harbour a medley of
practising Christians and non-Christians. Coexistence of populations with different
faiths, Judaist, Christian, Muslim and pagan, had, after all, been a characteristic of
Khazaria, and the elite burial ground on the Starokievskaia Hill at Kiev in the later
tenth century seems to have accommodated pagan shrines and Christian coffins
(Borovs’ky and Kaliuk 1993 : 8 – 12 ). However, when a masterful prince wrested control
of all the Rus branches of the ‘way from the Varangians to the Greeks’ and set about
reimposing tribute on dissident outlying populations, he resolved to institute public
worship closely associated with his personal authority and victories. Prince Vladimir
Sviatoslavich was tainted with the blood of Iaropolk, murdered after coming out from
Kiev to negotiate with Vladimir, and also by his mother’s questionable status, as Slavic
key-holder of Sviatoslav’s hall who had succumbed to her master’s will.
A legitimacy-deficit could in itself account for Vladimir’s desire to raise his status
through unprecedentedly elaborate associations with heavenly powers. But he would
have been well aware that prominent leaders to his north-west and west now associated
their rule with the Christian God, notably Mieszko of the Poles and Harald Blue-Tooth
of the Danes. There are hints that Christian Danes frequented Rus in the later tenth
century, perhaps serving as princely retainers; Vladimir himself may have spent his exile
at a Danish kingly court or at least had Christians among the Varangian warriors who
helped him seize control of Novgorod, Polotsk and, eventually, Kiev (Shinakov 2004 :
247 – 9 ). Against this background it is hardly surprising that Vladimir, declining to
commit his regime to the Christian God, sought to institute a kind of counter-cult, by
way of monuments and sacrifices, some of them human. A wooden idol of Perun was
raised outside Vladimir’s main hall in Kiev and another idol stood near the governor’s
hall in Novgorod; Vladimir’s partially silver and gilded Perun was accompanied by
several other gods, some quite local, others known throughout the Slavic-speaking
world. This organised cult, which had strong connotations of princely victory, served as
a riposte to the Christian cult of Vladimir’s northerly neighbours as well as a counter-
force to goings-on in the Great Palace in Constantinople.
Vladimir’s early years after seizing Kiev around 978 were followed up by successful
campaigning to secure regular tribute-payments, and his ruthlessness and resources
were such as to enforce compliance with his cult’s demands. Victories were celebrated
with communal sacrifices to his idols, candidates being chosen by lot from among the
free. The objections of a ‘Varangian’ Christian returnee from the Greeks, who had settled
–– chapter 37 : The Viking Rus and Byzantium––