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Updated: June 1, 2025
The citizens of Kief met in solemn and anxious assembly, and offered the crown to an illustrious noble, Monomaque, a brother of Sviatopolk, and a man who had acquired renown in many enterprises of most desperate daring. In truth it required energy and courage of no ordinary character for a man at that time to accept the crown.
Sviatopolk II. was driven to the humiliation of appearing to defend himself from accusation before the tribunal of his vassal princes. Monomaque and Mstislaf I., with imperial energy, brought all the vassal princes in subjection to their scepter, and reigned as monarchs.
Vlademer, the eldest son of Vsevolod, with great magnanimity surrendered the crown to his cousin Sviatopolk, saying, "His father was older than mine, and reigned at Kief before my father. I wish to avoid dissension and the horrors of civil war." He then proclaimed Sviatopolk sovereign of Russia.
Yaroslaf, who had been entrusted with the feudal government of Novgorod, being informed of the death of his father, of the usurpation of Sviatopolk and of the assassination of three of his brothers, raised an army of forty thousand men and marched upon Kief. Sviatopolk, informed of his approach, hastened, with all his troops to meet him.
The defeat was so awful that Sviatopolk was plunged into utter despair. Half dead with terror, tortured by remorse, and pursued by the frown of Heaven, he fled into the deserts of Bohemia, where he miserably perished, an object of universal execration. In the annals of Russia the surname of miserable is ever affixed to this infamous prince.
It would only weary the reader to endeavor to disentangle the labyrinth of confusion, and to describe the ebbings and floodings of battle. Every man's hand was against his neighbor; and friends to-day were foes to-morrow. Sviatopolk himself was one of the most imperfect of men. He was perfidious, ungrateful and suspicious; haughty in prosperity, mean and cringing in adversity.
Three times the deadly combat was renewed with redoubled ardor. The sky was illumined with the first rays of the morning when the battle commenced. The evening twilight was already darkening the field before the victory was decided. The hordes of the wretched Sviatopolk were then driven in rabble rout from the field, leaving the ground covered with the slain.
The young king was rash and headstrong. He provoked the ire of one of the strong neighboring provinces, which was under the sway of an energetic feudal prince, ostensibly a vassal of the crown, but who, in his pride and power, arrogated independence. The banners of a hostile army were soon approaching Kief. Sviatopolk marched heroically to meet them.
Yaroslaf, thus signally victorious, continued his march, without further opposition, to Kief, and entered the capital in triumph. Sviatopolk fled to Poland, secured the coöperation of the Polish king, whose daughter he had married, returned with a numerous army, defeated his brother in a sanguinary battle, drove him back to Novgorod, and again, with flying banners, took possession of Kief.
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