Empires Apart Read Online Free

Vladimir himself could not have seemed the most desirable of husbands. In a phrase that needs no translation he was described by the contemporary Bishop of Merseburg as a ‘fornicatur immensus’. Anna had no desire to go to Kiev as a hostage, whatever the diplomatic niceties implied by marriage. The one fact the conflicting accounts agree on is that she was a seriously reluctant bride. Nevertheless she was dispatched to Kherson by her brothers. According to tradition, when she arrived she found that Vladimir had been struck blind, although blind drunk seems more likely. Anna announced that he would never see daylight again unless he saw the light of Jesus Christ and embraced her religion as ardently as he wished to embrace her body. Vladimir converted on the spot, regaining his sight and gaining his bride.
    Once Vladimir and Anna were back in Kiev she set about the mass conversion of the Rus, starting with Vladimir’s already numerous children and proceeding to mass baptisms in the Dnieper. The huge statue of a Norse god that had dominated Kiev was torn down, churches were thrown up and Russia was placed firmly on the road to Orthodoxy. Thepicture of the redoubtable Anna bringing sanctity to the barbarian hordes of Rus is a romantic one. The story of the two sisters Theophano and Anna captured the imagination of the great eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon, who wrote movingly of the way these two eastern princesses changed their worlds. In reality virtually nothing is known about Anna’s life once she left Kherson to join her husband’s newly Christian harem. She probably died childless, but in legend she was the mother of Russia’s first two martyred saints, Boris and Gleb. And when, some generations later, the Muscovy princes laid claim to the title tsar, it was in part through Anna that the purple of Caesar was said to have passed from Rome via Byzantium to Kiev.
    Vladimir’s decision to follow Byzantium rather than Rome ensured that the final access route along which ‘western’ tradition, the heritage of the Roman empire, might pass had been blocked. Although Byzantium claimed to be the true guardian of that heritage it would itself be effectively snuffed out with the rise of Islam in the region, leaving Russian Christianity, like everything else in Russia, to develop along its own unique path.
    Within three centuries small bands of marauding Norsemen had transformed the peasant tribes along the Dnieper river into one of the most sophisticated societies in Europe. Indeed within two centuries of the Vikings’ arrival Kiev had blossomed into one of Europe’s leading cities. Four hundred churches loomed over the city, among them the famous cathedral modelled on, and named after, St Sophia in Constantinople. Dominating the major trading routes along the Dnieper between Europe and Asia, it was home to numerous rich merchants. There were no fewer than eight major markets, selling everything from the agricultural produce that provided the backbone of the local economy to furs such as sable and beaver.
    Rus was far from democratic, as slavery was still the foundation upon which economic life depended, but society was considerably less autocratic than in much of Europe. There were serfs, but unlike their western counterparts they were free to leave their land and move aroundthe country. Local assemblies consisting of all free adult males governed the towns. Most importantly the prince shared power not only with the great nobles but also with an increasingly important class of landed aristocracy. These ‘boyars’ were to be a crucial feature of Russian life for centuries to come.
    The influence of Kievan Rus was felt from the Baltic in the north to the Black Sea and the Byzantine empire in the south. Yaroslav the Wise, who ruled from 1019 to 1054, was one of the leading statesmen of Europe. The traditions of his people had, since the time of Attila, diverged widely from