Decay of the Rus 2

Decay of the Rus
by Stephen Lazer
17 March 2002

*"Volodar Volodarovich, dirty ragged and worn from fighting the Turks, turned to his Ungrateful Nobles. "What do you want?" came a yell so loud that it was heard from Arabia to the Icy waters of the North. "Do you want a king in Novgorod? A King to rule you separately from Volodar Volodarovich?"*

*The Ungrateful Nobles tried to protest. "We do not want a separate king from Volodar Volodarovich," the Ungrateful Nobles pleaded. "You have fought nobly against our enemies, you are our King."*

*"The Rus are hungry," cried Volodar Volodarovich. FN1 "They need food and rest and fresh garments. We come home after fighting valiantly and now we face punishment for many lifetimes, after slaying many Turks." FN2*

*The Ungrateful Nobles, rage in their eyes, then declared their true intentions. The Ungrateful Nobles did not want to be ruled by their rightful king, Volodar Volodarovich, dirty ragged and worn from fighting the Turks. The Ungrateful Nobles wanted their own King in Novgorod, to rule separately from Kiev. The Ungrateful Nobles then rose and left.*

*Volodar Volodarovich, King and Answerer, called after them. "You will be punished for many lifetimes for betraying the Rus. You will be punished for many lifetimes for betraying Volodar Volodarovich, dirty ragged and worn from fighting the Turks. You will be punished many lifetimes for betraying Kiev. Many lifetimes from now, Novgorod will be punished for your betrayal."*

--Final lines of *Submission's Greatest Loss*

The last King before the Splitting of the Kievan Rus state was Volodar III Volodarovich. FN3 It is often said that "Volodar to Volodar Volodarovich" was the Golden Age of Kievan Rus.

Volodar III oversaw much of the influx of Persian, Byzantine and Khazar refugees fleeing from the Turks. He made sure Spectral laws on religious freedom were followed, with just a touch of proselytizing to let the newcomers know they were welcome to join the faith of the Next Prophet. As Answerer, Volodar truly was a very devout Spectral; he came to the throne at age twenty yet was voted straight to the Answerer position, one of very few kings who did not bribe or politically pressure his priests for votes. He in fact attempted to refuse the crown, feeling it unfit for someone so young to take it. The story is that the priests, in a rage, grabbed the Answerer's cloak and held him so hard to put it on that he fell unconscious from lack of air. In truth, they most likely told him that whoever they chose had to be Answerer; there was no going to a second choice in purity.

Volodar's garrison troops, as was the norm, were mostly from the north. Volodar Volodarovich was in many ways the quintessential Kievan King. He was a devout follower of Spectrum Submission. He believed in the greatness of Kievan Rus and spared no pains to impress the Imperials and Persians. His attitude towards the House of Submission was the standard mix of envy of their power, annoyance at their not accepting Spectrum Submission, and pity for the extra punishment those not heeding the Next Prophet would suffer.

Towards Novgorod, however, Volodar Volodarovich felt much anger. After hundreds of years under Spectrum control, while it had a sizeable Spectrum minority and roughly two thirds of the wealthy nobles were Spectrum, it was still mostly Submission territory. There had not been many major squabbles; the Submissives were close to the birthplace of their religion and were well treated by the Spectral lords. Volodar seriously wanted to convert them, though. However, even as Answerer, he heeded the advice of his priests that forcibly converting, or even coercing, was one of the greatest punishment seekers. FN4

When the Empire faced war with Tebad of the Black Sheep Turks, though, Volodar's prejudices won out. He understood the importance of this war, and the gratitude Kievan Rus would win when it came to the Empire's rescue. He left his garrison troops in place, claiming they were necessary to protect against raids by the Scandinavians (mildly true), and raised a new army composed almost entirely of Spectrum Submission soldiers. Volodar had claimed this was so that the deaths they caused would not earn them nearly so much punishment by Lady Hel as their non-Spectrum comrades. Even for so devout a Spectral as he, though, that was clearly nonsense. The real reason was the desire to prove the truth of Spectrum Submission to the world. An army of mostly Spectrum Submissives saving the ancient and legendary Roman Empire would surely bring recognition. In addition, the Byzantines would surely repay Volodar by helping him build Kievan Rus into a true empire, the northern flank to New Rome. In any case, having a sizable number of orthodox Submissives, he felt, would not represent the greatness of Kiev, and would not result in the same recognition and payback.

As soon as the Dniepr thawed in the spring of SE 401 [1173 CE], Volodar led a fleet downstream with a sizeable force of Rus on board. The King and Answerer landed with his troops on the Asian shore of the Hellespont and accompanied the Imperial army on its rendezvous with destiny at Manzikert. As always happened to armies facing Tebad, the Byzantines and their Kievan Rus allies were annihilated. The slaughter was horrendous, and Volodar and the Emperor just barely escaped death; the epic poem of his fighting (with priests and nobles) from one side of Tebad's army to the other is obviously false. FN5

News of the terrible defeat reached Kiev and Novgorod before Volodar did. The Submissive nobles, who had been chafing at Volodar Volodarovich's encroachments on their religion as much as Volodar had been chafing to be allowed to make those encroachments, rose up in rebellion. Given the peaceful coexistence of the past several centuries, it is almost certain the rebellion was meant to attain fully equal rights between the religions. Anticipating the Declaration of the Vineyard ten years later in the Karamid Empire, the rebels had drafted a document, known as the Thirty Points, for Volodar to sign. One of the thirty Points was the creation of a second royal palace in Novgorod. This was not meant at first to be the capital of a new state; it was simply to raise Novgorod to a status equal to that of Kiev.

So it was that Volodar Volodarovich returned home to Kiev to find that the garrison troops he had left behind had risen against him, and he was surrounded by armed Submissives with only the ragged band that had managed to escape Tebad's swords and arrows with him. FN6 Volodar attempted to talk the leaders of the rebellion down, and legend states that he yelled, "What do you want? Do you want a king in Novgorod?" due to his being so frustrated in his desire to bathe, eat and change his blood-spattered clothing. Again, of course, he probably was not confronted the hour he returned home, but what we do know for sure is that the Novgorodian nobles entered Kiev expecting a compromise, and left planning to secede.

Still, the nobles were respectful enough that even after raising armies and gaining independence, they agreed to remain nominally under Volodar's rule. An agreement was reached with the exhausted king that upon his death, the two Rus groups would separate. While yet another myth speaks of his death only a year later due to a broken heart, we know that he finally died due to a hardcore Submissive assassin not wanting to wait for the king's natural death.

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