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Some such influences as these, while Christianity as yet was only struggling for an uncertain existence at Kieff, produced in good time their effect on the wisest of the daughters of the Slavonians, the widowed princess Olga, who governed Russia during the minority of her son Sviatoslaf.
And though her son, the emperor Sviatoslaf, remained a pagan throughout his reign, Christianity continued to grow, and the general Christianization of Russia during the reign of her grandson, Vladimir, was aided materially by the great example of the good queen Olga. In 970 Sviatoslaf divided his empire among his three sons, Iaropolk I, Oleg, and Vladimir.
All the surrounding princes and nobles promptly gave in their adhesion to the victorious sovereign, and Sviatoslaf found that all his conquests had vanished as by magic from beneath his hand. Under these circumstances, Vsevelod and Sviatoslaf were both inclined to negotiation.
The motive assigned for the war, was to serve Christ, by the conversion of the infidel. The motives which influenced, were ambition, love of conquest and the desire to add to the opulence and the power of Russia. Vsevelod made grand preparations for this enterprise. Conferring with the warlike Sviatoslaf and other ambitious princes, a large army was collected at the head waters of the Volga.
He was stimulated, not satiated, by this success; and now planned another expedition still more perilous and grand. On the south of the Danube, near its mouth, was Bulgaria, a vast realm, populous and powerful, which had long bid defiance to all the forces of the Roman empire. The conquest of Bulgaria was an achievement worthy of the chivalry even of Sviatoslaf.
A few fugitives from the army of Sviatoslaf succeeded in reaching Kief, where they communicated the tidings of the death of the king. The empire now found itself divided into three portions, each with its sovereign. Yaropolk was supreme at Kief. Oleg reigned in the spacious country of the Drevliens. Vladimir was established at Novgorod.
Innumerable assailants would immediately fall upon him, putting to the most imminent peril not only the crown, but the head which wore it. By the Russian custom of descent, the crown incontestably belonged to the oldest son of Sviatoslaf, and Monomaque, out of regard to his rights, declined the proffered gift. This refusal was accompanied by the most melancholy results.
They hoped to cut off his retreat and thus secure the entire destruction of their formidable foe. The situation of Sviatoslaf was now desperate. Nothing remained for him but death. With the abandonment of despair he rushed into the thickest of the foe, and soon fell a mangled corpse.
As Sviatoslaf, with his shattered army, ascended the Dnieper in their boats, the Petchénègues, fierce tribes of barbarians, whom Sviatoslaf had subdued, rose in revolt against him. They gathered, in immense numbers, at one of the cataracts of the Dnieper, where it would be necessary for the Russians to transport their boats for some distance by land.
There were already a few Christians in Kief, but so unpopular was the new religion that Olga's son Sviatoslaf, upon reaching his majority, absolutely refused to make himself ridiculous by adopting his mother's faith. "My men will mock me," was his reply to Olga's entreaties, and Nestor adds "that he often became furious with her" for her importunity.
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