The Kyiv campaign of 1018: revenge, robbery, or high politics?
Bolesław the Brave and Svyatopolk at the Golden Gate of Kyiv is a painting by Jan Matejko depicting the entry of the Polish king into Kyiv in 1018.
The victor took the greatest city in Eastern Europe and, about a month later, calmly went home. He didn't flee, but left "cheerful," as a contemporary recorded. So what did he really want?
In the summer of 1018, the Polish prince Bolesław the Brave defeated the army of Yaroslav the Wise on the Bug River, and in mid-September entered Kyiv. The city surrendered. It would seem that this was the pinnacle of triumph. But then something strange happened: the victor didn't take up his reign in earnest, but about a month later, he led his retinue back. Was this the revenge of an insulted father-in-law, a simple raid for plunder, or something more? Let's try to figure it out.
The Union That Crumbled
Contrary to the popular image of "eternal enmity between Rus' and Poland," the 1018 campaign had a very specific origin—the recently disintegrated alliance between the two courts. Around 1009–1010, one of Vladimir's eldest sons, Svyatopolk, Prince of Turov, who had a strong claim to the Kyivan throne, married the daughter of Boleslav the Brave. Svyatopolk's position, incidentally, was unique: according to the chronicle, he was the son of a "Greek woman," the widow of Yaropolk, Vladimir's brother. Vladimir married her while she was already pregnant, making it unclear whose son Svyatopolk was, hence the cautious reference to "the son of two fathers." The marriage to the Polish woman was political and cemented the Russo-Polish alliance. Her confessor, Reinbern, Bishop of Kołobrzeg in Poland, accompanied the princess to Kyiv.
The alliance didn't last long. Around 1012, Vladimir uncovered a conspiracy: Svyatopolk, apparently, was plotting to rebel against his father. The prince arrested his son, his wife, and Bishop Reinbern, who died in captivity. Boleslav took the arrest of his daughter and son-in-law as a personal insult and a breach of the treaty, and the alliance collapsed.
Bolesław responded with a campaign in 1013. He assembled a motley army: Polish troops, German knights, and Pechenegs. And then came the embarrassment: a massacre broke out between the Poles and Pechenegs, the campaign fizzled out, and amounted to little more than the devastation of the borderlands. The first attempt was a flop.
Events then accelerated. On July 15, 1015, Vladimir died, and a struggle for Kyiv began between his sons. Svyatopolk fled to his father-in-law in Poland. Now Boleslav had both a pretext and a contender for the Kyivan throne at hand: the stage was set for the great game.
Our main witness is Thietmar of Merseburg, a Saxon bishop and chronicler who was a contemporary of the events. He wrote from eyewitness accounts and died in December 1018, literally on the heels of the events. His chronicle remains the most reliable source on this campaign, and we will rely primarily on it.
Version one: revenge
The most popular explanation is a personal grudge. And there were plenty of reasons. The early 12th-century Polish chronicler Gallus Anonymus explicitly cites the reason for the campaign as Yaroslav's refusal to give his sister Predslava (not to be confused with Boleslaw's own daughter, Svyatopolk's wife) in marriage to Boleslaw. Boleslaw didn't forget this: after capturing Kyiv, he made Yaroslav's sister Predslava his concubine. The same motif is present in the chronicle episode where the victor demonstratively "sat on Vladimir's throne," that is, ascended the Kievan throne, and, according to Gallus, struck the Golden Gate with his sword.
The picture is striking: an insulted father-in-law takes revenge for his daughter, his arrested son-in-law, and his rejected sister. But let's take a closer look.
Revenge is a poor adviser to a commander. But Boleslav acted not in a fit of anger, but with cold calculation.
Before marching on Kyiv, he settled his affairs in the west: in 1018, he concluded the Treaty of Budishino, ending his long wars with the Holy Roman Empire. Only after he had freed his hands did he turn east. A man blinded by resentment doesn't look so far ahead. Personal scores were involved, but as a condiment, not the main course.
Version two: robbery
The second explanation is mining. This theory also has compelling arguments. Kyiv, as described by Thietmar, appears fabulously wealthy:
In this great city, the capital of that kingdom, there are more than four hundred churches and eight markets, and a countless number of people.
Thietmar calls Kyiv perhaps the greatest city in Europe. Bolesław did indeed carry off a huge amount of booty from there, including prisoners, boyars, and Yaroslav's sisters, including that very same Predslava. And on the return journey, he snatched another valuable prize: the Cherven towns. These were border fortresses on the upper reaches of the Bug River, controlling the trade routes between Rus' and Central Europe. Rus' and Poland would dispute them for decades to come. Bolesław valued the acquisition so highly that he even ordered coins minted there with Cyrillic inscriptions. Boleslav.
The battle itself was brief: on July 22, the armies met at the Bug River. The chronicle preserved a juicy scene: Yaroslav's voivode, Budy, taunted the corpulent Polish prince from the other bank, threatening to pierce his ample belly with a stake. According to legend, the heavyset Boleslav could barely mount his horse, but he plunged into the river first. Yaroslav lost the battle and fled to Novgorod, according to the chronicle, "with only four men." And on August 14, the Poles entered Kyiv. A little over three weeks elapsed between the victory at the Bug River (July 22) and the entry into the capital—this time was spent covering the remaining distance, suppressing local resistance, and the siege itself.
The plunder theory explains much, but not everything. From the captured capital, Boleslav dispatched embassies: one to the German Emperor Henry II, another to the Byzantine Basileus Basil II. For a simple plunderer, this was too much trouble, two empires at once. Someone who came to fill his bags and leave doesn't engage in grand diplomacy. Behind these embassies, there is a sense of calculation, not naked greed.
The paradox of the ending: he left on his own and was happy
And now the main oddity, which betrays the plan. Boleslav left Kyiv without any haste, like a man who has achieved his goal.
Immediately after taking the city, Bolesław dismissed his allies. His army this time, too, was just as diverse—Poles, Germans, Hungarians, and Pechenegs—and now he generously rewarded them and dismissed them. This move could be interpreted as mundane: keeping steppe dwellers and mercenaries in the conquered capital was dangerous, the massacre of 1013 was fresh in the memory. But something else is alarming: Bolesław himself stayed in Kyiv, according to the Arkhangelsk Chronicler, "for a single month," and then left. Thietmar summed it up with one word: he returned. hilaris, cheerful. And he adds that Boleslav elevated his son-in-law to the throne. That is, the prince was not exiled. He left himself, leaving Svyatopolk to reign.
Here, a persistent story must be debunked. The chronicle contains a dramatic account: Svyatopolk allegedly ordered the secret slaughter of the Poles scattered throughout the cities—"as many as the Poles in the city as I can kill"—and Bolesław fled in haste. It's a beautiful account, but, as Alexei Shakhmatov and, following him, Vladimir Korolyuk have shown, this episode entered the chronicle by mistake. It is inspired by much later events, the Kyiv campaign of another Polish prince, Bolesław II, in 1069. This account has no connection to the events of 1018. Gallus Anonymus's account of Bolesław's "ten months" in Rus' also fits in: the chronicler simply confused two campaigns separated by half a century.
So, the picture emerges as follows: the winner quietly left a month later, put his man in jail, and was satisfied. This hardly resembles the behavior of a vengeful or a robber.
So what was it?
Let's sum it up. Revenge hinges on the Treaty of Budysh and the advance preparations for the campaign. Politics explains most, though not everything. It's best to say this: motives were intertwined; there was resentment and a thirst for loot, but the guiding force was sober political calculation.
Boleslav's plan was more subtle than it appears. He wasn't trying to annex Kyiv to Poland or build a grand "West Slavic state": he simply didn't have the forces to do so, and even Bohemia, his longtime rival for Moravia, wouldn't join him in the campaign. Rather, he wanted to divide Rus' and control it through a dependent son-in-law.
Even Thietmar's choice of words suggests this idea. He titles Yaroslav and the late Vladimir rex, the king, an independent sovereign. And he calls Svyatopolk, who was placed on the Kyiv throne, senior, senior, but of lower rank. The difference is hardly accidental. Boleslav benefited not from a strong, single prince at the head of Rus', but from a fragmented country where the Kievan ruler owed his throne to his Polish father-in-law and was therefore obedient.
Boleslav capitalized on what was already brewing within Rus' itself: the lands' desire for independence. As early as 1014, Yaroslav, sitting in Novgorod, refused to pay tribute to Kyiv. Polotsk was becoming independent. Vladimir's sons were fighting over the inheritance. Boleslav didn't invent this unrest; it was already underway; he simply capitalized on someone else's weakness.
The gamble, however, didn't pay off. Already in 1019, Yaroslav, relying on the Novgorodians, drove Svyatopolk from Kyiv. The Polish protege fled and disappeared somewhere, as the chronicle puts it, "between the Poles and the Czechs," on the Polish-Czech border. The dependent ally failed to hold out, and the entire cunning plan fell apart.
This doesn't change the essence of the matter. The campaign of 1018 was a case of grand politics, with its diplomacy, alliances, and long-term aim of disuniting a neighbor. Although it is also true that without personal grievances and a thirst for loot, it would not have happened. And the fact that the plan ultimately failed speaks to the strength of the resistance, not the simplicity of the calculations.
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