Vladimir The Great

Vladimir The Great

Vladimir Sviatoslavich the Great (Old East Slavic: Володимѣръ Свѧтославичь Old Norse as Valdamarr Sveinaldsson, Russian: Влади́мир, Vladimir, Ukrainian: Володимир, Volodymyr,; c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestovo) was a grand prince of Kiev, ruler of Kievan Rus' in (980–1015).

Vladimir's father was the prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty. After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus. In Sweden with the help from his relative Ladejarl Håkon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk. By 980 Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern day Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic, and Eastern nomads. Originally a Slavic pagan, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988, and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.