Sviatopolk (the Accursed) Volodymyrovych (ca 980 – after 1019) – Prince of Turiv (988), Grand Prince of Kyiv (1015–1016, 1018–1019); son of the Grand Prince Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv (according to other version – of Prince Yaropolk Sviatoslavych).
According to the administrative reform Sviatopolk got from his father the town of Turiv and adjacent lands. His life as a vicegerent of Turiv is elucidated in the Chronicle of the Saxon Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg. In 1009 or at the beginning of 1010 Sviatopolk married a Polish Princess, daughter of the King Bolesław I the Brave of Poland. Took part in the plot against his father (according to other version – his stepfather, who killed his father), for which was deprived of the Turiv Principality and imprisoned together with his wife.
After the death of Prince Volodymyr the Great Sviatopolk escaped from prison to his father-in-law in Poland, having no time to take his wife. Supported by Bolesław the Brave, waged struggle for the Kyiv throne, during which his brothers Borys, Hlib (at the time when Borys and Hlib were killed Sviatopolk had not yet been in Kyiv) and Sviatoslav were assassinated. After the capture of Kyiv had to fight against his younger brother Yaroslav Volodymyrovych, Prince of Novgorod. Sviatopolk’s troops were defeated in the Liubech Battle of 1016 and he fled to Poland. In 1018, with the aid of Polish troops defeated Prince Yaroslav in the battle at the River Buh and again took the throne of Grand Prince. Soon, because of the popular discontent with the incursion of foreigners, Polish army left Rus. In 1019 Yaroslav again set out against Sviatopolk and crushed his army in the battle at the Alta River. Old Rus sources inform that during his escape wounded Sviatopolk died in a desert somewhere “between the Poles and Czechs,” but it is a metaphrase of a Polish saying that means “nobody knows where and how.” Another Rus chronicler wrote that Sviatopolk had fled to Brest where, possibly, died of wounds. Yaroslav did everything in his power to represent his rival as a devil incarnate, and Sviatopolk is depicted in chronicles as a fratricide and in history is mentioned as Sviatopolk the Accursed. Some historians tried to reconsider information from the annalistic sources and clear Sviatopolk, imputing the murder of Borys and Hlib to Yaroslav or Mstyslav Volodymyrovych.
