The Tale of Bygone Years tells us about the campaigns of the Prophetic Oleg to Constantinople. In 907, he gathered a huge army, defeated the Byzantines and nailed his shield to the gates of their capital. But for some reason the Greek sources are silent about this.
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Russian chronicles devote quite a lot of space to the campaigns of Prince Oleg. It is understandable: to subjugate the powerful Constantinople to your will and impose a profitable peace treaty on huge Byzantium is very honorable. But the question arises: was the prince's squad capable of such an enterprise at the beginning of the 10th century?
The chronicler confidently answers that yes, it can. 2 thousand boats, 40 warriors in each, set off with Oleg by sea. An unknown number of mounted warriors followed along the coast. They united at the walls of Constantinople, defeated the Byzantine field army and laid siege to the city. Then Oleg ordered to put the boats on wheels, and they rushed to storm across the field in full sail.
The Greeks were frightened and asked for peace. The result of the negotiations was the payment of a gigantic tribute - 12 hryvnia per soldier, plus separate amounts to the princes, plus a constant tribute in favor of Kiev. And so that the Greeks did not forget the lesson presented, Oleg nailed his shield to the gates of Constantinople and ordered silk sails to be sewn for his ships.
This story has a lot of critics. They rightly point out that Oleg's campaign is known only from Russian sources. True, the Greek chroniclers mention about a dozen raids of the Slavs on the more modest towns of Constantinople. But the Russians also attempted three times on the Byzantine capital - in 860, 941 and 1043. Chroniclers talk about these military enterprises, but there is no mention of any campaign in 907.
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Slightly exaggerated
The custom of nailing a shield to the gates of a conquered city belonged to the ancient Persians and Lydians. And Oleg was a Scandinavian.
The amount of compensation is also questionable. If we consider the Kiev silver hryvnia equal to about 160 grams, then the Byzantines paid at least 153.5 tons of silver.
The story of the silk sails is also extremely doubtful. For 2 thousand rooks, precious material would not have been found so quickly in China. But this episode is like two drops of water similar to the case with Olaf Tryggvason. This king served at the end of the 10th century to Prince Vladimir and more than once made successful raids on the Crimean cities. Once he took such a rich booty that he ordered to sew silk sails for his boat (only one).
It turns out that Prophetic Oleg did not nail any shield to the gates of Constantinople. And there was no campaign against Byzantium in 907. But who and why needed to invent it?
The point, apparently, is this. The tale of bygone years was created around 1110, when the heyday of Russia, associated with Yaroslav the Wise, was still remembered. But there was an unpleasant spot on the biography of this prince - a failed raid on Constantinople in 1043. Then half of the Russian fleet perished from the storm, and the other was burned by the Byzantines with "Greek fire". It was necessary to somehow embellish the history of relations between the Russian princes and Byzantium. Not always, they say, everything was bad.
Many researchers believe that the author of the Tale of Bygone Years worked with some chronicle, which has not survived to this day, compiled in the X-XI centuries. It spoke about the plundering of the vicinity of Constantinople, rich booty and a successful retreat. But all this happened in 860 and is described in detail in the Byzantine chronicles, only the names of the leaders have not been preserved.
Probably, the chronicler decided to postpone the successful campaign of 860 during the reign of Prophetic Oleg, and at the same time - for the sake of a word - exaggerated the amount of production.
Artem PROKUROROV