Oleg "Prophetic", what kind of personality in history? According to legend, Oleg died of a snakebite in 912, and this campaign of the Rus took place in 913. A large army of the Rus, by agreement with the Khazars, was allowed to pass down the Volga to the Caspian. On its southwestern shores, the Russians plundered local residents for several months. At the end of the raid, the Rus were met by the Khazar Muslims, who treacherously attacked them, wishing to avenge the raid on their fellow believers.
The Rus were defeated, about five thousand of them broke through up the Volga and left towards the Volga Bulgaria, where they were completely exterminated by the Bulgars. Was Oleg killed in this particular campaign? At least, this is less fantastic than the story of a snake crawling out of a horse's skull. That is, it is quite possible that Oleg in 912 "died" for Russia, having gone on a long trip to the shores of the Caspian Sea. And the episode with the snake was taken from the Scandinavian sagas. In one of them, the prophet predicts death from his beloved horse to a certain Orvar Odda. The horse dies, and Odd goes to his grave, where he dies from the bite of a lizard that crawled out of the horse's skull. The Scandinavian influence in Russia at the time of Yaroslav the Wise was very strong. This episode, as well as the subsequent story about the burning of Drevlyan ambassadors by Princess Olga in a bathhouse (the usual execution for the Scandinavian sagas), was inserted into the chronicle,most likely, already with the sons of Yaroslav.
However, for some reason, until now, no one considered the option according to which Oleg, who led this campaign, and his army were not killed by the Bulgars in 913, but on the contrary, the Rus defeated the Bulgars and … remained to live in their lands. In the anonymous geography of the end of the 10th century, the Kama is traditionally taken as the source of the Atil (that is, the Volga) (by the way, today it is called the Tatars and Bashkirs - Idel), and the Upper Volga was considered its tributary. This tributary is called the Russian River, which begins in the lands of the Slavs and flows east through the lands of the Rus and finally flows into Atil. Hence it turns out that the Bulgar lands were inhabited by the Rus. The Bulgars are an Ugric tribe closely related to the Rus, and the king of the Bulgars at the beginning of the 10th century, according to the proposed version, was Oleg (or in other words, Almos) from the Rus clan.
In the Novgorod First Chronicle, we see strange dates: Oleg's campaign against Constantinople was marked in 922 (i.e., Oleg turns out to be alive), but, according to Byzantine sources, this period in Byzantium's relations with Russia was peaceful.
In 939 or 940, the Russians captured the Khazar city of Samkerts, which scientists identify with Tmutarakan. This approach is quite explainable for the supporters of the Norman theory of the origin of the Rus: Tmutarakan is a foreign city for both the Varangian Rus and the Slavs, and once, in the X century, the Rus captured it, annexing it to the possessions of Kievan Rus. Most likely it is Sarkel (a fortress city on the Don, it was also called Belaya Vezha in Slavonic). An indirect confirmation of this can be the fact that the city is considered a Khazar fortress. And the fact that the city of Tmutarakan, it turns out, was also called Samkerts, is already a fantasy of our historians. There was the city of Korchev, now Kerch, but it was on the other side, already in the Crimea.
The Novgorod first chronicle calls Oleg the governor of Prince Igor. In terms of his role in state and military affairs, it would be more correct to call Oleg the main voivode, the right hand of the prince.
The situation with the prince (voivode) Oleg is extremely confusing, it becomes almost impossible to find the correct answer. Any explanations and assumptions cannot pretend to be the truth. Nevertheless, a hypothesis can be formulated, which also has the right to exist.
There were two Olegs as such. The first is the Hungarian leader Almosh, or Olem according to the ancient Russian annals, he is also the future Bulgarian king Almush. It was he who captured Kiev in about 882, while killing the rulers of the city, which could be Askold and Dir. The latter ruled the city at the suggestion of the Khazars and two-thirds (however, perhaps only a third, leaving the other part to themselves) of the collected tribute was sent to Khazaria.
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Almos was a co-ruler of the main Hungarian leader Levedia. The son of Almos Arpad, who founded the first dynasty of Hungarian kings, as a co-ruler of Kursan at the end of the 9th century, conquered Pannonia, where the Hungarian tribes settled.
The seizure of Kiev and the murder of Askold and Dir, as well as a fictional episode about death from a snakebite, were "written off" in "Tale …" from the biography of Almos.
The second Oleg, in fact, was Oleg - this is the co-ruler of Prince Igor, or his governor of the Ugric tribe of the Rus. Hungarians and Russians are closely related tribes, it is quite possible that they are one and the same people. Igor ruled in Tmutarakan, the homeland of the Rus, or was there something like the crown prince. In 941, Oleg led an army in a campaign against Byzantium. Igor also took part in this campaign.
According to Ibn-Fadlan, the prince of the Rus has a governor, "who leads the army, fights against the enemies and takes his place for his subjects." That is, the Rus had the practice of reigning two leaders: the prince and his governor. We see an analogue of this custom among the Hungarians. The story brought to us a pair of Hungarian leaders: Levedy and Almos, Kursan and Arpad (son of Almos). It is curious that the seals of the Rurik family sign (Igor - Rurikovich) depict a bident, perhaps as an ancient symbol of the system of two leaders.
One of Oleg's warriors, probably noble, was young Sveneld. From the campaign Sveneld brought his wife - a Bulgarian, the daughter from this marriage was named in honor of Oleg Olga. When she grew up, she became the wife of the already aged Prince Igor.
The fact that the Russians, returning from their campaigns, brought their wives and concubines with them, can be evidenced by at least the fact that, according to Leo the Deacon, Svyatoslav, when disembarking on a deserted coast, when returning from the last Bulgarian campaign, brought sacrifices to the gods as babies. It is clear that these babies could only be children born of captured women. It is known that during Svyatoslav's campaign on the Danube, a "Greek" nun was brought among the captives, who was taken as a wife by the sons of Svyatoslav Yaropolk and later Vladimir and from whom Svyatopolk the Accursed was born. But this is on TV, and the alternative version still doubts her marriage to Yaropolk.
Having captured the Khazar Sarkel in 940, the Rus were defeated by the Khazar military leader Pesach and were forced to attack Byzantium. These events in the "Tale of Bygone Years" were omitted, but the description of Igor's campaign against the Greeks was preserved. However, Oleg is no longer mentioned, and this is understandable: the chroniclers simply replaced Oleg, who according to the "Tale …" died a long time ago, with Igor. Indeed, it would be strange that Prince Oleg, who had died a long time ago from a snakebite, suddenly led a campaign against Byzantium (i.e., against the Greeks).
Almost all researchers of early Russian history note a very absurd picture that traditional history gives us, the Rurik-Igor connections. Igor is born to obviously old Rurik, who by that time had already lost his younger brothers Sineus and Truvor, but Igor and Olga himself give birth to the heir Svyatoslav in his old years. Indeed, according to the chronicles, Svyatoslav was born when Igor was about 60 years old. Igor's reign began after the death of Oleg in 913 (Oleg dies at the end of 912), but from 915 to 941 there is no mention of Igor in the annals.
Didn't the first chroniclers really pay attention to these lapses? What, say, it cost them to declare Oleg the son of Rurik, and Igor the son of Oleg? It was very convenient, many exaggerations in the chronicle would have disappeared, in particular, in the long periods of their lives. But that did not happen. The reason, most likely, is that Oleg did not "fit" into Igor's fathers. Yes, and to inform everyone that Vladimir was not the son of the famous prince Svyatoslav, but was his rival nephew, who entered into an irreconcilable relationship with him, the chroniclers could not. However, another important reason was that Svyatoslav ruled in Kiev, the city of chroniclers, and Vladimir, from whom all the Rurikovichs went, was a primordial Novgorod prince, and therefore Novgorod would have to be given priority in the eternal dispute between these two cities.
Summing up, we can assume that under the name of Oleg in the "Tale of Bygone Years" the actions of two people are reflected: the Hungarian prince Almos and the prince (voivode) of the Rus Oleg. Prince Igor was related to the second of them. Igor had two sons: the eldest - Uleb and the youngest - Svyatoslav.