Olga of Kiev in the context of "Malusha"

Sviatoslav I or Svyatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: Свѧтославъ Игорєвичь, romanized: Svętoslavŭ Igorevičǐ; Old Norse: Sveinald; c. 943 – 972) was Prince of Kiev from 945 until his death in 972. He is known for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers in Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars, and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars (Hungarians).

Following the death of his father Igor in 945, Sviatoslav's mother Olga reigned as regent in Kiev until 962. His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans, leading him to carve out for himself the largest state in Europe. In 969, he moved his seat to Pereyaslavets on the Danube. In 970, he appointed his sons Yaropolk and Oleg as subordinate princes of Kiev and Drelinia, while he appointed Vladimir, his son by his housekeeper and servant Malusha, as the prince of Novgorod.

Historian Dimitri Obolensky asserts that the preservation of civilization in Southern Europe was due to the skill and resourcefulness of the diplomacy of the Byzantine Empire, which remains one of Byzantium's lasting contributions to the history of Europe and the Middle East.

Yaropolk I Sviatoslavich (also translitered as Iaropolk Svyatoslavich; Old East Slavic: Ꙗрополкъ Свѧтославичъ; 958 – 11 June 978) was Prince of Kiev from 972 to 978. He was the oldest son of Sviatoslav I. Some modern sources suggest that his mother was Malusha, who was a steward in the household of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev. However, primary chronicles such as the Primary Chronicle do not name his mother, and this identification remains unconfirmed by early sources.

The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military service in the Russian Empire, large groups of Germans from Russia emigrated to the Americas (mainly Canada, the United States, Brazil and Argentina), where they founded many towns. During World War II, ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union were persecuted and many were forcibly resettled to other regions such as Central Asia. In 1989, the Soviet Union declared an ethnic German population of roughly two million. By 2002, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many ethnic Germans had emigrated (mainly to Germany) and the population fell by half to roughly one million. 597,212 Germans self-identified as such in the 2002 Russian census, making Germans the fifth-largest ethnic group in the Russian Federation. There were 353,441 Germans in Kazakhstan and 21,472 in Kyrgyzstan (1999); while 33,300 Germans lived in Ukraine (2001 census).

Emigrants from Germany first arrived in Kievan Rus during the reign of Olga of Kiev. The Germans of Russia did not necessarily speak Russian; many spoke German, while French was often used as the language of the high aristocracy. Depending on geography and other circumstances, many Russian Germans spoke Russian as their first or second language. The large numbers of farmers and village tradesmen who arrived following Catherine the Great's invitation were allowed to settle in German-only villages and to keep their German language, religion, and culture until the 1920s.