upon a less gifted people, and then adopting its language and customs,
letting himself be absorbed into the nationality he has helped to
create, and becoming a Russian, with the same facility as Rollo and his
sons at the very same period were becoming Frenchmen.




CHAPTER IV

RUSSIANS CONVERSION--GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY

So the scattered clans of the Slav race were roughly drawn together
into something resembling a nation by the strong arm of the
Scandinavian. But the course of national progress is never a straight
one. Nature understands better than we the value of retarding
influences, which prevent the too rapid fusing of crude elements. This
work of retardation was performed for Russia by Sviatoslaf. When,
instead of leaving his dominions to his oldest son, he divided them
among the three, he introduced a vicious system which was to become a
fatal source of weakness. This is known as the system of _Appanages_.
To his son Yaropolk he gave Kief, to Oleg the territory of the
Drevlians, and to Vladimir Novgorod. But as Vladimir quickly
assassinated Yaropolk, who had already assassinated Oleg, the injurious
results of the system were not directly felt!

Vladimir became the sole ruler. He then started upon a course of
unbridled profligacy. He compelled the widow of his murdered brother
to marry him--then a beautiful Greek nun who had been captured from
Byzantium--then a Bulgarian and a Bohemian wife, until finally his