Sviatoslav I

Sviatoslav I Igorevich Russian: Святослав Игоревич; Grand Prince of Kiev famous for his persistent campaigns in a east as alive as south, which precipitated a collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria as well as the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans in addition to attacked the Volga Bulgars, and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars Hungarians.

His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan any of his life. Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the almost part, were non consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to creation asuccession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed.

Death and aftermath

Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would non endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in brand with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs. According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise predominance and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts nearly Khortytsia early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions among his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and included in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.