Igor of Kiev

“ Like his predecessor, Igor invaded this empire with a great army, landing in Asia Minor and treating the people with such brutal ferocity that no earthquake or volcano could have shown itself more merciless. His prisoners were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner, fire swept away all that havoc had left, and then the Russian prince sailed in triumph against Constantinople, with his ten thousand barks manned by murderers and laden with plunder. ”

“ The raising of taxes was always very arbitrary. Nestor's account of the death of Igor is a lively picture of the political customs of the time; we might imagine ourselves reading a page of Gregory of Tours about the sons of Clovis, for example the expedition of Thierry in Arvernia. “In the year 945 the droujina of Igor said to him, ‘The men of Sveneld are richly provided with weapons and garments, while we go naked; lead us, prince, to collect the tribute, so that thou and we may become rich.’ Igor consented, and conducted them to the Drevlians to raise the tribute. ”

“ And have you now the heart to slay me, a poor helpless cripple? Know you not that a great calamity has befallen the famous city of Kiev? An unbelieving knight, with a head as big as a beer-barrel, eyebrows a span apart, and shoulders six feet broad, has entered it? He devours a whole ox at a time, and drinks off a barrel of beer at a draught. The Prince is lamenting your absence.”
Then Iliya of Murom drew the cripple’s cloak around him, rode off to the city of Kiev, and going straight up to the Prince’s palace, cried aloud, “Ho there, Prince of Kiev! give alms to a poor cripple.” ”

“ Therefore you are bound to defend the faith of Christ against all unbelievers, however bold and daring they may be, remembering always that it is not written that you should come to your death in battle.
"In the whole white world there is none stronger than you except Svyatogor, whom you will meet before long. Avoid conflict with him, and him alone; do not spend your strength on the soil or the meadow or the forest, but set out without delay for the royal city of Kiev."
Having spoken these words, the old men vanished, and Ilya did not see either how or where they went. ”

“ He had lived in Kief a quiet, almost an effeminate life, with his beautiful bride Olga. A very powerful tribe, the Drevolians, which had been rather restive, even under the rigorous sway of Oleg, thought this a favorable opportunity to regain their independence. They raised the standard of revolt. Igor crushed the insurrection with energy which astonished all who knew him, and which spread his fame far and wide through all the wilds of Russia, as a monarch thoroughly capable of maintaining his command. ”

“ But with you I will cross the Don and crush them. If true success comes, we will pursue them to places to which our grandfathers never thought, even in dreams, of advancing. We will win for ourselves splendid glory.”
With his own men and a detachment of Chernigoff warriors, Igor set out on his adventure, April 23, 1185, accompanied by his son, now touching manhood, his brother Vsevolod the “Rushing Bull,” and a few neighboring princes with their forces. He met the Polovtsi in a desperate battle, and was vanquished with great slaughter. ”

“ Iaroslav, prince of Novgorod, alarmed and outraged by the cruelties of his brother, and apprehending that, unless they were speedily arrested, they would spread into his own principality, determined to advance upon Kiev and make war on the usurping fratricide. The Novgorodians, to whom he was greatly endeared by the wisdom and mildness of his sway, entered so warmly into the expedition, that the tyrant was driven out of Kiev without much cost of blood, and obliged to flee for refuge to his father-in-law, the duke of Poland. ”

“ Igor, a prince of Kíeff, starts with his drúzhina (schola) of warriors to make a raid on the Pólovtsi, who occupied the prairies of South-eastern Russia, and continually raided the Russian villages. All sorts of bad omens are seen on the march through the prairies—the sun is darkened and casts its shadow on the band of Russian warriors; the animals give different warnings; but Igor exclaims: “Brothers and friends: Better to fall dead than be prisoners of the Pólovtsi! Let us march to the blue waters of the Don. Let us break our lances against those of the Pólovtsi. ”

“ The blood of Igor, of Oleg and of Rurik coursed through his veins, and he resolved to lead the Russian arms to victories which should eclipse all their exploits. He gathered an immense army, and looked eagerly around to find some arena worthy of the display of his genius.
His character was an extraordinary one, combining all the virtues of ancient chivalry; virtues which guided by Christian faith, constitute the noblest men, but which without piety constitute a man the scourge of his race. Fame was the God of Sviatoslaf. ”

“ Three years afterward he again led an army in boats against Constantinople, but this time he was bought off by a tribute of gold, silver, and precious stuffs, as Oleg had been before him.
Igor was now more than seventy years old, and naturally desired to spend the remainder of his days in peace, but his followers would not let him rest. The spoils and tribute of the Greeks had quickly disappeared from their open hands, and the warlike profligates demanded new plunder.
"We are naked," they bitterly complained, "while the companions of Sveneld have beautiful arms and fine clothing. ”

“ The Drevlians, when they learnt that Igor was returning, held council with Mal their prince. ‘When the wolf enters the sheepfold he slays the whole flock, if the shepherd does not slay him. Thus it is with us and Igor; if we do not destroy him, we are lost.’ Then they sent deputies and said to him, ‘Why dost thou come anew unto us? Hast thou not collected all the tribute?’ But Igor would not hear them, so the Drevlians came out of the town of Korosthenes, and slew Igor and his men, for they were but a few. ”

“ The sea is agitated at midnight: mists are borne in the darkness. God shows to Ígor a way out of the land of the Pólovtses into the country of Russia to his father’s golden throne. The evening twilight has gone out. Ígor sleeps; Ígor is awake: Ígor in his thought measures the plains from the great Don to the small Donéts. His steed is ready at midnight. Ovlúr whistles beyond the river, gives a sign to the Prince,—Prince Ígor will be no more! ”

“ In 882 he set out from Novgorod with an army composed of Varangians and the subject Slavo-Finnish tribes—Tchuds, Merians, Vesians, Ilmen Slavs, and Krivitchi—sailed down the upper Dnieper, took Smolensk, freed the Radimichi and the Severians from the yoke of the Chazars and incorporated them in his empire, and finally reached Kiev. Askold and Dir were then got rid of by an act of treachery, and Kiev was made the capital of an empire embracing nearly all the eastern Slavs. ”

“ Clean all the streets of Kiev town, take down the wonder-working crosses of the Holy Temples—but leave upon the domes the tall fiery darts of Ilya lest Falcon the Hunter should still be alive—and build stalls for horses in the churches. Cleanse also your palaces of white stone and prepare beds without number, for our host is great. Brew sweet liquors, for our thirst is also great, and let cask stand upon cask in noble array. For in less than two days Tsar Kalin and his great host shall walk the streets of Kiev, and our master shall wed the Princess Apraxia. ”

“ In the north, along their native shores, the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes had attained a notable degree of political development and a high level of civilisation. On the Black Sea lay the outposts of the Byzantine empire; all the great rivers of Russia led southward, and across the Black Sea was the route to Constantinople.
The political organisation of Novgorod dates from the ninth century, but at the close of this century Kiev became the capital of the Russian realm. ”

“ Can we tell who will be the victor, and who the vanquished? And can we guess what may befall us at sea? It is not solid ground that is under our feet, but the depths of the waters, where all men run the same risks.”
In accordance with these views Igor granted peace to the empire on the proposed conditions, and the following year he concluded with the emperor a treaty, which was in part a renewal of that made by Oleg. [3] Of the fifty [99] names attached on the part of Russia to this second treaty, three are Slavonic, the rest Norman. ”

“ So Olga became regent of the kingdom, and Sveneld was made leader of the army.
How deeply Olga loved Igor we are not prepared to say, but we are told some strange tales of what she did to avenge him. These tales we may believe or not, as we please. They are legends only, like those of early Rome, but they are all the history we have, and so we repeat the story much as old Nestor has told it.
The death of Igor filled the hearts of the Drevlians with hope. Their great enemy was gone; the new prince was a child: might they not gain power as well as liberty? ”

“ In the second cycle the legends group themselves round the celebrated Prince Vladimir of Kiev. The chief hero is Ilya Muromets, who performs prodigies of valour, and is of gigantic stature and superhuman strength. The cycle of Novgorod deals with the stories of Vasilii Buslaevich and Sadko, the rich merchant. The fourth cycle deals with the autocracy; already Moscow has become the capital of the future empire. We are told of the taking of Kazan, of the conquest of Siberia by Yermak, of Ivan the Terrible and his confidant Maliuta Skurlatovich. ”

“ Then Igor married her. He wanted to distinguish himself. So he collected an army and went to war, straight down the Dniepr, and, entering the Black Sea, turned not to the right but to the left, and went from the Black Sea into the Caspian. Igor sent ambassadors to the kagan, asking him to let him pass through his land. When he should return from the expedition, he would give him the half of his booty. The kagan let him pass. When they came near a certain city, Igor commanded to collect the people on the bank, to burn and destroy everything, and to take the inhabitants prisoners. ”

“ In the Kievan period, whoever became prince of Kiev, removed to Kiev, and named someone of his own family as ruler in his own principality, so that if Kiev were lost and it should pass into another family, he would not lose his own patrimony.
During the Tatar period we note a new phenomenon: the princes did not merely separate themselves from their patrimonial lands, but even from their capitals; for instance: Iaroslav lived in Tver, Basil in Kostroma, Andrew in Gorodeza, Dmitri in Pereiaslavl, and so on. ”

“ As we said before, the Pólovtses returned from Pereyáslavl, and Ígor’s advisers said to him: “You harbour a proud thought and one that is not pleasing to God; you do not intend to take the man and run with him, but why do you not consider that the Pólovtses will return from the war, and we have heard that they will slay all the princes and all the Russians, and there will be no glory for you, and you will lose your life.” Prince Ígor took their advice to heart, being afraid of the return of the Pólovtses, and bethought himself of flight. ”

“ I go to glorious, royal Kiev town to pray at the sanctuary of Kiev and to pledge myself to Vladímir the Prince, to serve him in faith and in truth, and to uphold the Christian faith.”
The old farmer Iván blessed Ilyá and said:
“I give thee my blessing for the good work, but for evil work no blessing I give. Go thou on the right road, and do no harm to any woman whether she be Christian or Tartar.”
Ilyá of Múrom bowed to the earth before his father, and said farewell to his mother and his sisters and brothers, and then he mounted his good horse and rode [31] through the open plain. ”

“ The clou of the evening was the ballet, already well-known, of the Polovtsy warriors, executed with the extreme of fanatic fervour and frenzy. The art of M. Michel Fokine can turn his Russians into Tartars without a scratch of the skin. Borodine's music, taking on a more barbaric quality as the action travelled further East, here touched its climax, and the final scene, where Prince Igor returns home and resumes the embraces of his queen, (a model of fidelity) , was of the character of a sedative.
"Daphnis et Chloë." ”

“ Russia had made a remarkable stride forward as a nation since Rurik was invited to Novgorod a quarter-century before.
For thirty-three years Oleg held the throne. His was too strong a hand to yield its power to his ward. Igor must wait for Oleg's death. He had found a province; he left an empire. In his hands Russia grew into greatness, and from Novgorod to Kief and far and wide to the right and left stretched the lands won by his conquering sword.
He was too great a man to die an ordinary death. ”

“ Russia has become an extremely loose federation of principalities. The central [654] authority has been reduced to a nullity, and the period is filled with wars among the petty princes. This, of course, weakened the power of Russia for resisting foreign invaders, and made it an easy prey to the eastern nomadic tribes, from the Polovtsi to the Tatars. The chief events during this period are the foundation of Moscow (1147) , the rise of Suzdal in Vladimir, and the pillaging of Kiev (1169) by Prince Andrew Bogoliubski of Suzdal. The hegemony of Kiev comes to an end for all time. ”