It so happened that we know about the Novgorod-Seversky Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich thanks to the defeat of the Russian squad in one of the battles with the Polovtsians. An unknown author told about this tragic page in the history of Russia in the poem "The Lay of Igor's Campaign." The unexpected happened - the history of Prince Igor and the fate of the unique poem were linked together.
Prince Igor was born in 1151 and belonged to the Rurik family, the Olgovichi clan. The main possession of the Olgovichi was Chernigov region, but the princes went on military campaigns to expand their lands to neighboring lands, Kiev and Novgorod. Igor Svyatoslavovich got the princely throne in Novgorod-Seversky. The principality itself was small and not rich. The peculiarity of these lands was that they were located on the border with the Polovtsian Khanate and the principality was a shield that protected Russia from numerous Polovtsian raids. Therefore, the prince of Novgorod-Seversk had to be at the same time a warrior prince, a border guard prince and a wise ruler prince. Igor Svyatoslavovich was perfect for this role. By his mother, he was half Polovtsian and knew the nomadic people well. I knew how to live with them in peace,although sometimes military skirmishes still took place between Igor's retinue and the Polovtsians. Igor had a dominant character trait: he loved military campaigns, did not avoid battles, he liked to make daring raids deep into the territory of the enemy.
In his youth, Prince Igor took part in Andrey Bogolyubsky's campaign against wealthy Kiev. He managed to get a lot of treasures while plundering the city. However, in the future, his participation in the inter-princely strife did not bring him either profit or glory. And his confrontation with Prince Rurik Rostislavovich ended with the complete defeat of the army of Prince Igor.
Prince Igor cannot be considered a failure. Significant victories are recorded for him. For example, in 1171 he returned from a campaign against the Polovtsians with a victory. And in the early 1180s, he twice achieved victory with small forces: in 1183 he defeated the steppe inhabitants and brought many prisoners, and a few months later he utterly defeated a Polovtsian detachment, consisting of 400 fighters.
Easy victories, obviously, turned the head of Prince Igor. He already considered the Polovtsians not dangerous enemies. By 1185, having collected an army, Igor went to war against the Polovtsians. The warriors of the princes Svyatoslav Rylsky, Vsevolod Trubchevsky and Vladimir Putivlsky took part in the campaign. A detachment of nomad kovuev came from Chernigov and joined the military coalition created by Igor. The army turned out to be assembled, but small in number: the sparsely populated estates of the princes participating in the campaign could not give more soldiers to the troops.
At the beginning of the campaign, the Russian army was lucky - in a battle near the Syurliy River, they defeated the advanced detachment of the Polovtsians. But intelligence reported to the prince about the presence of large enemy forces ahead. Prince Igor had a chance to retreat immediately, saving the people and the glory of the first victory, but Igor hesitantly stopped and announced an overnight stay at the Kayala River.
Prince Igor misjudged the forces of the Polovtsians - they had sufficient human and material resources to resist the Russian army. The steppe dwellers gathered fighters from all over their land and in the morning attacked the army of the Russian princes: “When the dawn of Saturday began, the Polovtsian regiments began to approach, like a forest. And the Russian princes did not know which of them to go against whom - there were so many Polovtsians …”. In this battle, Prince Igor was wounded in the arm.
Despite the fact that the main voivode practically left the battle, the battle lasted almost a day. And in the morning the kovui left the battlefield without permission. A small number of boyar warriors fled with them, but the boyars themselves remained on the battlefield to the last. Prince Igor tried to catch up with the fleeing and moved away from his soldiers. And when he decided to return to the fighting troops, the Polovtsy, recognizing him, rushed across the path and captured the prince. Having lost the main commander, the Russian army was finally defeated. All the princes who fought shoulder to shoulder with Prince Igor and their squads were captured. Only 15 warriors managed to escape captivity and go back to the Russian lands.
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When the news of Igor's defeat and capture reached Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, he urgently set about forming new regiments to defend the Russian borders. Svyatoslav believed that Igor "could not restrain the fervor of youth, they opened the gates to the Russian land." Inspired by victory, the Polovtsian hordes poured into Russia to take revenge on the Russians for their previous defeats. The bloody raids of the steppe inhabitants brought incalculable grief to the Russian population: villages burned, blood flowed, cities were devastated.
Because of the texts of ancient chronicles, contemporaries and descendants remembered Prince Igor only by his defeat on the Kayala River. His failure brought great misfortune to Russia. And the culprit of troubles languished in captivity and sincerely lamented about his sin before the Russian people. Judging by the fact that he was allowed to call a priest from the Russian land, the Polovtsians treated him like a noble prisoner.
Soon, Prince Igor managed to escape from captivity. His son Vladimir remained in captivity of the steppe inhabitants for a long time. He returned to Russia only after he married the daughter of Prince Konchak.
Only by 1191 did Igor Svyatoslavovich consider that the squad and the principality had recovered from heavy losses and the regiments were ready to go to war against the nomads. The Russian prince viewed this military campaign as revenge for the defeat on the Kayala River. The military campaign against the Polovtsians this time turned out to be successful: with rich booty, the Russian army returned to the principality.
The lessons of defeat on the Kajala River were not in vain for Prince Igor; in subsequent military campaigns against the steppe inhabitants, he became more careful. Igor Svyatoslavovich again led the coalition, which included all the Olgovichi, to repeat the successful foray into the steppe.
It seemed that this time the story of the unsuccessful campaign six years ago was repeating itself. The Polovtsi were also well prepared for the attack of the Russians. And they resorted to their usual tactics: they planned to lure the Russian army deep into the territory, directly, into an ingenious trap prepared in advance. The intelligence of the Polovtsians very closely followed the advance of the Olgovichi troops. But Igor assumed such a development of events and in time brought the soldiers out of the attack of significantly superior enemy forces: he carried out a covert night retreat. The Polovtsi did not expect such a military maneuver, rushing in pursuit, they could not overtake the Russians.
Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich, unfortunately, is known in Russian history only from the events of 1185. I guess this is wrong and unfair. Although as a military leader he was mediocre, as a fighter he surpassed many of the best warriors in his squad and had a lot of experience in battles. As a ruler, he was distinguished by wisdom and kindness. For his courage in defending the borders of Russia, he was rewarded: from a secondary principality, he was transferred to Chernigov, which is considered one of the “senior tables” of Russia. Igor Svyatoslavovich became prince of Chernigov at the end of his life. Soon the warrior prince, the Christian prince, died peacefully.
The story of Prince Igor's unsuccessful campaign against the Polovtsi, and even in poetic form, became known only in the 18th century. But the events of bygone days, told by an unknown author, themselves have become a mystery that many researchers cannot understand.
The manuscript "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" was found in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. It was acquired through intermediaries by a connoisseur of Russian antiquities, a collector Count A. I. Musin-Pushkin.
In 1812, the manuscript was destroyed during a fire in Moscow. However, 12 years before this event, the first edition of the Lay was published.
The poem is unique and mysterious: its mysterious rhythm is mesmerizing, the text almost immediately spread into catch phrases, while reading it, the heart involuntarily fills with pain.
After the discovery of the poem, doubts are constantly expressed about the age of the poem and its authenticity. According to one of the versions, the culprit for the appearance of the "forgery" is Count A. Musin-Pushkin, poet V. K. Trediakovsky, historian N. Karamzin and Czech educator J. Dobrovsky.
What arguments do the "doubters" cite: the language of the poem does not correspond to the era of Prince Igor, the use of words related to the French language (gallicisms) in the work, a craze in the early 1800s for ancient romantic antiquities. In addition, in the 19th century, another Old Russian poem was found - "Zadonshchina", created in the 15th century (the time of Dmitry Donskoy). There are similarities between the two works. The mystery is that no one can say which of the poems is primary.
Supporters of the "word about Igor's regiment" believe that the poem was written immediately after the unsuccessful campaign of Prince Igor - at the end of the 12th century. And the arguments they put forward are as follows:
- firstly, the epic text of the Lay is of such a high level that none of the famous poets of subsequent times could create such a work;
- secondly, when asked why the author of the poem needed to describe in such detail the unsuccessful campaign of a secondary prince, one can answer that the author warned the Russian princes against ill-considered and hasty decisions when planning military campaigns;
- thirdly, the need for the unity of the Russian Empire runs like a red thread in the mourning for the dead. This is exactly what could then rally the Russian nation against a strong and insidious enemy - the steppe peoples.
It so happened that The Lay of Igor's Regiment became not only the biography of the Russian Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich, but also the most mysterious mystery of the Russian Middle Ages.
Unfortunately, this great work created a not entirely correct opinion about Prince Igor, belittling his role in the history of Russia.
For the sake of historical justice, it must be said that Prince Igor was never an ordinary prince and an insignificant person. At the end of his life, he showed himself to be a wise ruler, a patriot of Russia, realizing the inevitability of difficult trials and doing everything possible to get out of a difficult historical situation.
