Perun's Lightning

Sviatoslav's blood-drenched dream of empire

Sviatoslav the Brave was cast in the mold of the old warlords; pagan, ruthless, austere, and ambitious. Sitting as he did at the headwaters of Eurasian trade, Sviatoslav dreamed of following the riverine highways south to the heady Orient, his armies sweeping all before him and forging a global superpower in his image, under the watchful eyes of Perun and Veles, the gods of his ancestors. His reign would transform the Rus and their neighbors in an orgy of violence. 

Sviatoslav’s father, Igor, died when he was an infant. Reared in the court of his mother and witness to the many insecurities of her lone rule, Sviatoslav embraced the company of warriors. Tutored by a Norse intellectual named Asmund & surrounded by his armed retinue, Sviatoslav championed his peers' paganism & warlike disposition. When Olga converted to Christianity and asked her son to follow her, he balked, claiming it would ruin his reputation in his warband. War was Sviatolsav’s great love and he suffered much for it. The Primary Chronicle highlights Sviatoslav’s enthusiasm for war with;

“Stepping light as a leopard, he undertook many campaigns. Upon his expeditions, he carried with him neither wagons nor kettles, and boiled no meat, but cut off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef, and ate it after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, but he spread out a horse blanket under him and set his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.”

Sviatoslav’s willingness to endure the tribulations of war and share hardships with his warriors defined his rule and earned him the unshakable loyalty of his men.

Svaitoslav & his warband

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Soon after his coronation in 964 AD, Sviatoslav made ready for war. Unwilling to accept Khazar domination of the Volga River and possibly supported by Byzantine gold, Sviatoslav began a push East. Many Slavic tribes east of Kiev paid tribute to the Khazars instead of the Kievan Rus. Sviatoslav convinced many to join him and pay tribute to him instead. Some tribes, like the Vyatichs, resisted. Sviatoslav sent them a simple message, “I want to come at you!”

The Vyatichs were crushed and forced to pay tribute to Sviatoslav. Sviatoslav then moved north into the lands of the Mordvins and Volga Bulgars. Sviatoslav defeated both with the help of Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries, capable steppe riders who countered Bulgar & Khazar cavalry. After defeating the Volga Bulgars, Sviatoslav moved downriver to Sarkel, the wealthy trade town on the Don River. Sviatoslav destroyed the city in 965. Sarkel was renamed Belaya Vezha (White Fortress/Tower) and resettled with Slavic people. Sviatoslav then moved on to Atil, the capital of the Khazars and a city of impressive wealth thanks to the lucrative Volga and steppe trade routes that passed through it. Sviatoslav leveled Atil, massacring the inhabitants of the great city.

The Khazar fortress of Sarkel. The fortress was built with Byzantine aid in the 9th century to protect the vital Don-Volga portage against Magyar or Rus attacks.

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So complete was the destruction of Atil that a visitor remarked, “no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch.” Sviatoslav continued his campaign into the Khazar heartland North of the Caucasus but did not impose his rule, allowing Khazar statelets to survive.

Sviatoslav’s march down the Volga shattered Khazar power permanently. It also led to Rus domination and settlement of the area. Control of the lucrative trade that passed through the Volga River Valley provided the Rus with great wealth.

After Sviatoslav’s campaign on the Volga he was approached by Kalokyros, a representative of the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas. Nikephoros proposed that Sviatoslav invade Bulgaria in order to assist the Byzantines in their war with Boris II.

Nikephoros offered Sviatoslav 1,500 pounds of gold for his assistance but demanded that all Bulgarian territory Sviatoslav seized would be turned over to the Byzantines. Sviatoslav agreed and set out with an army of 60,000 men, according to Byzantine sources.

In the spring of 968 Sviatoslav met a Bulgarian army of 30,000 at the fortress of Silistra. The battle continued until nightfall, the Bulgarians having the upper hand. Eventually, buoyed by Sviatoslav’s personal heroics and their greater numbers, the Rus turned the tide and won. Sviatoslav then swept across Northern Bulgaria, looting or destroying 80 towns, and gutting the Bulgarian heartland. Sviatoslav wintered at Pereyaslavets, only leaving when the Pechenegs attacked Olga and his children in Kiev.

Coveting the rich lands of the Balkans, Sviatoslav let regents rule on behalf of his three sons in the Rus heartland and returned to Bulgaria in the summer of 969 at the head of a large army. Sviatoslav quickly recaptured Pereyaslavets and Tsar Boris II along with it. Boris was released and allowed to rule Bulgaria as Sviatoslav’s vassal. In reality, he was no more than a puppet; Rus soldiers garrisoned the fortress of Dorostolon and the Bulgarian capital of Preslav. Sviatoslav ruled lightly and forbade his men from looting towns that surrendered peacefully. Many Bulgarians joined Sviatoslav’s army.

The Kievan Rus (Red), the Byzantine Empire (Purple), and Sviatoslav’s Campaigns (Orange)

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Nikephoros’s scheme had failed disastrously. Instead of weakening Bulgaria, Nikephoros created a monster. Sviatoslav’s empire posed a much more significant threat than that of Boris and Sviatoslav refused to turn over the Bulgarian territory the agreement demanded. Not satisfied with Bulgaria, Sviatoslav eyed Byzantium greedily. After Nikephoros’s assassination, Emperor John Tzimiskes attempted to negotiate with Sviatoslav. Sviatoslav demanded an obscene amount of gold and the Byzantine evacuation of Europe for peace.

Tzimiskes, busy with rebellions in Anatolia, entrusted the war to his brother-in-law, Bardas Skleros, the same Bardas who rebelled against Basil II. In early 970, Sviatoslav marched south at the head of a massive army and razed Phillippopolis, modern Plovdiv. Leo the Deacon claims Sviatoslav impaled 20,000 people after taking the city. This is probably an exaggeration, but a testament to the brutality of the campaign. Bardas, outnumbered by the Rus, met them near Arcadiopolis. Bardas had wisely deployed spies to assess the strength of the Rus and anticipate their moves. Slavs in Byzantine service were sent to the Rus army camps to keep an eye on the enemy and John Alakas, a Byzantine officer of Pecheneg extraction, was sent to scout out the Rus cavalry, primarily composed of Pecheneg & Oghuz mercenaries. John located the enemy forces and alerted Bardas. The wise general lured the Rus into battle, feigned retreat, and drew out the Pechenegs from the rest of the Rus army, slaughtering them. The Rus army panicked, and Bardas killed many of them as they fled. Sviatoslav licked his wounds north of the Balkan Mountains, giving Tzimiskes time to plan a counterattack.

On Easter week, 971, Tzimiskes moved his army of 40,000 through the mountain passes of Bulgaria. The Rus offered no resistance until Tzimiskes reached Preslav, where Tzimiskes defeated a Rus army before the walls of the city. Under the command of the Rus general Sphangel, the city put up stiff resistance but fell on April 13th, 971. Tsar Boris and his family were captured with the imperial regalia and transferred to Constantinople; a massive propaganda and psychological win for Tzimiskes.

Sviatoslav withdrew to Dorostolon and executed 300 Bulgarian nobles on the road. It is possible Sviatoslav feared betrayal or rebellion of his erstwhile allies. Tzimiskes shadowed Sviatoslav, accepting the peaceful submission of Bulgarian towns and forts on the road to Dorostolon. Sviatoslav’s bloodied army halted at the great fortress and made a final attempt to realize his imperial dreams on the fields before Dorostolon. Sviatoslav and Tzimiskes’s epic struggle at Dorostolon will be the subject of our next article.