Chapter 17
The Pull of Byzantium
“If a wolf comes among the sheep, he will take away the whole flock unless he is killed”
- Russian Primary Chronicle
In some ways it’s surprising that the Rus held on to a Viking identity as long as they did. The original Viking raiders that had plied the waters of the Volga and the Dneiper, had always been a minority population. The vast area they conquered, from Novgorod, in the northwest, to Kiev, the current capital of the Ukraine, was populated by Slavs, while the Scandinavians were no more than a privileged military caste. They took local wives, and although a constant stream of immigrants from Sweden would have slowed the process, gradually they began to merge identities with the Slavic population.
The slow evolution is represented in the names of the Princes of Kiev. Helgi was followed by Ingvar (sometimes rendered as the slavic Oleg), who was followed by the purely slavic Sviatoslav, and Vladimir. As the names began to change, the dress and habits followed. A Byzantine chronicle provides a physical description of Sviatoslav during a visit with the emperor John Tzimiskes in 971. Sviatoslav is described as more of a slavic Khan than a Viking sea-king.
He came rowing in a Viking boat, pulling the oars along with his men like a good Viking, but there the northern comparisons stopped. He was of only medium height, with light blue eyes obscured by bushy brows and a snub nose. His head was completely shaved except for a topknot on one side, which was braided as a sign of his noble status. He wore a simple white tunic, indistinguishable from those of his men except for its cleanliness, and wore no decorations other than a dangling gold earring in one ear.
This process was sped up by contact with Constantinople. A treaty in 945 had thrown open the gates of Constantinople to the Rus, exposing them to the great lure of Orthodox civilization, and it was their eventual adoption of Christianity which, more than anything else, marked the great transition from Rus to Russian. It needed time to take root, and was not fully embraced for several generations, but it locked the nascent Russian state to the Byzantine cultural orbit.
Ironically, it was the great Rus defeat by Greek fire in the 940’s, that had indirectly paved the way for Christianity. Prince Ingvar had returned to Kiev badly weakened by the attempt to take Constantinople. Several of the surrounding tribes which had fallen under Rus domination took the opportunity to revolt, and Ingvar was forced to expend most of his energies putting them down.
The most troublesome of the client-states were the Drevlians, an eastern Slavic tribe that inhabited part of what is today the Ukraine. When news reached them of Ingvar’s defeat, they took the provocative step of ceasing all tribute payments to Kiev. Ingvar couldn’t immediately respond, pressed as he was by other concerns, so the Drevlian issue was left to fester.
When Ingvar had finally stabilized Kiev, he sent the Drevlians a demand for the backpay they owed, with threats of retribution if they should withhold even a small amount. The delay in addressing the problem, however, had given the Drevlians the impression that Ingvar was powerless, so their prince, Mal, responded with words to the effect that ‘an equal does not pay tribute’.
The Prince of Kiev immediately set out with his army for the Drevlian capital of Iskorosten, now the modern Ukranian city of Korosten, and at the sight of the massed troops, Mal’s bravado evaporated. Formally apologizing to Ingvar, he handed over the gold that was owed. A wiser ruler would have left it at that, but on the way back to Kiev, Ingvar decided that the Drevlians hadn’t been punished enough. Defying his authority had to have a higher price. Ordering his men to continue on to the capital, he turned back with his bodyguards.
When prince Mal was informed of the demand for more gold, he stalled by claiming to need to inspect his treasury to see if the funds were available. When he asked his advisors what to do, one supposedly offered “If a wolf comes among the sheep, he will take away the whole flock unless he is killed.” Mal heeded the words. At his sign, a group of Drevlians burst out of the gates, massacred Ingvar’s guards, and captured the Prince of Kiev.
According to a Byzantine source, the grisly revenge Mal took was one the Vikings could appreciate. Ingvar was held down on the ground while two young birch trees were bent toward him. Each of his feet was secured to a tree, and then the saplings were released, ripping the unfortunate man in half.
Having a leader cut down in the prime of life, was a nightmare for any medieval society. It usually left a young successor and, if a regent didn’t grab control firmly, all the attendant horrors of a civil war. This would indeed have been the fate of Kiev since Ingvar’s only son was only an infant, if it had not been for his remarkable wife Olga. Not only did Olga have the loyalty of the nobility of Kiev but, according to the colorful account given in the Russian Primary Chronicle, she was also a more effective leader than her late husband.
The news of Ingvar’s death was followed closely by a group of twenty ambassadors from Prince Mal with a proposal of marriage. The request was not quite as outlandish as it at first seemed. Royal widows were among the most eligible wives of the medieval world. They would frequently look to remarry quickly to avoid upheaval, and such a marriage offered the chance of a dramatic rise in political fortunes for ambitious suitors.
What was unseemly was the boldness of the ambassadors. Mal rationally assumed that a newly widowed Olga would be feeling vulnerable and open to suggestion, so instead of tactfully ignoring his part in her husband’s murder, his emissaries openly admitted it. When they were shown into her quarters they told the grieving widow that Ingvar was ‘like a ravening wolf‘ who deserved to be killed. Now, they continued, Olga had the chance to marry a real prince.
Surprisingly, she seemed open to the idea. Her husband would not rise from the grave, and how he died was not as important as the fact that he was dead. Olga said she needed a day to think about it, but strongly hinted that this was only a formality. Pleased with her pragmatic approach, the ambassadors withdrew to their camp, agreeing to visit her the next morning.
As soon as the Drevlians had gone, Olga ordered her men to dig a deep ditch just behind her citadel. By the morning it was finished, and when the ambassadors arrived – dressed in their finest clothes as a token of respect to the woman who was about to become their princess – Olga had them seized, dragged past her citadel and buried alive.
Even as her servants were leveling the earth of the mass grave, Olga sent a message to Mal. She would gladly marry him, she said, but only if he provided a grand enough escort. The twenty ambassadors he had already sent were an insufficient honor guard for a woman of her status. She would arrive in state with the most noble men of Iskorosten, or not at all.
Prince Mal, perhaps impressed by her sense of decorum, eagerly sent the leading men of the city with as sumptuous an honor guard as he could afford. When they arrived at Kiev, Olga was the model of civility, offering the use of her own private bathhouse to wash the dust from their long journey. When they were all safely inside, however, Olga had the door barricaded and then set fire to the building, ignoring the agonized screams.
As the embers flared, she calmly sent a final message to Mal requesting that she be allowed to conduct the customary funeral feast for her dead husband when she arrived at Iskorosten. The prince, still unaware that anything was amiss, hastily agreed. When he saw her approaching the city with a large group of retainers, he rode out to greet her, asking where his ambassadors were. She replied that she had been so excited to meet him that she had ridden ahead, and that the rest would soon join them. Satisfied, the prince escorted her into the city to a great feast had been prepared.
Olga gave every appearance of the joyful bride, but had carefully instructed her men not to touch a drop of alcohol – a proscription that neither Mal nor his soldiers noticed. When the Drevlians were deep into their cups, the lethal widow gave a signal and her guards drew their swords, butchering all of their bleary-eyed hosts.
Cutting their way out of the city, Olga and her retinue joined her army, which was hiding nearby, and reappeared before the walls of Iskorosten. The terrified inhabitants, now without their prince or leading men, begged for mercy, and to their immense relief, Olga agreed. Her terms were surprisingly modest. Instead of honey or furs – the usual stuff of tribute – she asked only for some birds; three pigeons and three sparrows from each household. Unfortunately for the Derevlians this was an old Viking trick. When she got the birds she had her men attach rags dipped in a flammable material to the feet of each bird. When they were lit, the panicked animals returned to their nests, lighting the houses on fire.
Before long, the wind had turned the scattered flames into a raging inferno. The panicked citizens came pouring out of the ruined gates into the waiting arms of Olga’s army. They showed no mercy. Those who weren’t slaughtered on the spot were rounded up and sold into slavery. Only in the morning, with Iskorosten a blackened, deserted ruin, was Olga finally sated.
Whether or not Olga was as cold-blooded as the legends make her out to be, she was certainly an effective ruler. The Russian Primary Chronicle notes with succinct admiration that “although she was a woman in body, she possessed a man’s courage.” Her shrewdness not only kept the throne safe for her son, but also increased its authority.
Regardless of the numbers of Drevlians left alive, the message that Kiev’s new ruler was not to be trifled with quickly spread. To her credit, Olga chose not to govern with the sword. Although focused on revenge, she was not blinded by it, and was shrewd enough to realize that forcing Kiev’s client tribes to pay a tribute each year built up murderous resentment. The gold usually came out of each chief’s personal hoard, lessening his ability to reward his men, and thereby weakening his authority. This virtually ensured that the moment Kiev’s grip slipped, there would be a rebellion.
To convert the chiefs from potential enemies to firm allies, she abolished the hated payment, replacing it with a simple tax on every household.151 The local leaders, freed from the financial burden, were then allowed to handle all minor administrative or legal issues. No longer would Kiev rule by fiat. Olga had in effect, transformed rebellious allies into full members of her government. Her regency also saw the construction of numerous trading centers, as well as the first stone buildings in Kiev, Novgorod, and Pskov. The system she devised worked remarkably well, and provided a firm foundation for Kiev’s continued growth.
Olga spent the rest of her son’s minority successfully dodging marriage proposals and steadily building up Kiev’s power. As successful as the regency was, however, Olga seems to have been aware of a lingering problem. No matter how politically integrated she made the various tribes, they still saw themselves as different from the inhabitants of Kiev. There was no underlying unity beyond a common ruler, no big identifying idea that could turn the people of individual cities into a unified state.
In an attempt to rectify this, Olga took the boldest move in a career full of them. She traveled to Constantinople around the year 955 – ostensibly to shore up trade relations – but in reality to officially adopt Christianity. The ceremony was carried out in the golden church of the Hagia Sophia, with the emperor Constantine VII standing in as her godfather.152 As a token of respect, Olga took the Christian name of Helena after the emperor’s wife.
Her personal conversion may have helped to seal an alliance and perhaps squeeze more trade privileges out of Constantinople, but Olga was quickly disabused of any notions that her people would follow suit. There was a small Christian community in Kiev, but the vast majority of her subjects were pagan, worshiping a variety of Viking, Turkic, and Slavic gods. The aristocracy in particular were vocal supporters of Thor, and instead of uniting them behind her, she risked undermining the stability that she had worked her entire regency to maintain.153
Olga did her best to spread the new faith, bringing Bibles, priests, icons, and vestments back with her. She ordered the construction of several churches in multiple cities, and publicly attended them, but all to no avail. The aristocrats, particularly the new arrivals from Sweden, violently resisted, as did most of her family. Her son, Sviatoslav refused to even consider it, informing his mother that the gentle virtues of patience, forgiveness, and mercy were hallmarks of a feeble religion that would see him mocked by his own men.
Olga may have failed to establish Christianity in her son’s generation, but she did at least plant the seeds for it to take root in the next one. Sviatoslav, in a conscious rejection of his mother’s conciliatory policy towards Byzantium, carried out the last major Rus attack on the empire. While he led the army overland – yet another sign that the old Viking ways were dying out – he left his mother in charge of Kiev, as well as of the education of his three sons, Yarolpolk, Oleg and Vladimir.
She performed both tasks admirably, although the latter would take several years to manifest. The last glimpse we get of her, fittingly enough, is once again acting as a military commander. When a group of raiders invaded in 969, she organized a vigorous defense, which managed to drive them off. She died a few months later, having lived a life more suited to a Valkyrie (a Viking deity that rewarded bravery in battle) than a saint.154
Her reign marks the beginning of a great watershed in European history. By converting to Christianity, she had chosen to align Kiev with Europe instead of Asia, to look west instead of east. The Viking roots of the Rus were gradually supplanted by Byzantine ones, and Kiev would drink so deeply from Constantinople’s cup, that the three modern states which claim descent from the House of Rurik – Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia – continue to see themselves as the heirs to ancient Greece and Rome.155
Olga may not have been responsible for all of this, and in fact may have died considering herself a failure, but the Orthodox faith she championed would one day give her people the common identity she envisioned, and make possible a vast empire.