The Pagan

Who is he—Svyatoslav’s illegitimate son, a pagan, a fratricide who seized the grand princely throne by force? Who is he—Vladimir “Red Sun,” who laid the foundation for terrible princely feuds, the husband of many wives, who ruled Rus’ for long thirty-seven years? Who is he—equal to the apostles, the baptizer of Rus’, Saint Prince Vladimir, who laid the groundwork for the future great power? Who is he? The fifth book of the Varangian cycle about Sergey Dukharev.

The figure of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, who baptized Rus’, occupied the minds of many Russian writers, beginning with almost his contemporaries—the metropolitan Hilarion and the chronicler Nestor. Then came Theophan Prokopovich, Kondraty Ryleev, Mikhail Zagoskin, Alexander Veltman—list them all is impossible. So the recognized master of historical fiction, Alexander Mazin, was not a pioneer, writing a novel titled “The Pagan.”