After Oleg the Prophetic, the “second” Oleg, apparently, who in oral legends merged with the first, apparently ruled; it is possible that he was the son of the first. The documentary reign of the "second" Oleg is confirmed by the "Khazar letter" compiled in the middle of the 10th century, which tells about the events of the late 930s - early 940s. The letter refers to the then ruler of the Khazar Kaganate Joseph, the Byzantine emperor Roman I Lakapin (919-944) and the "Tsar of Russia" Khlgu (Oleg).
I am quoting the latest translation of a fragment of this letter by A. P. Novoseltsev: “… in the days of Tsar Joseph … the villain Romanus sent great gifts to Khlgu, the Tsar of Russia, inciting him to commit an evil deed. And he came at night to the city of Smkriya (later Tmutarakan - Taman. - V. K.) and captured it by fraudulent means … And it became known to Bulshtsi (apparently, a high Khazar title. - V. K.) aka Passover hmkr (Iranian or, more likely, Khorezm title. - V. K.), and he went in anger at the cities of Romanus (meaning the Byzantine cities in the Crimea. - V. K.) and killed everyone from men to women … And he went from there on Khlgu and fought with him for four months, and God subjugated him to Passover … Then he told Khlgu that Romanus prompted me to do it. And Passover said to him: if this is so, then go to war against Romanus, as you fought with me, and then I will leave you alone. If not,I'll die or I'll live until I avenge myself. And he went and did so against his will and fought against Constantinople at sea for four months. And his men fell there, since the Macedonians (in Byzantium then the Macedonian dynasty ruled. - V. K.) defeated him with fire (meaning a combustible mixture - "Greek fire", which did not extinguish even on water; its composition is not completely clear and today. - V. K.). And he fled, and was ashamed to return to his land and went by sea to Prs (Persia. - V. K.) and there he and his army fell. And so the Rus fell under the rule of the Khazars " …not extinguished even on the water; its composition is not completely clear even today. - VK.). And he fled, and was ashamed to return to his land and went by sea to Prs (Persia. - V. K.) and there he and his army fell. And so the Rus fell under the rule of the Khazars. "not extinguished even on the water; its composition is not completely clear even today. - VK.). And he fled, and was ashamed to return to his land and went by sea to Prs (Persia. - V. K.) and there he and his army fell. And so the Rus fell under the rule of the Khazars."
The Russian state at the beginning of the 10th century Under Oleg Veshche not only a single Russian state was created, stretching from Ladoga to Kiev: this state acted as a full participant, a "subject" of the historical existence of a huge Eurasian region, in which three powerful empires operated - Byzantium, the Khazar Khaganate and the Arab Caliphate
As we will see later, the story about the fate of Khlgu-Oleg from the moment he went to Constantinople is completely and completely reliable (except for one detail: Oleg, obviously, went to Persia - more precisely, to the southern part of present-day Azerbaijan, then subordinate to Iran, - again, not without the dictatorship of the Khazars, since it was a campaign against Muslims hostile to the Kaganate).
Everything said in the "Khazar letter" is confirmed by modern (or closely spaced from the event) Byzantine, Western European and Arab sources, although the ruler of Russia in some of these sources is called "Igor" (why this is so - will be clarified), and in the Arab ones it is generally unnamed … True, A. P. Novoseltsev not so long ago re-examined the work of the Arab chronicler Masudi, who wrote in the early 940s about the "king of the Slavs" named "al-Olwang" (this is close to "Oleg") - moreover, about he is spoken of as a contemporary of the chronicler: “… the king al-Olwang, who has many possessions, vast buildings, a large army and abundant military equipment. He is at war with Rum,”that is, with the Byzantine Empire. Meanwhile, as already mentioned, there is no reliable information about the war with Byzantium at the time of Oleg the Prophet. And if "Olvang" is Oleg,then it was just about the "second" Oleg.
Battle of the Rus with the Khazars. "Khlgu, the king of Russia, came at night to the city of Smkriya (Tmutarakan) and captured it by deceit …"
In the “Khazar letter,” the fact that the commander Pesach seeks not to crush Khlgu-Oleg to the end, but to force him to fight with Byzantium, may cause bewilderment. But for the attack on Constantinople, a sea campaign was needed, and there was no fleet, except for the Russian (as already mentioned). On the other hand, the Kaganate pursued the goal of weakening both Byzantium and Russia at the same time, plunging them into confrontation.
What was said above about the "second" Oleg, who ruled after the death of Oleg the Prophet and until 941, seems to be strongly contradicted by the fact that both in the Russian chronicle, and in the "History" of the Byzantine Leo the Deacon, and in the chronicle of the Bishop of Cremona Liutprand, the leader of the campaign of Russia against Constantinople in 941 named Igor.
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However, with a careful analysis of all sources, this contradiction is resolved. The campaign of Russia in 941 was thoroughly studied in the works of the historian N. Ya. Polovoy, and it turned out that the Russian army, approaching on June 11, 941 on numerous boats to the Bosphorus Strait, was divided into two unequal parts. A small detachment of soldiers - we would now call it a landing party - rushed forward, landed on the coast and began to smash the outskirts of Constantinople, while Byzantine ships unexpectedly attacked the main mass of the Russian fleet, unleashing "Greek fire" on it. This made a stunning impression on the "paratroopers" observing the sea battle from the shore. Seeing how one after another Russian boats were lighting up, they decided that the fleet was lost, the struggle was meaningless, and with the onset of night they set off under cover of darkness on their few boats on their way back to Kiev. Returning home, they, according to the chronicle, said: "Like a thunderbolt, - speech, - like in heaven, they have a lot of money in their own, and behold, the zhachah will have us, for this sake, they have not overcome them" - that is, "As if they have lightning from heaven the Greeks in their house and, letting it go, they burned us; that's why they did not overcome them."
Build boats. N. Roerich, 1903 The Khazars needed a sea voyage to attack Constantinople, and there was no fleet, except for the Russian
However, as N. Ya. Polova convincingly showed, the main part of the fleet, having suffered severe damage from the "Greek fire", did not perish at all, but moved east (the way to the north, to Kiev, was blocked by the Byzantine fleet), to the shores of the Asia Minor provinces of Byzantium and fought there for over three months.
Having recreated this course of events on the basis of an analysis of all available sources, except for the Khazar, N. Ya. Polovoy then turned to the latter, and it became clear that the "Khazar letter" does not in the least contradict other sources, but only supplements them: according to him, the fleet fought against Byzantines "at sea for four months", and then went not to Russia, but further east - through the territory of the Kaganate to the cities of the Caspian Muslims hostile to the Khazars - as reported by a number of Arab sources.
Thus, the then ruler of the city of Berdaa (now Barda in Azerbaijan, a hundred kilometers from the border with Iran), Iranian Marzban ibn Muhammad, told his contemporary, the Arab chronicler: “And we entered the battle with the Russians. And we fought well with them and killed a lot of their people, including their leader "- that is, without a doubt, Oleg, - the surviving Rus" went to the Kura (river) and boarded their ships and left. " This happened in late 943 - early 944. It should be noted that, according to the Novgorod Chronicle, death befell Oleg "going over the sea", although it is not said beyond the Black Sea - where the Russians did not "go" during the compilation of the chronicles.
The use of Greek fire. Miniature from a medieval manuscript
N. Ya. Polovoy sees in that Oleg, about whom the "Khazar letter" tells, not Oleg the Prophet, but namely another, "second" Oleg. At the same time, N. Ya. Polovoi did not dare to overcome to the end the inertia of the "generally accepted" version. Having said that Igor and Oleg were “the two leaders of the campaign of 941 known to us”, he claimed that Oleg was “in complete subordination to Igor” (p. 102). But this is hardly consistent with the fact firmly established by N. Ya. Sexov himself: while the Russian fleet as a whole - hundreds or even thousands of boats - was under the command of Oleg, Igor led a small assault that landed on the shore near the walls of Constantinople, and then, according to Leo the Deacon [72], only a dozen boats made his way in the darkness to the north, to Russia. N. Ya. Polovoy believes that it was in this small airborne detachment that "the leadership of the campaign,consisting of Prince Igor and his entourage”(p. 92). But this is hardly any reliable assumption.
The Khazars, no doubt, knew the situation in Russia much better than the Byzantines (not to mention Liutprande of Cremona, who visited Constantinople), and in the “Khazar letter” it was Oleg, not Igor, who was called “the king of Russia”. Of course, they can object to me that, they say, the Russian chronicle puts Igor, not Oleg, at the head of the 941 campaign. But, as has already been shown, in the annals there is a completely understandable contradiction. Legends brought to its compiler information that a ruler named Oleg undertook a campaign against Constantinople, however, since in the same legends the "second" Oleg merged into a single image with Oleg the Prophet, this campaign was "postponed" (with details taken from Byzantine reports just about the campaign of 941!) in 907, when the confrontation between Russia and Byzantium did not take place at all (as discussed in detail above),and the chronicle announced Igor as the leader of the campaign in 941.
The Cambridge Document. Anonymous Jewish-Khazar letter from the middle of the 10th century.
The replacement of Oleg by Igor in the story of the 941 campaign in Byzantine and Western European sources is evidently due to the fact that Oleg “disappeared” after the campaign, and Igor became the ruler of Russia and conducted subsequent negotiations with Constantinople. It should be noted that the Western European and Byzantine sources, in which the leader of the 941 campaign is called Igor, are very late sources: Liutprand of Cremona received information about this campaign of Rus only in 949 or even 968, and Leo the Deacon wrote about it even later - in 980s.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that in a number of chronicles Igor is called the nephew of Oleg - of course, Oleg the Prophet (since there is no talk of another Oleg). However, this is almost as implausible from a "chronological" point of view as the announcement of Igor as the son of Rurik. It is much more likely that Igor was the nephew of the “second” Oleg, and as a result of the latter's disappearance he found himself in his place as the ruler of Rus; thus, it was as if the entire "responsibility" for the campaign against Constantinople was transferred to him, and after the defeat it was he who concluded a peace treaty with Byzantium in 944.
This agreement, according to the definition of a researcher of Russian-Byzantine relations, was, by the way, “less profitable for the Russians than the 911 agreement (concluded by Oleg the Prophet - V. K.) … Russia was forced to give up some of its previous advantages … and take on himself a number of new obligations in relation to Byzantium "- which was, as it were," punishment "for the attack on Constantinople in 941.
Igor was clearly still a very young man at that time; the fact is that the text of the 944 treaty mentions ambassadors from Igor's two nephews and his only child, Svyatoslav; if Igor had other children, ambassadors would undoubtedly have been appointed from them.
The campaign of Prince Oleg to Constantinople in 941. Miniature from the Radziwill Chronicle
The fact that Igor began to rule Russia by no means in 913 (as stated in the chronicle) is clearly indicated, among other things, by the following. The annals repeatedly mention the outstanding voivode Sveneld, who served Igor from the very beginning of his reign, then serves Olga and Svyatoslav and, finally, the eldest son of the latter, Yaropolk, until 977. And if Igor had really ruled since 913, Sveneld's "voivodeship" would have lasted almost 65 years! In fact, Sveneld became the governor of Igor on the eve of the death of the latter, in the 940s.
There is a very convincing version, put forward in the above studies by N. Ya. Polovoy and supported by MI Artamonov, according to which Sveneld participated in the campaign against Constantinople Oleg ("the second"), went with him to Persia, and after Oleg's death near the city of Berdaa led the surviving part of the army and returned to Kiev, where he became the governor of Igor. The fact is that among the fifty persons who signed the Russian treaty with Byzantium in 944 (probably in the summer), Sveneld does not appear; he apparently returned from Transcaucasia to Kiev only at the end of this year.
The above "non-standard" ideas (first of all about the "second" Oleg, who led the campaign against Constantinople in 941), seemingly not finding any confirmation in the Russian chronicles, can for this reason be perceived with decisive resistance - and as "discrediting "Chronicles, and as" arbitrary "speculation … However, in the Arkhangelsk chronicler, who preserved (this is generally accepted) a number of reliable ancient information, it is reported about this state of affairs:
“Ida Olg to the Greeks … and came to Tsaryugrad … - it is said here. - Then there was Tsar Roman (ruled from 919–944 - VK) and ambassador (l) patrekey Theophanes (it was the patrician Theophan who commanded the Byzantine fleet in 941! - VK) from the warriors to Russia; the fiery structure burned the Russian ship, and Russia returned home without success; then … in the third summer (that is, in 944! - VK) I came to Kiev."
Roman I Lacapenus (919-944). Byzantine coin, mid-10th century
Everything in this text is quite accurate - in particular, it does not say that Oleg himself returned to Kiev “in the third summer”; only part of the army returned, and Oleg died in the Transcaucasia, "overseas", and in the same chronicler a little lower it is reported: "This Olg … will die … always from Tsaryagorod, crossed the sea" (ibid.), which completely coincides with "Khazar letter"!
Thus, initially in the annals it was Oleg who led the campaign in 941 and then died "overseas", but later he was "replaced" by Igor in almost all chronicles, since this was required by the fictional version of the unity of the dynasty (Rurik - Igor - Svyatoslav).
However, the following consideration may arise: why not believe that Oleg, who was active in 941, is still the same Oleg the Prophet; After all, as you know, the early dates in the chronicle are often erroneous, and maybe Oleg the Prophet died not in 912 (as in the chronicle), but in the early 940s? However, Oleg, who was an adult even under Rurik, was born, apparently, in the middle of the 9th century, and life expectancy at that time was relatively short. So, of all the Russian princes of the XI - the middle of the XIII century, the dates of birth and death of which are precisely known, only one - Vladimir Monomakh - crossed the seventy-year line (he died 71 or 72 years old). But something else is even more revealing: at the age of 64, Monomakh wrote his magnificent "Doctrine", where more than once he speaks of himself as a kind of "long-lived" and praises God, "like me this day of a sinner, do it."And in fact: we do not know (based on reliable dates) not a single prince of that time who lived to be sixty-four years old! And Oleg the Prophet, of course, could not live up to 941 …
It may seem to the readers that I paid too much attention and space to the proofs of the existence of the “second” Oleg. Is it so important, they will tell me, that after the death of Oleg the Prophet, Russia was ruled not by Igor, but by a certain “second” Oleg, who seemed to have been completely “forgotten” by the time the chronicle was compiled?
The capture of the city of Berdaa during the Russian campaign to the Caspian Sea in 943–944. Artist Kochergin N. M. Letting the Russian daredevils to the Caspian Sea, the Khazars, without spending their own forces, inflicted very serious blows on the Muslims of Transcaucasia and, without even lifting a finger, appropriated half of the booty
To answer this question, one should first of all pay attention to the more significant "forgetfulness" of the chronicle: there is not a word in it that the campaign of the "second" Oleg to Constantinople was carried out under the dictates of the Khazar Kaganate, as well as his subsequent campaign in Persia where this Oleg - in essence, ingloriously - perished. The chronicle also does not mention the earlier campaign of Rus in the same Caspian lands, which took place between 912 and 917 (the exact date has not been established) - that is, apparently, at the beginning of the reign of the same - "second" - Oleg.
I will cite fragments from the work of one of the most prominent Arab chroniclers, Masudi, written in 943 and telling about the first (in the 910s) campaign of Rus to the Caspian Sea. "About 500 ships" from Russia, - reported Masudi, - sailed along the Black Sea to the Kerch Strait, where "the well-equipped people of the Khazar king are located. Their task is to resist everyone who comes from this (Black) sea … When the ships of the Rus reached the Khazar troops stationed at the entrance to the strait, they communicated with the Khazar king, asking permission to pass through his land … and thus reach the Khazar (Caspian)) the sea … on the condition that they give him half of the booty captured from the peoples living by this sea. He allowed them to commit this lawlessness … The Rus ships scattered across the sea and attacked … The Rus shed their blood,did what they wanted with women and children and seized property. They sent out detachments that plundered and burned … thousands of Muslims were killed … The Rus stayed on this sea for many months … When the Rus got booty … they moved to the mouth of the Khazar River (Volga) and got in touch with the Khazar king, who was sent money and booty, like this was agreed between them. The Khazar king did not have sea vessels, and his people did not know how to handle them; had it not been for this, the Muslims would have been more troublesome from him (that is, the Rus performed the task that the Khazars could not accomplish themselves. - V. K.). The Larissians (hired Khorezm guard of the Kaganate. - V. K.) and other Muslims of the kingdom (Khazar) learned about what the Russians had done and said to the king: "Let us deal with these people who attacked our Muslim brothers …" The king could not prevent them,but he sent to warn the Russians that the Muslims decided to fight with them. The Muslims gathered an army and went down the river (Volga), seeking a meeting with them … The battle between them lasted three days, and Allah granted victory to the Muslims. The Rus were put to the sword, killed and drowned … As far as one could count, the number of those killed by the Muslims on the banks of the Khazar river was about 30 thousand."
Medieval world map of the famous Arab chronicler al-Masoudi. Al-Masudi wrote about the Rus campaign to the Caspian: "When the Rus gained booty … They moved to the mouth of the Khazar River (Volga) and got in touch with the Khazar king, who was sent money and booty, as agreed between them."
N. Ya. Polovoy rightly wrote about this campaign of Russia, as well as about the later one, held in 943-944 (after the campaign against Constantinople), that these "raids of Russia … helped the Khazars to resist not only against the danger from the south … but also strengthened their positions Khazars … in the fight against Russia. Passing the Russian daredevils to the Caspian, the Khazars, without spending their own forces, inflicted very serious blows on the Muslims of Transcaucasia and, without lifting a finger, also appropriated half of the booty. Thus, the Russians, whose task was, undoubtedly, the elimination of the Khazar Kaganate (which was carried out in the 960s by Svyatoslav. - VK), themselves temporarily strengthened this state, striking … the enemies of Khazaria."
As for the second (943) campaign of Rus to the Caspian, the dictate of the Khazar Kaganate, which forced Oleg II first to attack Constantinople, and then, with the remnants of the fleet and troops, the Muslim city of Berdaa in the Transcaucasus, is quite clear. The question of the first campaign is more complicated, although in the information of Masudi, the most insidious "game" of the Khazar king is evident. At the same time, the Russians hardly sailed to the Khazar outpost in the Kerch Strait without any preliminary agreement and still had to (as Masudi believed) “communicate” with the Khazar king who was in Itil, that is, at a distance of about a thousand kilometers even in a straight line!
Stirrups, bit, battle ax and saber. Khazar Kaganate
Since there is no information about the attack of the Kaganate on Russia in the 910s, it is natural to believe that the Khazars somehow "seduced" the Russians to make this trip to the Caspian, promising rich booty.
Reflections on these campaigns of Rus in the Transcaucasus, as well as on the campaign of 941 against Constantinople, were the basis for a sharply negative assessment of Oleg the Prophet and Igor in a number of now widely known works of L. N. Gumilyov, who as early as inheritance to Igor … left not a mighty state, but the zone of influence of the Khazar Kaganate ", who managed to" subdue the Russian princes to such an extent that they turned into his assistants and servants who gave their lives for interests alien to them … Chronicler Nestor kept silent about this page of history."
But this "page of history" belonged to Oleg II, and not to Oleg the Prophet and not Igor (Igor's independent policy will be discussed later), and it is possible that Nestor's "silence" about this other Oleg (and the campaigns of his time) is also explained by the unwillingness remember him …
There is a kind of historical "regularity", which is often discussed in general theoretical terms, but very rarely seek to see its manifestation in a specific movement in history: a period of high upswing in the country is sometimes, as it were, for no particular reason, replaced by a period of deep decline. Either the country "gets tired" of the powerful exertion of its forces, or successes give rise to it self-satisfaction, which turns a blind eye to the dangers, but, in any case, this pattern is real and, in particular, has manifested itself in the history of our country over the past half century, which is clearly are divided (roughly in half) into two very different periods.
A similar change in periods of rise and fall seems to have occurred in Russia in the middle (that is, in the 910s) of the period from the 880s to the 940s. Under Oleg the Veshche, there was a strong unification of Northern and Southern Russia, a strong opposition to the Khazar Kaganate and fruitful relations with the Byzantine Empire. In the 910s - early 940s, all this is somehow violated. It is significant that later, under the year 947, "The Tale of Bygone Years" reports (I am giving the text in translation by D. S. Likhachev): "Olga went to Novgorod (or rather, to Nevogorod-Ladoga. - V. K.) and established … graveyards … rent and tribute "- that is, one must think, has revived the broken connection with Northern Russia. Earlier, in 944, Igor renewed his alliance with Byzantium, thereby starting preparations for the fight against the Khazar Khaganate (about which - below).
Khazaria in the VIII-IX centuries Legend: 1 - boundaries of the forest with the forest-steppe; 2 - Khazar fortresses and cities of the 8th – 9th centuries; 3 - Russian cities of the 9th-10th centuries; 4 - the path of the Pechenegs along the southern Russian steppes at the end of the 9th century; 5 - directions of expansion of the Khazar Kaganate in the 8th – 9th centuries; 6 - the capital of Volga Bulgaria; 7 - distance from the summer rate of the kagan on the V-r-shan river to the boundaries of the personal domain. Published based on the book by S. A. Khazary Pletneva
In a word, LN Gumilev groundlessly "condemned" Oleg the Prophet and Igor, who were highly appreciated (especially the first of them) in the annals; it was supposed to be about who ruled Russia in the thirty-year interval between 912 and 942. As already mentioned, the Arkhangelsk chronicler preserved a kind of relic of the faithful tradition that the campaign against Constantinople in 941 was led by Oleg (of course, not Prophetic), who then died, “crossed the sea” (I say “relic” because here, in the same chronicler there is a denial of the cited message - introduced, obviously, later - "information": Igor is the son of Rurik and begins to reign back in 913!).
So, the "page of history" that took three decades, which Nestor "kept silent" about - the reign of Oleg II. This should not be understood in the sense that the “decline” and weakening of Russia in the 910s - early 940s were primarily due to the personality of the new ruler: the natural change in periods of rise and decline is rooted in the existence of the country as a whole, and not in the character of the ruler; the latter only most obviously embodies in its actions (and inaction) both ups and downs. Oleg II already at the beginning of his reign succumbed to the most insidious Khazar plan for Rus' campaign against the Caspian; later he was carried away by the action proposed by the Byzantine emperor Roman I to rob the rich Khazar Samkerts (in the "Khazar letter" it is reported, by the way, that Pesach "found the booty that Khlgu captured in Smkriu"), and then he attacked Constantinople (although, as completely L. N. Gumilev, “there was absolutely nothing for the Russians to fight with the Greeks”) and, finally, found his death in distant Berdaa.
Tribute to the Slavs to the Khazars. Miniature from the Radziwill Chronicle
It is natural to believe that this Oleg did not care about the unity of Northern and Southern Russia; Chronicle information about such care refers to the time of Oleg the Prophet, who may have died in the north, in Ladoga, where he created the first stone fortress in Russia, and then, a third of a century later, to the time of Olga.
After the publication of the first edition of this book, I got acquainted with a fragment of the work (published in 1995 in the French journal "Revue des etudes buzantines") by K. Zuckerman - a fragment entitled "Rus, Byzantium and Khazaria in the middle of the X century: problems of chronology" … To a certain extent, this study "echoes" this section of my book - in particular, its author largely relied on the same, as I did, the previous (but undeservedly "forgotten") scrupulous searches of N. Ya. Polovoy and V. M Beilis.
K. Zuckerman's research has convincingly proved that (I quote) “Igor ruled for three or four years … he reigned in 941, when … his predecessor Oleg left his country forever … Olegova Rus, invading“Persia”after an unsuccessful campaign against Constantinople, I never returned to Kiev”(above I suggested that some part of Oleg's army, led by Sveneld, was still able to return to Kiev).
As it is said here, “there is every reason to believe that Russia attacked Berdaa (between 943 and 945 - V. K.) in alliance with the Khazars”, but “while Russian troops occupied Berdaa, the Kiev prince Igor concluded in the summer of 944 a new treaty with Byzantium. This chronological coincidence can be perplexing if one considers that both actions came from the same authority. The friction between the Khazars and Byzantium is attested not only by the Letter from Geniza (c. 949), but also by Constantine Porphyrogenitus … How could Russia become an ally of both powers at the same time? " But in fact, acting on the Khazar order, "Olegov Rus … had nothing to do with Igor's policy of reconciliation with Byzantium" (quoted from: Slavs and their neighbors. Issue 6. M., 1996. S. 74, 76).
Weapons and armor of the Slavs of the 9th-10th centuries Reconstruction
This and a number of other conclusions of the researcher seem to be completely correct and very important. At the same time, K. Zuckerman, clarifying the "problem of chronology" of Igor's reign, unfortunately, "obscured" the same problem in relation to Oleg, who turned out to be an implausible "long-liver" in his version.
In an effort to get out of the difficult situation, the researcher simply suggested that in 944 “Oleg was … at least sixty years old” (p. 77), that is, he was born in the early 880s. However, with such a decision, it will be necessary to deny that connection between Oleg and Rurik, who died before 880, about which there is quite definite chronicle information, and, secondly, completely reject all the chronicle dates of Oleg's death. In addition, K. Zuckerman himself mentions that "the chronicles are confused in the testimony regarding the place and circumstances of Oleg's death" (p. 76), which, by the way, is not in the chronicle reports about other princes. And it is quite natural to come to the conclusion about the existence of two Olegs, the first of whom died in 912 (or 913), and the second in 944 (or 945). Strictly speaking, K. Zuckerman's research leads directly to just such a solution, and, obviously,only a kind of historiographic "inertia" prevented the author from making this decision …
But it should be noted that shortly after the publication of the first edition of this book, a study was published in which it was proved that there were two Olegs - "the Elder" ("Prophetic") and his son, "Younger", and - and this is especially significant - the researcher relied on other facts and arguments than I did - mainly on information from the Scandinavian epic - but came to the same conclusion. (See: Alekseev S. "Prophetic Sacred" (Prince Oleg Kievsky) // Russian Middle Ages. International relations. 1998. Issue 2. M., 1999. P. 4–24.
Vadim Kozhinov