Svyatoslav Igorevich ℹ️ biography of the Kyiv prince, life, wife, children, politics and reforms, characteristics of activities and results of his reign

early years

The exact date of birth of Svyatoslav is unknown. It is believed that the prince was born between 930 and 942, with historians giving preference to the second date. Svyatoslav's father was Prince Igor, the son of the famous Rurik, the first prince of the ancient Russian state. Mother - Princess Olga, who went down in history as the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Orthodoxy.

Svyatoslav lost his father early - Igor died in 945 while collecting tribute from the Slavic tribe of the Drevlyans. According to the chronicles, the reason for the Drevlyan attack on Igor was the exorbitant tribute that the Kiev prince imposed on his Slavic neighbors. Immediately after the death of his father, the young prince became the formal ruler of the state, but in fact his mother, Princess Olga, had power.

Most of the prince's life was spent on military campaigns. According to legend, already at the age of 3 Svyatoslav took part in the famous campaign against the Drevlyans. Princess Olga, wanting to take revenge on the Drevlyans for the murder of her husband, went with an army to their capital Iskorosten. During this campaign, the young Svyatoslav made a symbolic throw of a spear towards the enemies, thereby announcing the beginning of the battle. Since then, war has become a common thing for the prince.

Death and memory

The biography of Svyatoslav Igorevich ends in March 972. The prince could not remain at the mouth of the Dnieper. Together with the army, the ruler tried to get through the Pecheneg ambush. This was a disastrous mistake, as the weakened fighters fell at the hands of the nomads. The Pechenegs brutally dealt with Svyatoslav:

“And Kurya, the prince of the Pechenegs, attacked him; and they killed Svyatoslav, and cut off his head, and made a cup out of the skull, bound the skull, and then drank from it.”

Death of Svyatoslav Igorevich
During his reign, the prince expanded the territory of the state and received the nickname Brave. Svyatoslav is called that way in historical references. The memory of Svyatoslav Igorevich still lives on. The image of the warrior prince was used in fiction and art. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first monument “Svyatoslav on the way to Tsargrad” appeared. The sculptures are located in Kyiv and Ukrainian regions.

Portrait of Svyatoslav Igorevich according to descriptions of contemporaries

A unique photo is available on the Internet. Masters, based on the descriptions of the prince’s contemporaries, created a portrait: a man of average height, snub nose, with thick eyebrows, blue eyes, a long mustache, a strong nape and a broad chest.

Prince's reign

As Svyatoslav grows up, he begins to take more and more part in government affairs. However, during his mother’s life, he was reluctant to deal with the administrative affairs of the principality, paying more attention to military campaigns. And there was a great need for this. The Russian state was surrounded by three main geopolitical rivals:

Byzantine Empire;
Khazar Khaganate;
Bulgarian kingdom.

In addition, on the borders of the Kyiv principality lived numerous uncontrolled tribes of Slavs and other nationalities, which Kyiv tried to subjugate. One of these was the Vyatichi tribe.

First campaigns

The vast territories of the Vyatichi extended along the eastern border of the Principality of Kyiv, in the area of the upper reaches of the Oka and Desna rivers to modern Ryazan in the East. The main occupation of the Vyatichi was hunting and gathering (mushrooms, berries). Agriculture began to develop. Fur, which was obtained by Vyatichi hunters, served as the main commodity for trade.

The prince began his campaign against the Vyatichi in 964. This choice was not accidental. The Vyatichi paid tribute to another major rival of the Rus - the Khazar Kaganate. And the desire to wrest the Vyatichi from the control of the Khazars was quite natural. In addition, beyond the lands of the Vyatichi in the east was the territory of the Volga Bulgaria, also tributaries of the Khazar Kaganate. The Bulgars controlled the trade route along the Volga and could obstruct Russian merchants.

Russian chronicles do not preserve any special evidence of the results of these campaigns. It is only known that the Vyatichi stopped paying tribute to the Khazars, but this happened after Svyatoslav’s conquest of the Kaganate. As for Volga Bulgaria, the stories of Arab chroniclers indicate that this land was subjected to devastation and ruin. However, the Bulgar state itself survived and existed for several more centuries.

Most historians agree that these first campaigns were a preliminary stage to a more important future war with the Khazar Khaganate.

War with the Khazars

The Khazar Khaganate, which occupied a vast territory from the foothills of the Caucasus in the south to the Volga-Don interfluve in the north , was a long-time enemy of the Russian principality . By the middle of the 10th century, the Khazar Kaganate no longer had the greatness that once made the inhabitants of its neighboring countries tremble. On the contrary, Islamic influence actively penetrated into the Kaganate from the south and east, undermining the foundations of the Khazar statehood.

Svyatoslav began his campaign against the Khazars around 965. Historians do not agree on the exact date. It is believed that one of the reasons for the war was the request of the Byzantine Empire, which was also in a state of hostility with the Kaganate. Whether this is true or not, Svyatoslav clearly had a desire to undermine the weakened Khazars. At the same time, relations between Kyiv and Byzantium were different. With equal success, the Rus both fought and made friends with Constantinople, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that Princess Olga adopted Orthodoxy precisely according to the Byzantine tradition.

During the Khazar campaigns, significant territories were conquered. In the bend of the Don, the northern outpost of the Khazars, the Sarkel fortress, was taken. Renamed Belaya Vezha, this city became the center of a remote Russian principality. In the lower reaches of the Volga, the capital of the Khazars, the city of Itil, was captured and devastated. Then Syatoslav turned his gaze to the lands of Kuban. Here, on the territory of the Taman Peninsula, as a result of Svyatoslav’s campaigns, the Russian Tmutarakan principality was formed.

And although the Russian army did not inflict a final defeat on the Khazars, the influence of the Kyiv principality in the southern territories increased many times over.

Bulgaria and Byzantium

The western vector of Svyatoslav's foreign policy was associated with opposition to Byzantium and the Bulgarian Empire . This state, once formed by settlers from Volga Bulgaria, was at the peak of its power in the first half of the 10th century. The Byzantine Empire even paid tribute to the Bulgarians at one time. However, by the middle of the 10th century, internal unrest and raids by the Hungarians undermined the former greatness of the Bulgarians.

The war with Bulgaria was not started by Svyatoslav on his own initiative. Byzantine roots are seen in the origins of the Russian-Bulgarian confrontation. Byzantium was afraid to enter into confrontation, so it decided to attract the Rus, promising Svyatoslav economic benefits. The Byzantine ambassador personally promised the Kyiv prince a gift of almost half a ton of gold.

The campaign against the Bulgarian kingdom began around 968. At first, the Russians enjoyed military success. Svyatoslav took many cities on the Danube and defeated the Bulgars in the Battle of Dorostol. The prince even planned to move the capital to the territory of the Bulgarian kingdom. But while Svyatoslav was in Bulgaria, a disaster occurred on his native Kyiv soil. The nomadic tribes of the Pechenegs, who occupied the northern Black Sea region, invaded the Russian land and besieged Kyiv. Svyatoslav had to urgently return with an army to his homeland and recapture the besieged capital, where his elderly mother, Princess Olga, was located.

There is an opinion that the Pechenegs’ campaign against Kyiv was initiated by the Byzantines. Constantinople feared increased Russian influence in Bulgaria. And these fears were quite justified. Having conquered Bulgaria, Svyatoslav began to make military plans against the Byzantines. In 970, the Russian army marched further south.

The Byzantine company turned out to be unsuccessful for Svyatoslav. During the battle of Arcadiopolis (120 km from Constantinople), the main forces of the Russian army were defeated. Svyatoslav was forced to retreat to Bulgaria, but the following summer the Byzantines inflicted another defeat on the Rus. The Russian army was besieged for three months in the Dorostol fortress. Seeing no prospects for a further war with the Byzantines, Svyatoslav asked for peace.

In 971, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which the parties pledged not to fight each other, and previous trade relations were restored. The Byzantine company became the last military campaign of Svyatoslav Igorevich.

Death of the ruler

In the autumn of 971, Svyatoslav and the remnants of his army returned to their native land from Bulgaria. His journey home was to take place on boats along the Dnieper upstream. But the prince decided not to rush to Kyiv and stopped for the winter in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. He was warned that upstream in the area of the rapids the Pechenegs were robbing him. In the spring of 972, Svyatoslav continued his journey, but the treacherous Pechenegs were again waiting for the Rus at the doorsteps. The prince and the soldiers accompanying him were killed. Thus ended the reign of Syatoslav.

Svyatoslav

Svyatoslav Igorevich , Grand Duke of Kiev, circa 940-972; his mother, Olga, ruled during his childhood, Svyatoslav’s educator was Asmud, and the governor was Sveneld. Invited by the Byzantine emperor to help against the Danube Bulgarians, in alliance with the Hungarians and Pechenegs he captured Bulgarian land and became dangerous to Byzantium. He was distracted by sending the Pechenegs to Kyiv. In 971, Svyatoslav again appeared in Bulgaria, but Emperor John Tzimiskes forced him to make peace. On the way to Kyiv, Svyatoslav tried to break through the Pecheneg detachments that occupied the rapids of the Dnieper, but was killed. Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron

Svyatoslav Igorevich (birth year unknown - died 972 or 973), Grand Duke of Kiev (about 945-972), commander. Under him, until 969, the Kyiv state was largely ruled by his mother, Princess Olga, since Svyatoslav Igorevich spent almost his entire life on campaigns. In 964-966. Svyatoslav Igorevich freed the Vyatichi from the power of the Khazars and subjugated them to Kyiv. In the 60s X century defeated the Khazar Kaganate and destroyed the Khazar cities of Sarkel (on the Don) and Itil, the capital of the Kaganate. He fought with the Volga-Kama Bulgarians and took their capital on the Volga. In the North Caucasus, Svyatoslav Igorevich captured the Khazar fortress of Semender, defeated the Yasses and Kasogs. In 967 or 968, using the proposal of Byzantium, which sought to weaken its neighbors Rus' and Bulgaria by pitting them against each other, Svyatoslav Igorevich invaded Bulgaria and settled at the mouth of the Danube, in Pereyaslavets. The Byzantine government, in order to prevent the establishment of Svyatoslav Igorevich in Bulgaria, sent the Pechenegs to Kyiv. Svyatoslav Igorevich returned to defend the capital, but, having repulsed the Pechenegs, he again came to Bulgaria. Around 971, in alliance with the Bulgarians and Hungarians, he began to fight with Byzantium. After a battle with a superior Byzantine army at Bolshoi Preslav and Dorostol, having withstood a 3-month siege with his army, Svyatoslav Igorevich concluded peace with Emperor John I Tzimiskes in 971. On the way back to Kyiv, Svyatoslav Igorevich died at the Dnieper rapids in a battle with the Pechenegs, who had been warned by the Byzantine government about his return.

Literature:

Rybakov B. A., Ancient Rus'. Tales. Epics. Chronicles. M., 1963.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Svyatoslav Igorevich (?-972) - Grand Duke of Kiev, Prince of Novgorod (964-972), commander, son of Prince Igor Rurikovich and Princess Olga.

After the death of his father, who was killed by the Drevlyans in 945, Svyatoslav remained in the arms of his mother; his educators were the “breadwinner” Asmud, close to the princely throne, and the governor Sveneld.

In 945, Olga, having decided to take revenge on the Drevlyans for the death of her husband, took with her little Svyatoslav, who grew up among the warriors. Sitting on a horse at the head of the squad, he threw a spear towards the enemies. It flew between the horse's ears and fell at his feet. The action of the little prince inspired the warriors (“The prince has already begun the battle, let’s follow him, squad!”) and the Russians won the battle. The chronicler presents Svyatoslav as a man who loved military affairs.

From 964 he ruled independently. Leaving his mother, Princess Olga, to rule Kiev, Svyatoslav went on a campaign already in 965 and subsequently spent most of his life in campaigns and battles, only occasionally, mainly in critical situations, visiting the capital city and his mother.

At the beginning of 965, having conquered the lands of the Vyatichi (ancestors of modern Muscovites), he moved further to the southeast to the Khazar Kaganate and Volga Bulgaria. The lands of the Vyatichi, as well as the territory he conquered along the Desna River, gave him the opportunity to control the Great Volga Route, which connected Scandinavia, Rus' and Central Asia.

Having crossed the Volga, he won victories one after another for several years. He conquered the main Khazar citadel - the Sarkel fortress (Belaya Vezha) on the Don and the capital of the Kaganate, the city of Itil (near modern Astrakhan, in the lower reaches of the Volga), then sharply turned south and reached the Cimmerian Bosporus.

Having put an end to the Khazars by capturing their Semender fortress in the North Caucasus, Svyatoslav defeated the Yas and Kasog tribes (the ancestors of modern Cherks and Ossetians) there who tried to resist him. Even then, Svyatoslav became famous for the fact that, before attacking the enemy, he sent a messenger ahead with the words: “I’m coming to you!” (that is, “I’m coming at you!”).

Having seized the initiative in armed conflicts, Svyatoslav quickly led the offensive and thereby achieved success. The Tale of Bygone Years says that “he moved and walked like a pardus (that is, a cheetah), and fought a lot. On campaigns, he did not carry carts or cauldrons with him, did not cook meat, but thinly sliced horse meat, or animal meat, or beef and, roasting it on coals, ate it. He didn’t even have a tent, but he slept with his saddle cloth over his head. All his other warriors were the same.”

At the end of the 950s. Together with his mother, Princess Olga, he visited the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople (Constantinople). The chronicler reports that the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus was struck by the simplicity and modesty of the appearance of the prince-hero. According to the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, the prince was “of medium height and very slender, had a broad chest, a flat nose, blue eyes and a long shaggy mustache. The hair on his head was cut, with the exception of one curl - a sign of noble birth; in one ear hung a gold earring decorated with a ruby and two pearls. The prince's whole appearance was something gloomy and stern. His white clothes only differed from other Russian [clothes] in their cleanliness.” The only measure of the correctness of actions for Svyatoslav was the opinion of his squad, the ideal was the glory of a selflessly brave warrior who never changed the opinion of the “rada” (council) of his soldiers. Having received baptism, Svyatoslav’s mother tried to persuade her son to also accept Christianity, but he refused. The chronicle put the following words into his mouth: “How can I alone accept a different faith? My squad will mock,” and he remained a pagan.

In 967, the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes, concerned about the successes of the Russian troops and trying to weaken his neighbors, conspired with the nomadic Pecheneg tribe.

Just at this time, Svyatoslav with a squad of 10 thousand soldiers invaded Bulgaria and defeated the army of the Bulgarian Tsar Peter. He had already reached the mouth of the Danube, where he “set up” the city of Pereyaslavets (Maly Pereslav). The location of this city struck him so much that he set out to make this city the capital of all Rus' and, according to the chronicler, he told his mother: “I don’t like to sit in Kyiv, I want to live in Pereyaslavets on the Danube - there is the middle of my land! Everything good comes there: gold, drags, wines and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from the Czech Republic and Hungary, furs and wax, honey and fish from Rus'.” There is evidence that he even sat down to reign in Pereyaslavets and then “received the first tribute from the Greeks.”

However, having received news of Svyatoslav’s establishment in Bulgaria, Byzantium in 968 forced the Pechenegs to attack Kyiv. Svyatoslav had to leave Bulgaria and hasten to defend the city where his mother ruled. The Pechenegs were “finished off in the field,” but Svyatoslav did not forget the treachery of Byzantium.

In 968, having buried his mother, Svyatoslav handed over the internal affairs of his state to his grown-up sons. He gave Kyiv to his son Yaropolk (born from his first wife - the daughter or sister of the Hungarian king, and according to other sources - the Kiev boyar - Predslava). The second son, the illegitimate son of Vladimir (nicknamed in the future the Red Sun, whose mother was Malushi or Malfred, the daughter of the Drevlyan prince Mal, the former housekeeper of the princess), was assigned to Novgorod. The third son, Oleg (from his wife Esther, daughter of Prince Oleg of Dregovich), received the Drevlyan lands (now the area of modern Chernobyl) for management.

In 970, Svyatoslav began a new military campaign. With a large army (about 60 thousand) he went to Bulgaria, where he set the task of concluding an agreement with the Bulgarians and with the Hungarians against Byzantium. According to the testimony of the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, in order to bring the rebellious into obedience, he impaled 20 thousand prisoners, thereby horrifying the Bulgarians, and everyone obeyed him. He took Philippopolis (Plovdiv) with a victorious march, crossed the Balkans, conquered Macedonia, devastated Thrace and approached Constantinople. John I Tzimiskes organized the defense. After bloody battles, Svyatoslav’s troops with the Byzantine army near Greater Preslav and Dorostol and Svyatoslav’s 3-month siege of enemy fortifications, both sides suffered heavy losses, but in June 971 he still took the Byzantine fortifications. It was during those battles that Svyatoslav, according to legend, said to his squad: “We will not disgrace the Russian land, but we will lie here as bones, for the dead are not ashamed. If we run, it will be a shame for us.” In one of the battles, Svyatoslav was seriously wounded, lost a lot of blood, and was almost captured. Being forced to make peace with Byzantium, he and the remnants of his squad went home. At the Dnieper rapids, he met for the last time with the Pechenegs, warned by Byzantium about his return, and died in a battle with the Pecheneg prince Kurem near the island of Khortitsa. The prince's body was captured by the Pechenegs, and from his skull, bound in gold, they made a bowl for feasts. Of the huge army that left Bulgaria, only a quarter of it returned to Rus' (according to legend, about 22 thousand soldiers).

Although the Balkan conquests by Russia were eventually lost, Byzantium nevertheless undertook, after Svyatoslav’s campaigns, to provide a free trade regime for Rus'.

After the campaigns of Svyatoslav 965-972. The territory of Rus' increased sharply, stretching from the Middle Volga region to the Caspian Sea and further along the North Caucasus and the Black Sea region to the Balkan lands of Byzantium. Volga Bulgaria was defeated, Khazaria was completely defeated, Byzantium was weakened and frightened. Rus' gained the opportunity to conduct extensive trade with the East. Russian military and trading outposts arose at different ends of the coast of the Russian (now Black) Sea. The outermost of them were Tmutarakan (now Taman) and Pereyaslavets. The border of Rus' was very close to Byzantium.

Historians give contradictory characterizations of Svyatoslav’s actions. Some emphasize his thoughtless desire to seize foreign lands. Their opinion coincides with the attitude of some contemporaries from his circle towards Svyatoslav’s campaigns: “You, prince, are looking for a foreign land!” - the chronicler quotes them as saying. S. M. Solovyov, who represented the “state school” in Russian historiography, wrote that in the chronicle Svyatoslav is presented as “the image of a warrior who, with his selected squad, left his native land for distant exploits, glorious for him and useless for his native land.” A number of scientists note the prince’s desire to strengthen and elevate Rus' and strengthen its international position (B. A. Rybakov, A. N. Sakharov). They emphasize that Svyatoslav defeated Volga Bulgaria, completely defeated Khazaria, weakened the powerful Byzantium, founded military and trading outposts, they emphasize that these victories were thought out, prepared and skillfully carried out by him not for the sake of satisfying personal ambition, but were a response to the challenge of the time - the desire Byzantium pushes Rus' away from the shores of the Black Sea. One thing is indisputable: Svyatoslav was a successful commander and a prominent statesman for his time, who sought to strengthen the international position of Rus'.

Archaeologists suggest that several ancient swords with a silver pattern on the handles, found during the construction of Dneprostroy in 1933 at the bottom of the Dnieper, belonged to Svyatoslav’s soldiers. Lev Pushkarev

Literature:

The Tale of Bygone Years. T. 1-2. M.-L., 1950;
Bogdanov A.P. Svyatoslav. M., 1992;
Rybakov B. A. Ancient Rus'. Tales. Epics. Chronicles. M., 1963;
Ryzhov K. All the monarchs of the world, Russia. M., 1998;
Sakharov A. N. Diplomacy of Svyatoslav. M., 1991;

Encyclopedia "Around the World" Svyatoslav Igorevich - Grand Duke of Kiev. The chronicle dates the birth of Svyatoslav to 942. At the time of his father’s death, Svyatoslav was still a baby and the management of the principality during his childhood was in the hands of his mother Olga. Svyatoslav's teacher was Asmud, and the governor was Sveneld. As soon as Svyatoslav matured, he discovered the typical features of a warrior prince; Zemstvo affairs interested him little; he was drawn to military enterprises in distant lands. Of the Slavic tribes east of the Dnieper, only the Vyatichi were at that time outside the influence of the Kyiv princes and paid tribute to the Khazars. Because of the Vyatichi, Svyatoslav entered into a fight with the Khazars and penetrated the Volga and even into the Ciscaucasia, where he encountered the Yases and Kasogs. Then Svyatoslav turned his attention to the South - to Danube Bulgaria. The initiative in this enterprise of Svyatoslav came from the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros Phocas, who, wanting to protect Byzantium from dangerous neighbors - the Bulgarians, sent to Svyatoslav a proposal to attack Bulgaria. Svyatoslav came to Bulgaria with his allies - the Hungarians, Pechenegs and others - as a friend of Byzantium. The success of Svyatoslav’s campaign was enormous; he occupied a number of Bulgarian cities and began to strive for complete possession of Bulgaria. The Greeks soon felt that they had acquired an even more dangerous neighbor in him. Then Nikifor sent the Pechenegs to Kyiv, and Svyatoslav had to return to his fatherland, but already in 971, having planted his sons in Rus', he again appeared in Bulgaria. Meanwhile, Nikephoros Phocas' successor, John Tzimiskes, made peace with the Bulgarians and Svyatoslav had to deal with both the Greeks and the Bulgarians; although there was a Russian party in Bulgaria, the movement against Svyatoslav was strong. To break the Greeks, Svyatoslav moved beyond the Balkans and was initially successful, but then had to make peace with the Greeks and leave Bulgaria. He went in boats to the Dnieper rapids, but the rapids were occupied by the Pechenegs. Svyatoslav waited until spring and again tried to pass the rapids, but was killed in a battle with the Pechenegs, who, according to legend, made his cup from his skull (972).

https://rulex.ru/01180088.htm

Svyatoslav Igorevich (died in 972). A brave warrior, according to the chronicler, who openly challenged his enemies: “I’m coming to you!”, Svyatoslav made a number of successful campaigns. He freed the Vyatichi tribe, who lived in the Oka basin, from paying tribute to the Khazars, defeated the Volga Bulgarians and the powerful Khazar Khaganate, making a victorious campaign in 965 on the Lower Volga, the Northern Caucasus and the Azov region.

In the last years of his reign, Svyatoslav actively intervened in the war of Byzantium with the Danube Bulgarians who rebelled against its rule and won a victory over them. The Byzantine Emperor John Tzimiskes, alarmed that Svyatoslav was seeking to gain a foothold in the Danube cities, attacked the Russian squads, besieged them in Dorostol and forced them to accept battle. The Greeks were defeated, and Svyatoslav moved towards Constantinople. The emperor had to pay off with generous gifts. Having concluded peace, the prince decided to return to Kyiv for new wars. But at the Dnieper rapids Svyatoslav was waylaid and killed by the Pechenegs. The Pecheneg prince ordered a cup to be made from his skull.

Heritage and interesting facts

The main results of the prince’s activities as head of state can be considered:

victory over the Khazar Khaganate;
expansion of the territory of the state;
development of trade relations with neighboring countries.

In the description of the era of Prince Svyatoslav, there are many ambiguities, inaccuracies and chronological confusion. Particularly interesting facts from his biography include:

The dual role of the Pechenegs in the military campaigns of Svyatoslav. There is evidence that the nomads acted as allies during the campaign against the Khazars and the Byzantines. Moreover, in the last campaign the Pechenegs lost a significant number of their soldiers. At the same time, they attacked Kyiv and led to the death of Svyatoslav himself. From whose skull, according to legend, a wine cup was made.
The appearance of the prince. Modern idea of the correspondence of the image of the prince to the appearance of the Zaporozhye Cossack of the 15th-17th centuries. considered by many to be political speculation. And the translation of the Byzantine chronicle, which gives such a description, is considered inaccurate by historians. Supporters of this image believe that this look was natural for the Russian nobility of that time. An indirect confirmation of this can be the fact that some images of his son, Prince Vladimir, which survived thanks to the first coins minted in Kyiv, also contain a long mustache.
Well, perhaps the most famous thing that history buffs remember: Svyatoslav Igorevich briefly uttered the famous words “The dead have no shame!” I’m coming at you!” This happened during the battle with the Byzantines. For many centuries, these words became the motto of the fearlessness of Russian soldiers.

Despite the fact that more than 1000 years have passed since the time of Prince Svyatoslav, interest in his person does not fade. The theme of Ancient Rus' is still relevant and in demand. Many scientific and popular publications, articles, and documentaries are devoted to the personality of the prince. The biography of Svyatoslav is presented in quite detail on Wikipedia. In short, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, unlike his predecessors, became the first Russian ruler to demonstrate high military valor and lay down the cultural code of the Russian warrior.

Beginning of reign

The Tale of Bygone Years says that Svyatoslav Igorevich’s first campaign took place in 964. The main goal of the ruler was to strike at the Khazar Kaganate. The prince did not become distracted by the Vyatichi people he met along the way. The attack on the Khazars occurred a year later - in 965. The chronicle says the following about this:

“In the summer of 6473 (965) Svyatoslav went against the Khazars. Having heard it, the Khazars came out to meet him with their prince Kagan and agreed to fight, and in the battle Svyatoslav defeated the Khazars, and took their city and the White Vezha. And he defeated the Yasov Ikasogs.”

It is interesting that Svyatoslav’s contemporary presents events in a different way. Ibn-Haukal claimed that the prince dealt with the Khazars later than the time indicated in the chronicle.

Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich

A contemporary recalled other military actions against Volga Bulgaria, but such information is not available in official sources. This is what Ibn Haukal said:

“Bulgar is a small city, it does not have numerous districts, and was known for being a port for the states mentioned above, and the Rus devastated it and came to Khazaran, Samandar and Itil in the year 358 (968/969) and set off immediately after to the country of Rum and Andalus... And al-Khazar is a side, and there is a city in it called Samandar, and it is in the space between it and Bab al-Abwab, and there were numerous gardens in it... but then the Rus came there, and not There are neither grapes nor raisins left in that city.”

In 965, Svyatoslav Igorevich arrives in Sarkel on the Don. Several battles were required to conquer this city. But the ruler did not celebrate the victory for long, as Itil, the main city of the Khazar Kaganate, appeared on the way. The conqueror got another settlement - Semender. This glorious city is located on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Map of the territories of Svyatoslav Igorevich in 970

The Khazar Khaganate fell to the onslaught of Svyatoslav, but this was not enough for the ruler. The prince tried to conquer and secure these lands for himself. Soon Sarkel was renamed Belaya Vezha. According to some reports, in the same years Kyiv received Tmutarakan. It is believed that they managed to retain power until the early 980s.