Igor and Olga

On Oleg s death in 912 the “Great Kniaz^w was succeeded by Igor, supposedly Ruriks son, which is unlikely given the chronology.²⁴ Oleghad created an embryonic state under Kyivs control, a territory some 328,000 square kilometers of about a 350-400 kilometer radius around Kyiv.²⁵ Either due to a break­down in trade or other reasons, raids from Rus continued after Oleg s death, with varying success.

After 912 some 500 ships, each carrying 100 men, arrived at the Strait of Nitas (Strait of Kerch) adjoining the Khazar (Caspian) Sea. Here there are men of the Khazar king, strong and well supplied with equipment... to oppose anyone coming from this sea or from that side of the land.... When the Rusian ships reached the Khazar troops posted at the entrance to the strait, they sent an envoy to the Khazar King to pass through his coun­try, sail down his river (the Don), enter the river of the Khazars (Volga) and so reach the Khazar (Caspian) Sea... on condition that they should give him half of the booty captured.... He al­lowed them to do so and they penetrated into the strait, reached the estuary of the (Don) river and began to ascent that branch until (having crossed the portage at Sarkel) they came to the Khazar river, by which they descended to the city of Amol (Atil, the Khazar capital).

Having made their preparations, the inhabitants in their boats and trading ships sailed towards these islands. The Rusians turned upon them and thousands of the Muslims were killed and drowned. The Rusians remained many months on that sea... and none of the peoples adjacent to that sea could find a way to reach them. The people were afraid of them and on their guard because the sea reaches up to the peoples living around it. When the Rusians were laden down with booty and had enough of their adventure they sailed to the estuary of the Khazar River and sent messengers to the Khazar king carrying to him money and booty, as had been stipulated between them. The Khazar king has no (sea-going) ships and his men have no habit of using them. Were it not so, there would be calamities in store for the Muslims (non-Khazar inhabitants of the Caspian Sea). The Arsiya and other Muslims in the (Khazar) kingdom heard what the Rusians had done and said to the (Khazar) king: leave us (to deal) with these people who have attacked our Muslim brothers and shed their blood and captured their women and children. The king, unable to oppose them, sent to warn the Rusians that the Mus­lims had decided to fight them. When they came face-to-face, the Rusians left their ships.

Evidently the Khazar “king” had not kept his end of the bargain and had betrayed the raiding party from Rus. The effort did not seem to have ended in a complete fiasco for the Rusian forces, since al-Masudi^,s account admits that, while they suf­fered casualties, many made it back to Rus.

Two raids were launched against Constantinople by Prince Igor of Rus. Gathering an army of Slav tribesmen and Varan­gians he arrived in the Bosphorus in June 941, while Emperor Romanus I was away campaigning against the Muslims. To pro­tect the capital, commander Theophanes blocked the Bos­phorus on its northern end with 15 ships, each armed with Greek Fire. The forward ships of the attacking Rusian fleet began to burn, and the remaining ships turned towards Bithynia where they landed and began to pillage. The looting continued for several weeks, with the commander Bardas Phocas unable to put a halt to the devastation. Finally the main Imperial fleet arrived and blockaded the Rusian ships in the Sea of Marmara and “The army came out of the east, Panthenius the domesticos with 40,000 men... surrounded the Rusians [who] threw themselves upon the Greeks, and as the conflict between them was desperate, the Greeks experienced difficulty in winning the upper hand.”

Having beaten back the Imperial army the raiders decided to force the naval blockade and head for the Black Sea.

When they came once more to their native land, each one re­counted to his kinfolk the cause of events and described the fire launched from the ships, they related that the Greeks had in their possession the lightning from heaven, and had set them on fire by pouring it forth, so that the Rusians could not conquer them.²⁸

The substance known as “Greek fire” was a highly flammable liquid whose composition was a closely guarded secret, known only to a select few in the Eastern Roman Empire. It was brought to Constantinople in the 7th century ad from Heliopo­lis, Syria, by an engineer named Calinicus, and today it is thought to have been a mixture of naphtha, quicklime, sulphur, and saltpeter. It could be pumped from a flamethrower against a ship. On land it could be squirted from a handheld device or delivered in a ceramic hand grenade. It was difficult to extin­guish even on water, and caused much fear amongst Igor s men, who thought the fire was supernatural.

Igor s attack is also confirmed by Imperial records but the conflict must have been more extensive than described in the Christian chronicles, which downplay the pagan successes. Thus we know that in 943 Igor received tribute from both Con­stantinople and Bulgaria, implying a measure of military success. The Kyiv Chronicle also describes a second and larger expedition led by Igor in 944 but one which is doubted by most historians. This, however, could have been a part of the same conflict with Igor receiving reinforcements. In any case a treaty was ratified in 944 by representatives of the Imperial govern­ment in the St. Sophie Cathedral, while Igor swore an oath by the Slav god of war Perun on a hill outside of Kyiv. Scandina­vians continued to play a prominent role in the prince s en­tourage as is revealed from the names of the envoys that were sent by Igor to Constantinople.

Boat traffic from Kyiv along the Dnipro River was becom­ing so frequent that the Black Sea became known to some Mus­lim writers as “the Sea of the Rusians,” and to secure the flow of merchandise Kyivbegan to establish outposts in the mouths of the Dnipro and Don River entrances to the Black Sea. A de­tailed description of the voyages from Kyiv to Constantinople by the merchant fleets has been left by Emperor Constantine (VIl) Porphyrogenitus, known as the Scholar Emperor, who ascended the throne in 945.

The “monoxyla” (Slavic boats) which come down from outer Rosiaz (Rus) to Constantinople are from Novgorod where Svi­atoslav son of Igor, prince ofRosiaz had his seat, and others from the city of Smolensk and from Teliutza (?) and Chernigov and from Vyshegrad. All these come down the river Danaprin (Dnipro) and are collected together at the city of Kioba (Kyiv) also called Sambatas. Their Slav tributaries, the so-called Krivichi, and the Lenzanenes (?), and the rest of the Slavonic re­gions cut the “monoxyla” on their mountains (sic) in time for winter, and when they have prepared them as spring approaches and the ice melts they bring them on to the neighboring lakes.

And since these lakes debauch into the river Danaprin, they enter thence on to this same river and come down to Kioba and draw the ships along to be finished and sell them to Rosiaz. Rosiaz buy these bottoms only, furnishing them with oars and rowlocks and other tackle from their “monoxyla” which they dismantle; and so they fit them out, and in the month of June they move off down the river Danaprin and come to Bitetzeb (Vitichev) which is a tributary city ofRosiaz, and there they gather during two or three days; and when all the “monoxyla” are collected together, then they set out and come down the said Danaprin river. And first they come to the first barrage, called Essoupi which means in Roz (Rusian) and Slavonic “do not sleep”; the barrage itself is as narrow as the width of the Pologrounds; in the middle of it are rooted high rocks, which stand out like islands....

And until they are past the river Salinas, the Pechenegs keep pace with them. And if it happens that the sea casts a “monoxyla” on shore, they all put to land in order to present a united opposition to the Pechenegs. But after the Selinas they fear nobody.... From the Ditsina (river in Bulgaria), they reach the district of Mesem- bria, and there at last their voyage, fraught with such travail and terror, such difficulty and danger, is at an end.”²⁹

Once on Imperial territory the convoy proceeded to the markets of Constantinople, where they would hope to sell their merchandise at a favorable price. The famous rapids and “St. Gregorys” island, with its giant oak tree, would figure promi­nently in future Ukrainian history.

Emperor Constantine goes into great detail to describe the merchant s progress from Kyiv to the Imperial markets, giv­ing both Slavic and “Roz” (Rusian) names for the cataracts. Since the latter names are Scandinavian it might be interpreted that the ^aRusiaz^w were a Varangian tribe or people and not Slavs. Such a conclusion, however, would be somewhat careless since the term ^aRusian^w does not designate ethnicity at this time but simply political or social affiliation. One would be ^αof Rus^w if one was a member or a mercantile representative of the Kyiv princely system, many of whom as we have seen were Scandi­navians and unlike the “Slavs” not directly affiliated to a tribal authority. This can also be seen from Emperor Constantine s concluding observations:

The severe manner of life of these same Roz in winter time is as follows. When the month of November begins, their chiefs to­gether with all the Roz at once leave Kyiv, and go off on the “poli- udia^w which means “rounds,” that is to the Slavonic regions of the Vervians (?) and Drugovichi and Krivichi and Severiani and the rest of the Slavs who are tributaries of Rusiaz. There they are maintained throughout the winter, but then once more, starting from the month of April when the ice of the Dnipro River melts they come back to Kyiv. They then pick up their “monoxyla” and fit them out, and come down to Romania.³⁰

A final point of interest is the use of the Slavic ^αprach^w (^αprag^w)—as in ^aVoulniprach^w—to denote the Dnipro rapids or cataracts. Since the Slavs had no knowledge of rapids in their wetland forest homeland they chose the word which means “threshold” to denote the cataracts. This is fairly revealing and implies the rapids were considered to be the southern border or the threshold of Rus, after which all territory was deemed to belong to the Pecheneg nomads. Constantine Porphyrogen- itus^, account also describes the boats stopping on the island called ^αSt. Gregory,” on which sacrifices were performed by a “gigantic oak tree.” Was there a defensive palisade on the island to guard the convoys from Pecheneg raids? Perhaps, for this was where the Cossacks would establish their defensive forti­fications in the centuries to come.

Having established new trade relations with the Graeco­Roman Empire, Prince Igor turned his attention to the Slavic tribal situation closer to home. He had married Princess Olga (Helga) from Pskov, which consolidated his position amongst the Krivichi tribe since Olga was a member of the same Slavic- Scandinavian class as Igor, and could have been related to Oleg. Apparently responding to his own druzhina s complaint that the druzhina of his voivoda (commander) Sveneld were better rewarded and attired, Igor attacked and defeated the Derevlani tribe in search of more booty for his comrades and retainers. He probably would have marched against them anyway since the tribe had refused to pay any tribute after Oleg s death, and Igor now fixed the tribute at a higher rate. On the road back to Kyivhe apparently had second thoughts either due to his finan­cial difficulties or to his greed, as implied by the Chronicle. Or­dering his main force to continue their march he himself re­turned with a small druzhina to demand more than what had been agreed upon. The outraged Derevlani attacked and killed Igor s men, with the prince himself meeting a quick but grue­some death; each leg was supposedly tied to a bent birch tree, which when released tore him apart.

Following Igor s death in 945, Olga assumed the position ofPrincess and ruler of Rus on behalf of her 3-4-year-old son Sviatoslav. Refusing the Derevlani chief s proposal for marriage Olga besieged their capital Iskorosten but to no avail. Unable to take the stronghold by siege or by storm, Olga hit upon a ruse. She would lift the siege if the Derevlani gave her the modest tribute of 3 pigeons and 3 sparrows from each house. The besieged tribesmen agreed readily, and on receiving the offering Olga had her men attach a piece of sulphur bound in cloth to each bird. When night fell the sulphur was ignited and the birds released to return to their nests in the stronghold set­ting it on fire. The Derevlani were quickly overrun with some prisoners killed to avenge Igor s death, others given to her fol­lowers as slaves, and the remaining left to pay tribute. This somewhat fanciful account of Olgas victory was probably in­tended to impress the reader with her wisdom and intelligence, which became legendary during her lifetime, particularly to fu­ture chroniclers such as Nestor when she converted to Chris­tianity. This was Olga s first and last military venture, and for more than a decade and a half her domain was at peace and prospered. The “polyudye” system by which the prince and his men traveled amongst the tribes to collect tribute and settle disputes and grievances had been responsible for her husband s death. Now Olga had it replaced by the more effective ^αpogosty” system, by which trusted men were placed in strongholds amongst the tribes and were made responsible for collecting a fixed tribute, as well as for the administration of the area. By placing her administrators in tribal territory Princess Olga s rule began to assume a more local character, something which would grow and challenge Kyiv s dominance of the vast land.

A significant feature of Igor s rule had been the conversion of many senior members of his “druzhina” into a nascent feudal ruling class. Receiving large grants of land, members of the “druzhina” shared in the tribute, the power and decision-making with the prince, as well as providing the administration for his large domain. The individual tribes still maintained their local independence and traditions, but military power and the main­tenance of law and order had become the responsibility of the prince, particularly in the towns and cities. Olga continued the process her husband had begun, amassing agricultural land, for­est hunting preserves, a small personal fortune, and a well- stocked state treasury. Herpolicywas one of diplomacy rather than conquest, and she kept abreast of events by traveling throughout her domain and abroad. One of her trips took her to Constantinople in 957 Shortlybefore Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus^, death to reaffirm the peace treaty between Rus and the Roman Empire. That she was received by Europe’s most powerful ruler can be taken as a measure of Kyivs rising influence, although apparently she was kept waiting for weeks before receiving an audience. Olga had also been baptized as a Christian in the Crimea in 955, and no doubt the learned Con­stantine was curious to meet an Orthodox Christian barbarian queen who ruled such a vast domain.