Vladimir the Great

“ The only place of consequence between Moscow and Nijni is Vladimir, named after Vladimir the Great. It has about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and is the centre of a considerable trade. Anciently it was of much political importance, and witnessed the coronations of the Czars of Muscovy down to 1432. Its Kremlin is in a decayed state, and little remains of its former glory, except a venerable and beautiful cathedral. Our friends thought they could get along with the churches they had already seen, and declined to stop to look at the Cathedral of Vladimir. ”

“ On he went, quietly watching until he came to Kiev town, where he went to the inn and entered into conversation with men of the place. From these fellows he learnt that Prince Vladimir was holding a great feast, and that his guests were eating the white swan and drinking green wine of priceless value.
As it happened, just at that moment the boasting time had come. One man bragged of his horse, another of his valour, a third of his sharp sword, a fourth of his young wife, and a wise man who had not drunk so well, of the goodness of his father and the tenderness of his mother. ”

“ The first great event in Russian history is the nominal conversion of a powerful king to Christianity, in the tenth century, named Vladimir, whose reign was a mixture of cruelty, licentiousness, and heroism. Seeing the necessity of some generally recognized religion, he sent ten of his most distinguished men into all the various countries then known, to examine their religious systems. Being semi-barbarians, they were disposed to recommend that form which had the most imposing ceremonial, and appealed most forcibly to the senses. ”

“ Vladimir (12) , capital of a government in the centre of Russia, 120 m. NE. of Moscow; once practically the capital of the country, with many remains of its ancient grandeur.
Vladimir I. the Great or St., grand-duke of Russia; converted to Christianity through his wife Anna Romanovna, laid the foundation of the Russian empire; has been canonised by the Russian Church; d. 1015.
Vladimir II., surnamed Monomachus; succeeded to the throne of Russia in 1113, and consolidated it by the establishment and enforcement of just laws; was married to Gida, a daughter of King Harold of England (1063-1126) . ”

“ In the Vladimir principality the whole social structure was built upon land. The interests of all coincided. All, from small to great, earth-tillers, artisans, clergy, merchants, warriors up to the prince himself, formed one solid power, and this was Great Russia. When Big Nest, near the end of his life, was opposed by his eldest son, Constantine, and resolved on a radical change, he turned for support to the people. He desired strength from the whole land as a unit. ”

“ The multitude then came up from the water nominal Christians.
Vladimir, who was sincere and truthful in all these strange movements, was in a transport of joy. Profoundly excited by the sublimity of the scene, he raised his flooded eyes to heaven, and, with great fervor, offered the following simple and touching prayer:—
“O thou Creator of heaven and earth! extend thy blessing to these thy new children. May they know thee as the true God, and be strengthened by thee in the true religion! Come to my help against the temptations of the Evil Spirit, and I will praise thy name.” ”

“ And now Vladimir, being surrounded and supported by believers in his own domestic circle, and encouraged by seeing that his boyars and suite were prepared and ready to embrace the faith, made a proclamation to the people, "That whoever, on the morrow, should not repair to the river, whether rich or poor, he should hold him for his enemy." At the call of their respected lord all the multitude of the citizens in troops, with their wives and children, flocked to the Dnieper; and without any manner of opposition received holy baptism as a nation from the Greek bishops and priests. ”

“ The youth’s quiet determination had more effect upon Vladimir than weeks of persuasion, and he bade Yermak choose what charger he desired from the royal stables as well as the armour which suited him best from the armoury. Off went the youth in great glee and equal haste, but the chain mail which he found was so rusty that he flung it down with impatience upon the brick floor, whereupon all the rust flew from it; so he picked it up, selected weapons to his taste, ran to the stables, saddled a horse, mounted it and rode at topmost speed to the pavilion of the heroes. ”

“ There is no tie so strong as the tie of faith, and in no country has it shown more strength than in Russia.
Vladimir died in 1015, leaving twelve sons and also a nephew, or son, namely Sviatopolk. These sons were from various mothers, and great trouble rose quickly among them. Sviatopolk, whom people called “the sinful son of two fathers,” could claim Vladimir’s heritage as a nephew of Vladimir, and son of Yaropolk. He was the only one of the heirs who was in Kief when the prince died, and he claimed the throne at once by virtue of his seniority. ”

“ The struggle of boyars to uphold the ancient, and for them useful order of rule, their struggle for exceptional rights above other men, had in the Vladimir land dropped to the place and the character of intrigue and of treason, against which the people rose almost unanimously. The power of the prince thus appeared with single effect, and the people hastened to make it a state power. By precisely this aid of the people Big Nest had overcome the proud and powerful “great ones,” who stood against the “small people.” ”

“ These two have since been canonized by the Russian Church as the only martyrs to its faith.
Vladimir by this time had become great in dominion, his warlike prowess extending the borders of Russia on all sides. The nations to the south saw that a great kingdom had arisen on their northern border, ruled by a warlike and conquering prince, and it was deemed wise to seek to win him from the worship of idols to a more elevated faith. Askhold and Dir had been baptized as Christians. Olga, after her bloody revenge, had gone to Constantinople and been baptized by the patriarch. ”

“ From of old a large number, and at times a majority, were attracted to the Russia outside of Great Novgorod. There had long been partisans of Vladimir among Novgorod boyars, men who thought it well for their country to act with Vladimir and even to be merged in it, but there were also implacable opponents to either coöperation or union, and these nourished hatred for Vladimir at every hazard. On the Vladimir side were all the more or less well-to-do people, the peace men. Therefore it seemed as if the adherents of Vladimir were only the well-to-do, and the satisfied, who cared not for the poor ”

“ The work of Yuri, his father, and Andrei, his elder brother, was completed finally by Vsevolod. During his life Rostoff and Suzdal, and now we must call it the Vladimir country, contained a well-ordered society, in which the prince’s authority was great, because the people approved and accepted it. The people and the prince stood face to face squarely. The people knew well that their popular society could not stand without the prince, and the prince knew that he could not rule a day without the people to support him. ”

“ A distinctive feature of Vladimir is the great variety of petty trades carried on by peasants who still continue to cultivate their allotments. While in some villages almost all the male population leave their homes and travel all over Russia as carpenters, masons, iron-roof makers, or as pedlars or travelling merchants, other villages have their specialties in some branch of manufactured produce. Nearly 30,000 carpenters leave Vladimir every year. Whole villages are engaged in painting sacred pictures or ikons ”

“ Vladimir in great joy made a vow that he would be baptized if he gained possession of the town; and he did gain possession of it. Then he sent to Constantinople to demand from the Greek Emperor the hand of their sister Anna, and they in answer proposed as a condition that he should embrace Christianity; for though they themselves desired an alliance with so powerful a prince, they at the same time took care to follow the prudent and pious policy of their predecessors, who had ever sought to bring their fierce neighbors under the humanizing influence of the faith. ”

“ She had been carried off by robbers of the Volga, from the vicinity of Boogord, the capital of her native country, and on account of her rare beauty they deemed her worthy to be a wife of the great monarch. They therefore conducted her to Kiev, the residence of the mighty Vladimir, and presented her to him. Vladimir, a good judge of female charms, the moment he beheld her, was enchanted by the surpassing beauty of the Bulgarian princess, and in a short time his love for her became so great that he made her his consort, [154] and dismissed all his other wives. ”

“ Judaism, he said, was a homeless religion, its followers being wanderers on the face of the earth, under a curse. The Catholic religion would not do at all, because it recognized in the Pope a superior to himself, and Vladimir had no mind to acknowledge a superior. The Greek religion was free from these objections, and, moreover, by adopting it he would bring himself into friendship with the great Greek or Byzantine Empire, whose capital was at Constantinople, and that was something which he greatly desired to accomplish. ”

“ Kautsky admits that the Soviets are an excellent combat organisation of the proletariat, and that they have a great future before them. But, that being the case, Kautsky’s position collapses like a house of cards, or like the dreams of a petty bourgeois that the acute struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie can be avoided. For revolution is one continuous and moreover desperate struggle, and the proletariat is the vanguard class of all the oppressed, the focus and centre of all the aspirations of all the oppressed for their emancipation! ”

“ True, Russia has ceased to be an empire, but it has not wasted its potential as a great power. We no longer dictate to anyone and we do not keep anyone from leaving us; instead we have the time and resources to devote to ourselves. ”

“ To which his mother replied: “Now at length I am prepared to die, bury me wherever thou wilt.” And at the end of three days she died, and was enrolled amongst the number of the saints by her grandson Vladimir, who had been already baptized. The 11th day of July is dedicated to her. Svyatoslav’, who reigned after his mother’s death, divided the provinces among his sons: to Yaropolk he gave Kiev, to Oleg he gave the Drevlians, and to Vladimir, Great Novogorod. Indeed, the Novogorodians were instigated by a certain woman named Dobrina, to request that Vladimir should be made their prince ”

“ Brew sweet liquors, for our thirst is also great, and let cask stand upon cask in noble array. For in less than two days Tsar Kalin and his great host shall walk the streets of Kiev, and our master shall wed the Princess Apraxia.”
The boldness and the careful detail of the command caused the heart of Prince Vladimir to sink very low, and the best he could imagine was to gain time. So he caused Nikitich to write a letter in [181] reply, saying: “Cleaning and fermenting are both slow processes. I shall need a space of three months to prepare this city for its coming guests.” ”

“ It may be that they have stolen the royal cup.” Thereupon Prince Vladimir gave the word, and a company of heroes sprang to their feet, eager to ride after the pilgrim band. But as they prepared themselves the voice of Ilya of Murom was heard from the great corner:
“These were no psalm-singers,” he said, “but [157] heroes of the boldest. Whom have we worthy to go and outface them.”
“I will send Alyosha alone,” said Vladimir, and it was done in accordance with his word, the messenger being commanded to speak gently to the pilgrims. ”

“ Vladimir declined the honor, alleging the claims of Oleg and is brothers to the throne of Kief. During these negotiations, a sedition broke out in the city, and the Jews, whom Sviatopolk had made the instruments of his fiscal exactions, were pillaged. Monomachus was forced to yield to the prayers of the citizens. During his reign (1113–1125) he obtained great successes against the Polovtsi, the Patzinaks, the Torques, the Tcherkesses, and other nomads. He gave an asylum to the remains of the Khazars, who built on the Oster, not far from Tchernigof, the town of Belovega. ”

“ It was now the turn of the Grand Prince, for the Russia of the northeast had not even the honor of falling in a great battle like the Russia of the southwest, united for once against the common enemy. The Suzdalian army, commanded by a son of George II, was beaten on the day of Kolomna, on the Oka. The Tartars burned Moscow, then besieged Vladimir, the royal city, which George II had abandoned to seek for help in the North. His two sons were charged with the defence of the capital. Princes and boyars, feeling there was no alternative but death or servitude, prepared to die. ”

“ You know how the heart of man is made. If he had had the imprudence to emancipate me, I should have come last year out of gratitude; but this time—"
While Vladimir spoke, Gilbert thought to himself, "This man is truly the compatriot of Count Leminof."
And then recalling the amiable and generous Muscovite with whom he had once been intimate, he justly concluded that Russia is large, and that nature, taking pleasure in contrasts, produces in that great country alternately the hardest and the most tender souls in the world.
"One word more," continued Vladimir: "Count Kostia was right ”