In accordance with these views Igor granted peace to the empire on the proposed conditions, and the following year he concluded with the emperor a treaty, which was in part a renewal of that made by Oleg.[3] Of the fifty names attached on the part of Russia to this second treaty, three are Slavonic, the rest Norman.
[948 A.D.]
Igor, being now advanced in years, was naturally desirous of repose, but the insatiable cupidity of his comrades in arms forced him to go to war. From the complaints of his warriors it appears that the Russian, like the German princes, furnished their faithful band with clothing, arms, horses, and provisions. “We are naked,” Igor’s companions and guards said to him, “while the companions of Sveneld have beautiful arms and fine clothing. Come with us and levy contributions, that we may be in plenty with thee.” It was customary with the grand prince to leave Kiev every year, in November, with an army, and not to return until April, after having visited his cities and received their tributes. When the prince’s magazine was empty, and the annual contributions were not sufficient, it became necessary to find new enemies to subject to exactions, or to treat as enemies the tribes that had submitted. To the latter expedient Igor now resorted against the Drevlians. Marching into their country he surcharged them with onerous tributes, besides suffering his guards to plunder them with impunity. His easy success in this rapacious foray tempted him to his destruction. After quitting the country of his oppressed tributaries, the thought struck him that more might yet be squeezed out of them. With this view he sent on his army to Kiev, probably because he did not wish to let his voyevods or lieutenants share the fruit of his contemplated extortions, and went back with a small force among the Drevlians, who, driven to extremity, massacred him and the whole of his guard near their town of Iskorost.[i]
THE REGENCY OF OLGA
Olga, Igor’s widow, assumed the regency in the name of her son Sviatoslav, then of tender age. Her first care was to revenge herself upon the Drevlians. In Nestor’s narrative it is impossible to separate the historical part from the epic. The Russian chronicler recounts in detail how the Drevlians sent two deputations to Olga to appease her and to offer her the hand of their prince; how she caused their death by treachery, some being buried alive, while others were stifled in a bath-house; how she besieged their city of Iskorost and offered to grant them peace on payment of a tribute of three pigeons and three sparrows for each house; how she attached lighted tow to the birds and then sent them off to the wooden city, where the barns and the thatched roofs were immediately set on fire; how, finally, she massacred part of the inhabitants of Iskorost and reduced the rest to slavery.
But it was this vindictive barbarian woman that was the first of the ruling house of Rurik to adopt Christianity.[d] We have seen before how Christianity was planted in Kiev under the protection of Askold and Dir, and how the converts to the new religion were specially referred to in the commercial treaty between Oleg and the Byzantine emperor. There existed a Christian community at Kiev but it was to Constantinople that Olga went to be baptised in the presence of the patriarch and the emperor. She assumed the Christian name of Helena, and after her death she was canonised in the Russian church. On her return she tried also to convert her son Sviatoslav, who had by this time become the reigning prince, but all her efforts were unavailing. He dreaded the ridicule of the fierce warriors whom he had gathered about himself. And no doubt the religion of Christ was little in consonance with the martial character of this true son of the vikings. The chronicle of Nestor gives the following embellished account of Olga’s conversion:[a]
Nestor Tells of the Baptism of Olga
In the year 948 Olga went to the Greeks and came to Tsargorod (Constantinople). At that time the emperor was Zimischius,[4] and Olga came to him, and seeing that she was of beautiful visage and prudent mind, the emperor admired her intelligence as he conversed with her and said to her: “Thou art worthy to reign with us in this city.” When she heard these words she said to the emperor: “I am a heathen, if you wish me to be baptised, baptise me yourself; otherwise I will not be baptised.” So the emperor and patriarch baptised her. When she was enlightened she rejoiced in body and soul, and the patriarch instructed her in the faith and said to her: “Blessed art thou among Russian women, for thou hast loved light and cast away darkness; the sons of Russia shall bless thee unto the last generation of thy descendants.” And at her baptism she was given the name of Helena, who was in ancient times empress and mother of Constantine the Great. And the patriarch blessed Olga and let her go.
After the baptism the emperor sent for her and said to her: “I will take thee for my wife.”