Sviatopolk the Accursed
c. 980 – 1019 · 39 years · Kiev · Eastern Europe & Russia
Reign: 1015 – 1019 (Rus and Russia)
He seized Kiev after Vladimir's death in 1015; the chronicle blames him for murdering his brothers Boris and Gleb, who became the first Russian saints. Defeated by Yaroslav on the Alta in 1019, he fled.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Portrait: Unknown author · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Æthelred the Unready — king who paid off the Vikings with Danegeld, 14 years older
- Cnut the Great — Danish king who ruled a North Sea empire, 15 years younger
- Hugh Capet — founder of the Capetian dynasty, 40 years older
- Edward the Confessor — pious king who built Westminster Abbey, 23 years younger
- Robert II the Pious — pious king excommunicated for marrying a kinswoman, 8 years older
- Henry II — last Ottonian emperor, founder of the see of Bamberg, canonised as a saint, 7 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir the Great — Grand Prince of Kiev, 20 years older
- Yaroslav the Wise — Grand Prince of Kiev, 2 years older
Middle East
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) — physician and philosopher, born the same year
- Ferdowsi — Persian poet, 40 years older
Asia
- Murasaki Shikibu — novelist, author of The Tale of Genji, 7 years older
- Sei Shōnagon — writer and court lady, 14 years older
- Al-Biruni — polymath, 7 years older
Americas
- Leif Erikson — Norse explorer, 10 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — aged 8, Eastern Europe & Russia
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — aged 20, Africa
- c. 1000 Stephen I, first king of Hungary — aged 20, Europe
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — aged 26, Africa
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — aged 30, Asia