Section 01: Foundations

The foundational section of the St. Vladimir of Kiev reference guide, establishing the two ground facts on which the whole collection rests: who Vladimir was before his conversion — the pagan warlord, son of Svyatoslav and the bondwoman Malusha, who fought his way to sole rule over Kiev, set up idols on the hill, and was remembered for eight hundred concubines — and what we can actually know of him, given that almost everything is reported by a single source compiled a century after his death.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Equal-to-the-Apostles)

Contents

File Topic
The Pagan Prince Vladimir before 988: son of Svyatoslav and Malusha (Olga’s stewardess); the robichich reproach of Rogned; the 980 war with his brother Yaropolk and the flight “beyond the sea”; the eight hundred concubines and the Solomon comparison; the idols on the hill (Perun, Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Simargl, Mokosh); the Varangian martyrs of 983; what is history and what is chronicle-portrait
The Sources The Russian Primary Chronicle and its layers (Shakhmatov’s textology; the Laurentian and Hypatian codices; the Nestor attribution); the Korsun legend as an embedded source; Hilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace; Jacob the Monk; the Byzantine and external witnesses (Yahya of Antioch, Leo the Deacon, Thietmar of Merseburg); the Boris and Gleb hagiography

How to Use

  • Start with The Pagan Prince for the pre-Christian Vladimir and the first encounter with the Chronicle’s way of telling his story.
  • Read The Sources for the source-critical apparatus that governs the entire collection — the single-source problem, the manuscript witnesses, and the external corroboration.

A Note on Sources

Following the repository methodology §3.5, the vivid set-pieces of Vladimir’s pagan years — the number of his concubines, the idols and their human sacrifices, the martyrdom of the two Varangians — are reported as what the Primary Chronicle attests, pinned to it by year-entry, and never asserted as independently documented fact. The Chronicle was compiled more than a century after Vladimir; it is a portrait, structured to set the deepest pagan darkness against the light of the conversion to come.

Cross-References