."

He then proclaimed Sviatopolk sovereign of Russia. The new sovereign
had been feudal lord of the province of Novgorod; he, however, soon
left his northern capital to take up his residence in the more
imperial palaces of Kief. But disaster seemed to be the doom of
Russia, and the sounds of rejoicing which attended his accession to
the throne had hardly died away ere a new scene of woe burst upon the
devoted land.

The young king was rash and headstrong. He provoked the ire of one of
the strong neighboring provinces, which was under the sway of an
energetic feudal prince, ostensibly a vassal of the crown, but who, in
his pride and power, arrogated independence. The banners of a hostile
army were soon approaching Kief. Sviatopolk marched heroically to meet
them. A battle was fought, in which he and his army were awfully
defeated. Thousands were driven by the conquerors into a stream,
swollen by the rains, where they miserably perished. The fugitives,
led by Sviatopolk, in dismay fled back to Kief and took refuge behind
the walls of the city. The enemy pressed on, ravaging, with the most
cruel desolation, the whole region around Kief, and in a second battle
conquered the king and drove him out of his realms. The whole of
southern Russia was abandoned to barbaric destruction. Nestor gives a
graphic sketch of the misery which prevailed:

"One saw everywhere," he writes, "villages in flames; churches,
houses, granaries were reduced to heaps of ashes; and the unfortunate
citizens were either expiring beneath the blows of their enemies, or
were awaiting death with terror. Prisoners, half naked, were dragged
in chains to the most distant and savage regions. As they toiled
along, they said, weeping, one to another, '_I am from such a village,
and I from such a village_. No horses or cattle were to be seen upon
our plains. The fields were abandoned to weeds, and ferocious beasts
ranged the places but recently occupied by Christians."

The whole reign of Sviatopolk, which continued until the year 1113,
was one continued storm of war. It would only weary the reader to
endeavor to disentangle the labyrinth of confusion, and to describe
the ebbings and floodings of battle. Every man's hand was against his
neighbor; and friends to-day were foes to-morrow. Sviatopolk himself
was one of the most imperfect of men. He was perfidious, ungrateful
and suspicious; haughty in prosperity, mean and cringing in adversity.
His religion was