Grand Duke Saint Vladimir Sviatoslawitz KIEV, I

   Other names for Saint were VLADIMIR Saint, "The Great" and KIEV Grand Duke.

   Ancestral File Number: 952M-B6. User ID: 605111962.

   General Notes:

"The Great", Grand Duke of KIEV Reigned Abt 980-1015, SAINT Vladimir Feast Day July 15.

5th Great Grandfather of Alexander Nevsky, 12th Great Grandfather of Ivan III the Great, and 14th Great Grandfather of Ivan IV the Terrible.

BOOKS
Barber Grandparents: 125 Kings, 143 Generations, Ted Butler Bernard and Gertrude Barber Bernard, 1978, McKinney TX, p83: "349R Vladmir, Grand Duke of Kiev, and later Czar of Russia, (S of 334, F of 360); was grand Duke of Kiev, and ascended the throne in 962; conquered Red Russia from the Poles; exacted tribute from neighboring tribes; seized Cherson from the Empire; Chirstianized Russia; as his fifth wife he married Anne of Macedonia; died in 1025."

Kings and Queens of Europe, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute 1989: "Kazimierz I Odnowiciel, Son of Mieszko II King of Poland or Polska, Mar Dobronega-Maria Daughter of Cladimir I Grand Prince of Kiev, Died 1058."

Wall Chart of WorldHistory, Edward Hull, 1988, Studio Editions, Russia, 980: "Wladimir I, "The Great", Duke of Kiev 980-1015..."

The New Columbia Encyclopedia, 1975, p2907, Vladimir I: "Also Saint Vladimir, Died 1015, first Christian Grand Duke of Kiev (Abt 980-1015), son of Sviato- slav. In 970, Vladimir was sent by his father to govern Novgorod. After Sviatoslav's death Vladimir vied with his two brothers, Yaropolk and Oleg, for the succession. About 980, he defeated his brothers and became GrandDuke of Kiev. During his reign he conquered and united under Kievan Russia distant Slavic tribes and waged successful wars on the Lithuanians, the Bulgars, and the Byzantines in Crimea. At first a fervent pagan, he converted to Christianity, probably influenced by the political and economic advantages of an alliance with Byzantium. His baptism, in 988/989, was followed by his marriage to Anna, sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. After the wedding he returned Kherson (in Crimea)to Byzantium. Vladimir renounced his profligate ways and made Greek Orthodox Christianity the religion of his people. He devoted the remainder of his life to the building of churches, including the splendid Cathedral of Tithes (989), and to the establishment of schools and libraries. He also enacted several statutes concerning the legal status and courts of the church. Feast: July 15."
p1477, Kievan Russia: "Christianity was introduced by Vladimir I (reigned 980- 1015), who adopted(Abt 989) Greek Orthodoxy from the Byzantines."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol VIII, p720, Rurik Dynasty: "Svyatoslav's son Vladimir (Saint, reigned 980-1015) consolidated the dynasty's rule. Vladimir compiled the first Russian law code and introduced Christianity into the country. He also organized the Russian lands into a cohesive confederation by distributing the major cities among his sons; the eldest was to be Grand Prince of Kiev, and the brothers were to succeed each other, moving up the hierarchy of cities toward Kiev, filling vacancies left by the advancement or death of an elder brother. The youngest brother was to be succeeded as Grand Prince by his eldest nephew whose father had been a Grand Prince. This succession pattern was generally followed through the reigns of Svyatopolk (1015-1019); Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054); his sons Izyaslav (1054- 1068, 1069-1073, and 1077-1078), Svyatoslav (1073-1076), and Vsevolod (1078- 1093); and Svyatopolk II (son of Izyaslav, 1093-1113).
"The successions were accomplished, however, amid continual civil wars. In addition to the princes' unwillingness to adhere to the pattern and readiness to seize their positions by force instead, the system was upset whenever a city rejected the prince designated to rule it. It was also undermined by the tendency of the princes to settle in regions they ruled rather than move from city to city to become the Prince of Kiev..."

Vol X,p477, Vladimir I Saint: "Born Abt 956 Kiev, Died 15 Jul 1015 Berestova near Kiev, Grand Prince of Kiev and first Christian ruler in Russia, through whose military conquests the provinces of Kiev and Novgorod were consolidated into a single Russian state, and whose Byzantine baptism determined the direction of Christianity in Russia.
"Son of the Norman-Russian prince Svyatoslav of Kiev by one of his courtesans, in the Rurik lineage dominant from the 10th to the 13th centuries, Vladimir was made Prince of Novgorod in 970. On the death of his father in 972, he was forced to flee to Scandinavia where he enlisted help from an uncle and overcame Yaropolk, another son of Svyatoslav, who attempted to seize the duchy of Novgorod as well as Kiev. By 980 Vladimir had consolidated the Russian realm from the Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic, and Eastern nomads.
"Although Christianity in Kiev existedbefore Vladimir's time, he had remained a pagan, accumulated about seven wives, established temples and, it is said, taken part in idolatrous rites involving human sacrifice. With insurrections troubling Byzantium, the Emperor Basil II (976-1025) sought military aid from Vladimir, who agreed, in exchange for Basil's sister Anne in marriage. A pact was reached (Abt 987) when Vladimir also consented to the condition that he become a Christian. Having undergone baptism, assuming the Christian patronal name Basil, he stormed the Byzantine area of Chersonesus (Korsun, Ukraine) to eliminate Constantinople's final reluctance. Vladimir then ordered the Christian conversion of Kiev and Novgorod, where idols were cast into the Dnieper River after local resistance had been suppressed.
"The new Russian Christian worship adopted the Byzantine rite in the Old Slavonic language. The story (deriving from the 11th-century monk Jacob) that Vladimir chose the Byzantine riteover the litugies of German Christendom, Dudaism, and Islam because of its transcendent beauty is apparently mythically symbolic of his determination to remain independent of external politicalcontrol, particularly of the Germanic Goths. The Byzantines, however, maintained eccledsiastical control over the new Russian Church, appointing a Greek Metropolitan, or archbishop, for Kiev, who functioned both as legate of the patriarch of Constantinople and of the emperor. The Russian-Byzantine religio-political integration checked the influence of the Roman Latin Church in the Slavic East and determined the course of Russian Christianity, although Kiev exchanged legates with the papacy. Among the churches erected by Vladimir wasone in Kiev (designed by Byzantine architects and dedicated Abt 995 to `The Virgin Mother of God') that became the symbol of the Russian conversion. The expansion of education, judicial institutions, and aid to the poor were other legacies of the Christian Vladimir.
"A marriage, following the death of Anne (1011), affiliated Vladimir with the Holy Roman Emperors of the German Ottonian dynasty and produced a dqughter, who became the consort of Casimir I the Restorer of Poland (1016-1058). The Kiev Cycle of Russian legendary epic verse celebrates Vladimir's foundational deeds."

Macropaedia, Vol XVI, p40, Russia History of: "...The role of architect of the Kievan state fell to [Svyatoslav's] son Vladimir (Abt 980-10150,who establish- ed the dynastic seniority system of his clan as the political structure by which the scattered territories of Rus were to be ruled. He also promulgated the first code of law and invited or permitted the patriarch of Constantinople to establish an episcopal see in Rus in 988. Vladimir's reign inaugurated the golden century of Kievan life, and he has remained in later tradition a figure of heroic stature.
"Vladimir extended the realm to its natural limits (the watersheds of teh Don, Dnieper, Dniester, Neman, Western Dvina, and Upper Volga), destroyed or incorporated the remnants of competing Varangian organizations, and established regular relations with neighbouring dynasties...The political history ofRus is one of clashing separatist and centralizing trends inherent in the contradic- tion between local settlement and colonization, on the one hand, and the hegemony of the clan elder, ruling from Kiev, on the other. As Vladimir's 12 sons andinnumerable grandsons prospered in the rapidly developing territories they inherited, they and their retainers acquired settled interests that conflicted both with one another and with the interests of unity."

The Story of Civilization, Will Durant, Vol IV, The Age of Faith, Bk IV, The Dark Ages, Ch XVIII, The Byzantine World, Sec VII, The Birth of Russia, p448: "...With Vladimir (972-1015), fifth `Grand Duke of Kiev', Rus, as the new principality called itself, became Christian (989). Vladimir married the sister of the Emperor Basil II, and thereafter, till 1917, Russia, in religion, alphabet, coinage, and art, was a daughter of the Byzantium. Greek priests explained to Vladimir the divine origin and right of kings, andthe usefulness of this doctrine in promoting social order and right of kings, and the usefulness of this doctrine in promoting social order and monarchiacal stability..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10 952M-B6 Vladimir I "The Great" KIEV Grand Duke Born Abt 945 Died Berestovo 55yo 1015 Bur Chr of the Tithe Kiev, Ancestral File Ver 4.10 9570-P0 Born 960 (55yo- 1015).

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX
IGI Birth T990001-31-1126128NONE Vladimir V Grand Duke of E KIEV Father Svyatoslav Grand Duke of KIEV Mother Malusha Grand Duchess of KIEV 960 Kiyev Ukraine USSR.

   Marriage Information:

Saint married Grand Duchess Adlaga Olava KIEV about 976-977 in Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine.

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Princess Rogneda POLOTSK, daughter of Count Rognwald POLOTSK and Countess POLOTSK, about 977-978 in Polotsk, Polotsk, Byelorussia. (Princess Rogneda POLOTSK was born about 962 in Polotsk, Polotsk, Byelorussia and died in 1002.)

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Grand Duchess Predislava KIEV about 980 in Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine.

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Princess Milolika BULGARIA before 982-983 in Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine.

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Princess Malfriede BOHEMIA about 983-987 in Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine.

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Princess Anna Macedonia BYZANTIUM, daughter of Emperor Romanus BYZANTIUM, II and Empress Theophano BYZANTIUM, about 988-989 in Kherson, Kherson, Ukraine, Russia. (Princess Anna Macedonia BYZANTIUM was born on 13 Mar 963 in Constantinople, Byzantium, Turkey and died in 1011.)

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married Princess GERMANY, daughter of Emperor Otto II Germany HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE and Princess Theophano BYZANTIUM, about 1011. (Princess GERMANY was born about 985 in , , Germany.)

   Marriage Information:

Saint also married OECHLINGEN about 1013 in Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine.