IEU'S FEATURED TOPIC IN UKRAINIAN HISTORY

VOLODYMYR THE GREAT (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives. In 969 Prince Sviatoslav I named Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus' with a Varangian force, captured Kyiv, and had Yaropolk murdered. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981-2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes under his rule. In 983 he subdued the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr thus became one of the most powerful rulers in Europe...

CHRISTIANIZATION OF UKRAINE. Christianity was known on the present territory of Ukraine as early as the first century AD. At first Christianity won converts among the Greek colonists who settled the northern coasts of the Black Sea. After capturing Kyiv in 860, the princes Askold and Dyr are said to have embraced Christianity. During the reign of Prince Oleh the pagan reaction suppressed Christianity, but it did not disappear completely. After Prince Ihor's death in 945 his wife, Princess Olha, was baptized (most likely in Kyiv in 955). Her son Sviatoslav I remained a pagan, but his sons Yaropolk and Oleh were probably Christians. At first the Grand Prince, Volodymyr the Great, was the leader of the pagan movement in Kyiv, but, having concluded that the new faith would strengthen the state and increase its prestige among his Christian neighbors, he adopted Christianity and christened all his people. The christening was probably carried out either by priests from Chersonese Taurica who knew the Slavic language or by priests from Tmutorokan...

PRINCESS OLHA (Ol'ha; Olga; Norse: Helga), b ca 890, d 11 July 969 in Kyiv. Kyivan Rus' princess and Orthodox saint; wife of Prince Ihor and mother of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych; grandmother of Volodymyr the Great. Olha was Sviatoslav's regent during his minority (945-57) and his later military campaigns. After Ihor's death she subdued the rebellious Derevlianians and avenged his slaying. She expanded and strengthened the central power of Kyiv. In foreign affairs she was mainly concerned with political relations with Constantinople. Olha was the first Kyivan Rus' ruler to become a Christian. Some scholars claim she was baptized in 955 in Constantinople. Others contend she was baptized in Kyiv before her trip to Constantinople in 957. Olha urged Sviatoslav I Ihorovych to become a Christian, but he remained a pagan. He allowed a Christian community to develop in Kyiv, however, thereby paving the way for the Christianization of Ukraine by his son and Olha's grandson, Volodymyr the Great. Volodymyr had Olha's remains reburied in Kyiv's Church of the Tithes...

BYZANTINE EMPIRE. Byzantium was originally a Greek colony, founded ca 660 BC on the European side of the Bosporus. In 326 Constantinople was built on the site of Byzantium, and in 330 the city became the capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, which endured until 1453 and played an important role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Near East. Byzantine chronicles mention Rus' attacks in about 842 and a Rus' siege of Constantinople in 860. In the 10th century relations between Rus' and Byzantium intensified. The Christianization of Ukraine was facilitated by the trade between Rus' and Byzantium, conducted along the Varangian route, and by the Byzantine colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea, such as Chersonese Taurica. With Volodymyr the Great's adoption of Christianity in 988-9 Ukraine came under Byzantine religious influence. Like other southeastern European nations it inherited from Byzantium not only the Christian faith but also its culture. For almost 700 years (until 1686) the Ukrainian Orthodox church remained under the canonic jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople...

SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS. Byzantine theologians and missionaries. They learned Macedonian in Salonika, where their father was a governor. Saint Cyril was ordained in 848 and began his missionary work in 851. He traveled to the Arabs in the Near East and then, with his brother, Saint Methodius, to the Khazars (860-1); they stopped in Chersonese Taurica in the Crimea, where they reputedly discovered a copy of the Scriptures and Psalms in the Rus' language. In 863 Cyril and Methodius traveled to Moravia at the invitation of Prince Rostislav in order to give the Slavic converts to Christianity a liturgy and scriptures in their vernacular. Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet--the oldest Slavic alphabet--and proceeded to translate church books, beginning with the Scriptures. The language that he used (and, to a large extent, created to serve the translation needs) is now known as Old Church Slavonic; it consists of a mixture of Macedonian dialect and the language of Moravia's Slavic inhabitants. With the Christianization of Ukraine, Church Slavonic was adopted as the church and literary language...

CHURCH OF THE TITHES (Desiatynna tserkva). The first and largest stone church in Kyiv and the burial place of the Kyivan princes. Dedicated to the Dormition, it was built by Byzantine and Rus' artisans between 989 and 996 amid the palaces of Prince Volodymyr the Great, who set aside a tithe of his income for its construction and maintenance (hence the name). The church was besieged and ruined in 1240 by Batu Khan's Mongol horde. In the early 17th century, under Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, the smaller, wooden Saint Nicholas's Church was built on a portion of the site. Between 1828 and 1842 the Russian administration leveled the remaining ruins and erected a new stone church. Its Russian style had nothing in common with that of the original structure. In 1935 Soviet authorities dismantled the 19th-century church. Excavations of the foundations of the original church indicate that it was a three-nave structure with six pillars and wide, covered galleries on the sides. It occupied an area of approx 1,700 sq m. Its numerous cupolas in cruciform arrangement distinguished it from Byzantine prototypes and made it a model in the further development of Ukrainian architecture...