Becoming the ruler of Russia, Igor decisively changed his political line. Examining his agreement with Byzantium in 944, historian and archaeologist DL Talis summed up the results: “It (the agreement - V. K.) indicates that the Russian ultimately, the same Khazars (the "black Bulgarians" were an integral part of the Kaganate - VK), to destroy the Korsun country (that is, the possession of Byzantium in the Crimea - VK). In turn, Byzantium assumes the following obligation:
"If the Russian prince asks us for help for the war, then we will provide him with help as much as he needs." In the sense of the envisaged events and proceeding from the general situation … Byzantium undertook to provide assistance to the Russian prince in the struggle against the same Khazars. Igor's agreement thus reveals … the joint actions of Russia and Byzantium … against the common enemy - the Khazars … It should be emphasized, - concludes DL Talis - that … the obligations assumed by the Russian side were not at all dictated by Byzantium. In any case, as regards the struggle against the Khazars, this obligation was in the fundamental interests of Russian politics …”37d.
Later, the alliance of Russia with Byzantium - despite these or those contradictions - became more and more durable. Above, there was a message from the Arab chronicler Masudi dating back to 943, according to which Russia "is at war with Rum" (Byzantium). But just a decade later, in 954-955, that is, already during the reign of Olga, the same Masudi reported that many of the “ar-Rus tribes … have now entered the ar-Rum community … And they (the Byzantines) placed them (Russians) as garrisons in many of their fortresses … turned them against … peoples hostile to them”38g. The researcher of this text, the historian V. M. Beilis, wrote that “the instruction of al-Masudi should be taken precisely in the sense that the current situation was established recently … about the entry of the Rus into an alliance (with Byzantium. - V. K.) al-Masudi found out only now … The message of al-Masudi about the participation of the Russians in the struggle of Byzantium with its foreign policy opponents is also confirmed by several later, but more specific news”(cit. cit., pp. 27, 28).
Beilis rightly sees the beginning of this lasting alliance with Byzantium in Igor's actions: “Under the treaty of 944, there are already mutual obligations. The Byzantine emperors give troops to the Russian prince: "If the Russian prince asked us to go to war, but I will give him a lot of demand." Russian soldiers, if necessary, come to Byzantium … "If you want to start our kingdom from you and fight against us, let us write to your Grand Duke, and he will go to us, very much we want" (cit. Cit., P. 29).
Igor ruled for a very short time - from 941 to the end of 944 - early 945, when he was brutally killed by the Drevlyans, who were angry with the increase in tribute. By the way, L. N. Gumilev suggested that Igor was forced to increase the Drevlyansky tribute due to the need to pay a large tribute to the Kaganate (appointed after the defeat of Oleg II in the war with Passover).
At the same time, the treaty with Byzantium unambiguously testifies that Igor had a firm intention to resist the Khazars, and his son Svyatoslav twenty years later, in essence, fulfilled his father's behest; therefore, the negative “assessment” of Igor given by LN Gumilev (he is extremely indignant with Igor and even doubts - without any arguments - that he was the father of Svyatoslav! 39d) is unfair; another thing is his predecessor, Oleg II.
Olga, who actually ruled Russia from the end of 944 - the beginning of 945 on behalf of her son Svyatoslav, who was apparently no more than six or seven years old at the time of his father's death, continued Igor's policy.
According to the chronicle, where Olga's marriage is dated 903, she was at least fifty-five years old by that time (and she gave birth to Svyatoslav at the age of fifty …). This, no doubt, is not true. The information of the chronicle itself about Olga speaks of her truly young energy and, by the way, even directly refutes the idea of her as an elderly woman: after the death of her husband, the Drevlyan prince Mal wooed her, and even later the Byzantine almost "falls in love" with her Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, born in 905 - that is, he was at least fifteen years younger than her (according to the chronicle date of Olga's marriage).
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The information in the chronicle about Olga's reign opens with a lengthy story about her cruel revenge against the Drevlyans for the murder of her husband, which must have amazed the imagination of both chroniclers and their readers, especially because they had never encountered anything like this in their contemporary life in Russia in the 11th-12th centuries. Of course, certain acts of revenge were committed in Russia even later, but the most sophisticated and at the same time acquiring the character of a kind of monumentality, the ritual depicted in the annals, as they say, has no analogues in subsequent Russian history. And there is every reason to believe that this ritual of revenge was dictated by the Germanic - Scandinavian - tradition.
Olga's name testifies to her Scandinavian origin, although there is also chronicle information that she was a Slav and was originally called "Beautiful", but, in the opinion (of course, not devoid of tendentiousness) V. N. Tatishchev, Oleg, who married her to Igor, "Out of love, he renamed her to his name Olga." However, both Olga and her husband Igor have already, without a doubt, "Russified", which is immutable from the name of their son - Svyatoslav. Before him, the rulers were called Rurik, Oleg, Igor, and after him - Yaropolk, Vladimir, Svyatopolk, Yaroslav, etc. (although later the representatives of the Rurik dynasty often "remembered" the names of the founders and called their sons Ruriks, Olegs, Igor) … So the "border" between the rulers of Russia who still retained the Scandinavian consciousness and the already Russified can be considered the time of birth of Svyatoslav (in all likelihood, the end of the 930s),and there is reason to believe that Olga was already more Russian than Scandinavian.
But at the beginning of her reign, the leading role was played by the voivode Sveneld (this was in a peculiar way proved by the outstanding Polish historian of Russia Andrzej Poppé 40g) and the “breadwinner” (educator) Svyatoslav Asmud, that is, the Scandinavians, who, according to the chronicle, directly lead the campaign of retribution against the Drevlyans (later - about which below - both of them were in Northern Russia, and in Kiev Olga in 968 was saved from the Pechenegs by a voivode with the Slavic name Pretich). And, apparently, it was these Scandinavians, and not Olga herself, who dictated that impressive ritual of retribution to the Drevlyans, which later never took place in Russia.
This conclusion is also confirmed by the fact that after a while Olga brought the children of the Drevlyan prince Mal - Malusha and Dobrynya - to her captive and turned into slaves. This seems to contradict the story of the most brutal massacre against the Drevlyans, however, in the "Tale of Bygone Years" there is a message that after the seizure of the Drevlyansky town of Iskorosten Olga "the elders of the city are being removed, and other people are beaten, and other people are betrayed to work" - that is, “she took the city elders into captivity, but she killed other people, and gave others into slavery …”.
A. A. Shakhmatov gave a number of arguments in favor of the opinion that the slave housekeeper Olga Malusha and her brother Dobrynya were the children of the Drevlyan prince Mal *. True, this version was disputed, but otherwise it is difficult to explain the "careers" of these persons: how could a slave woman become the wife of Svyatoslav and the mother of Vladimir, and her brother the most important voivode of the latter? It is much more reliable that we are in fact "forgiven", after all, for the guilt of their father, the children of Prince Drevlyansky …
* A. A. Shakhmatov, in particular, offered a convincing explanation of the reason for the emergence of two different chronicle names of the father of Malusha and Dobrynya: Mal and Malk Lyubchanin: Mal originated, according to legend, from the Drevlyansky city of Kolchesk - Klchesk and was called Mal Klchanin, but the chronicler is incorrect divided the words, it turned out "Malk Lchanin". and he turned the second word into "Lyubchanin", since the city of Lyubech was much more famous (see: Shakhmatov A. A. Investigations about the oldest chronicle vaults. St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 375).
Chronicle information about Malusha and Dobryna is, in their totality, a kind of dramatic novel. After the murder of Igor, the Drevlyane prince Mal audaciously wooed his widow Olga, but was defeated, and his children became Olga's slaves. But then Olga not only forgives these children - in fact, thereby canceling the covenant of inevitable revenge - but also makes their fate worthy of their princely origin. It is possible that this forgiveness was also engendered by Olga's acceptance of Christianity.
At the same time, it seems that Olga, having taken revenge on Mal, seemed to have appreciated his steadfastness and audacity and wanted her grandson to be Mal's grandson (thus, the wedding proposed by Mal took place at the children of Olga and Mal …). This dramatic "romance", the action of which began in 945, as if acquires the sharpest end many years later, in 980, when the grandson of Olga and Mala Vladimir Svyatoslavich woo the daughter of the Polotsk prince Rogvolod - the Scandinavian Rogneda, but she, knowing about the old status Malushi, arrogantly rejects the proposal: “I don’t want to shoe the son of a slave!” ** - and a cruel denouement will take place - Vladimir will destroy his father and two brothers of Rogneda and marry her by force …
** According to the then custom, after the wedding, the wife took off her husband's shoes.
This interweaving of revenge and forgiveness, hatred and love seems to portend the situation in Dostoevsky's novels. In general, looking closely at the very initial pages of the history of Russia, we already there discover a rich, complex and multifaceted life, which is capable of capturing the mind and soul just like the latest Russian history.
It should also be said that after Olga married the daughter of the Drevlyan prince to Svyatoslav, the opposition of the Derevskaya land to Kiev, which took place, according to the chronicle, already at the beginning of the 9th century, after the death of Kiy, apparently completely stopped, and, pacified during the time of the powerful power of Oleg the Prophet (who "possessed the derevlyans"), it became aggravated again during the weakening of Russia, eventually leading to the death of Igor.
