Olga of Kiev

Olga (; ; – 11 July 969) was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Sviatoslav from 945 until 957. Following her baptism, Olga took the name Elenа. She is known for her subjugation of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor. Even though it was her grandson Vladimir who adopted Christianity and made it the state religion, she was the first ruler to be baptized.

Olga is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church with the epithet "Equal to the Apostles". Her feast day is 11 July.

Early life

While Olga's birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as 890 AD and as late as 925 AD. According to the Primary Chronicle, Olga was of Varangian (Viking) origin and was born in Pleskov. Little is known about her life before her marriage to Prince Igor I of Kiev and the birth of their son, Sviatoslav. According to historian Alexey Karpov, Olga was no more than 15 years old at the time of her marriage. Igor was the son and heir of Rurik, founder of the Rurik dynasty. After his father's death, Igor was under the guardianship of Oleg, who had consolidated power in the region, conquering neighboring tribes and establishing a capital in Kiev. This loose tribal federation became known as Kievan Rus', a territory covering what are now parts of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

The Drevlians were a neighboring tribe with which the growing Kievan Rus' empire had a complex relationship. The Drevlians had joined Kievan Rus' in military campaigns against the Byzantine Empire and paid tribute to Igor's predecessors. They stopped paying tribute upon Oleg's death and instead gave money to a local warlord. In 945, Igor set out for the Drevlian capital, Iskorosten, to force the tribe to pay tribute to Kievan Rus'. Confronted by Igor's larger army, the Drevlians backed down and paid him. As Igor and his army rode home, however, he decided the payment was not enough and returned, with only a small escort, seeking more tribute.

Upon his arrival in their territory, the Drevlians murdered Igor. According to the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, Igor's death was caused by a gruesome act of torture in which he was "captured by them, tied to tree trunks, and torn in two." Historian D. Sullivan has suggested that Leo may have invented this sensationalist version of Igor's death, taking inspiration from Diodorus Siculus' account of a similar killing method used by the robber Sinis, who lived near the Isthmus of Corinth and was killed by Theseus. She was the first woman to rule Kievan Rus'.

Little is known about Olga's tenure as ruler of Kiev, but the Primary Chronicle does give an account of her accession to the throne and her bloody revenge on the Drevlians for the murder of her husband. It also gives some insight into her role as civil leader of the Kievan people.

According to archeologist Sergei Beletsky, Knyaginya Olga, like all the other rulers before Vladimir the Great, was also using the bident as her personal symbol.

Drevlian Uprising

thumb|[[Romanov Imperial icon created in 1895 of Saint Olga. Silver, gold, color enamel, tempera. Collection V.Logvinenko]]

After Igor's death at the hands of the Drevlians, Olga assumed the throne because her three-year-old son Sviatoslav was too young to rule. The Drevlians, emboldened by their success in ambushing and killing the king, sent a messenger to Olga proposing that she marry his murderer, Prince Mal. Twenty Drevlian negotiators boated to Kiev to pass along their king's message and to ensure Olga's compliance. They arrived in her court and told the queen why they were in Kiev: "to report that they had slain her husband... and that Olga should come and marry their Prince Mal." (line 6453). Olga responded:<blockquote>Your proposal is pleasing to me, indeed, my husband cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honor you tomorrow in the presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there with an aspect of arrogance. I shall send for you on the morrow, and you shall say, "We will not ride on horses nor go on foot, carry us in our boat." And you shall be carried in your boat.</blockquote>When the Drevlians returned the next day, they waited outside Olga's court to receive the honor she had promised. When they repeated the words she had told them to say, the people of Kiev rose up, carrying the Drevlians in their boat. The ambassadors believed this was a great honor as if they were being carried by palanquin. The people brought them into the court, where they were dropped into a trench that had been dug the day before under Olga's orders, where the ambassadors were buried alive. It is written that Olga bent down to watch them as they were buried and "inquired whether they found the honor to their taste."

Olga then sent a message to the Drevlians that they should send "their distinguished men to her in Kiev, so that she might go to their Prince with due honor." The Drevlians, unaware of the fate of the first diplomatic party, gathered another party of men to send "the best men who governed the land of Dereva." When they arrived, Olga commanded her people to draw them a bath and invited the men to appear before her after they had bathed. When the Drevlians entered the bathhouse, Olga had it set on fire from the doors, so that all the Drevlians within burned to death.

Olga sent another message to the Drevlians, this time ordering them to "prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him." When Olga and a small group of attendants arrived at Igor's tomb, she did indeed weep and hold a funeral feast. The Drevlians sat down to join them and began to drink heavily. When the Drevlians were drunk, she ordered her followers to kill them, "and went about herself egging on her retinue to the massacre of the Drevlians." According to the Primary Chronicle, five thousand Drevlians were killed on this night, but Olga returned to Kiev to prepare an army to finish off the survivors.

thumb|Olga's revenge on the [[Drevlians by Fyodor Bruni]]

The initial conflict between the armies of the two nations went very well for the forces of Kievan Rus', who won the battle handily and drove the survivors back into their cities. Olga then led her army to Iskorosten (what is today Korosten), the city where her husband had been slain, and laid siege to the city. The siege lasted for a year without success, when Olga thought of a plan to trick the Drevlians. She sent them a message: "Why do you persist in holding out? All your cities have surrendered to me and submitted to tribute, so that the inhabitants now cultivate their fields and their lands in peace. But you had rather die of hunger, without submitting to tribute." (line 6454).

The Drevlians responded that they would submit to tribute, but that they were afraid she was still intent on avenging her husband. Olga answered that the murder of the messengers sent to Kiev, as well as the events of the feast night, had been enough for her. She then asked them for a small request: "Give me three pigeons... and three sparrows from each house." The Drevlians rejoiced at the prospect of the siege ending for so small a price, and did as she asked.

Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze. As the Primary Chronicle tells it: "There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once." As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. She left the remnant to pay tribute.

Governance

Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus' with the support of the army and her people. She changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. Tributes were regularised under her rule. The observation that Olga was "worthy to reign with him in his city" suggests that the emperor was interested in marrying her. While the Chronicle explains Constantine's desire to take Olga as his wife as stemming from the fact that she was "fair of countenance and wise as well," marrying Olga could certainly have helped him gain power over Rus'.

The Chronicle recounts that Olga asked the emperor to baptize her knowing that his baptismal sponsorship, by the rules of spiritual kinship, would make marriage between them a kind of spiritual incest. In fact, at the time of her baptism, Constantine already had an empress. In addition to uncertainty over the truth of the Chronicle telling of events in Constantinople, there is controversy over the details of her conversion to Christianity. According to Church Slavonic sources, she was baptized in Constantinople in 957. Byzantine sources, however, indicate that she was a Christian prior to her 957 visit.

In 2018, Russian historian and writer Boris Akunin pointed out the importance of a 2-year gap between invitation and arrival of bishops: "The failure of Olga's Byzantine trip has inflicted a severe blow to her party. The Grand Knyaginya made a second attempt to find a Christian patron, now in the West. However, it appears that, between the embassy's dispatch to Emperor Otto in 959 and Adalbert's arrival in Kiev in 961, a bloodless coup occurred. Pagan party prevailed, the young Sviatoslav pushed his mother into the background, and that's why the German bishops had to return empty-handed."

According to Russian historian Vladimir Petrukhin, Olga invited the Roman rite bishops because she wanted to motivate Byzantine priests to catechize the Rus' people more enthusiastically, by introducing competition.

Death

According to the Primary Chronicle, Olga died from illness in 969, soon after the Pechenegs' siege of the city. When Sviatoslav announced plans to move his throne to the Danube region, the ailing Olga convinced him to stay with her during her final days. Only three days later, she died and her family and larger parts of Kievan Rus' mourned:<blockquote>Sviatoslav announced to his mother and his boyars, "I do not care to remain in Kiev, but should prefer to live in Peryaslavets on the Danube, since that is the centre of my realm, where all riches are concentrated; gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves." But Olga made reply, "You behold me in my weakness. Why do you desire to depart from me?" For she was already in precarious health. She thus remonstrated with him and begged him first to bury her and then to go wheresoever he would. Three days later Olga died. Her son wept for her with great mourning, as did likewise her grandsons and all the people. They thus carried her out, and buried her in her tomb. Olga had given command not to hold a funeral feast for her, for she had a priest who performed the last rites over the sainted Princess.</blockquote>Although he disapproved of his mother's Christian tradition, Sviatoslav heeded Olga's request that her priest, Gregory, conduct a Christian funeral without the ritual pagan burial feast. Her tomb remained in Kiev for over two centuries, but was destroyed by the Mongolian-Tatar armies of Batu Khan in 1240. and was recorded the next year visiting "all the Russian land (i.e. Suzdalia, northeast Russia), teaching, instructing and administering," and spreading news about their canonization, including in Novgorod and Pskov. A northern Russian manuscript from the 15th century mentions that "when Vladimir unearthed the body of Olga, his grandmother [and discovered that it was] uncorrupted, [he then] placed it in a wooden coffin in the Church of the Tithe". In 1547, nearly 600 years after her 969 death, the Russian Orthodox Church officially named Olga a saint, equal-to-the-apostles.

Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church call Olga by the honorific Isapóstolos, "Equal to the Apostles". Olga's feast day is July 11, the date of her death. In keeping with her own biography, she is the patron of widows and converts.

Olga is venerated as a saint in East Slavic-speaking countries where churches use the Byzantine Rite: Eastern Orthodox Church (especially in the Russian Orthodox Church), Greek Catholic Church (especially in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), in churches with Byzantine Rite Lutheranism, and among Western Catholics in Russia.

Feast Day

11 July – main commemoration (death anniversary),

Fixed Feast Day (Synaxes)

25 May – Synaxis of Saints of Volhynia (ROCOR and Greek Orthodox Church),
15 July – Synaxis of All Saints of Kiev (ROC),
10 October – Synaxis of Saints of Volhynia (ROC),

Moveable Feast Day (Synaxes)

Synaxis of Saints of Pskov – movable holiday on the 3rd Sunday of Pentecost,

Churches and monuments

thumb|Monument to Princess Olga, Saint Apostle Andrew the First-Called and enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, Kiev

;Ukraine

Cathedral of St. Olha, Kiev (inaugurated 2010)
Monument to Princess Olga, Saint Apostle Andrew the First-Called and enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, Kiev
Church of Sts. Olha and Elizabeth, Lviv
Church of Volodymyr and Olha, Khodoriv
Church of Sts. Volodymyr and Olha, Podusiv, Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast
Saint Volodymyr and Olha church, Staryi Dobrotvir, Chervonohrad Raion, Lviv Oblast
Church of Saints Volodymyr and Olha, Birky, Yavoriv Raion, Lviv Oblast
Church of Saints Volodymyr and Olha, Horodok, Lviv Oblast
Saint Olga Orthodox church in Korosten, Zhytomyr Oblast

; Russia

Monument of St. Olga by Vyacheslav Klykov, Pskov (2003).
Monument of St. Olga by Zurab Tsereteli, Pskov (2003).
Olga bridge in Pskov.
St. Olga's chapel in Pskov.
Princess Olga Airport in Pskov (since 2019, through a win in a poll against Aleksandr Nevsky).
Monument of St. Olga in Vladimir.
Monument of St. Olga in Moscow.
St. Olga is present on the Millennium of Russia monument in Veliky Novgorod.
St. Olga Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lyublino, Moscow (inaugurated 2003).
St. Olga Equal-to-apostles Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Solntsevo, Moscow (inaugurated 2015).
St. Olga Equal-to-apostles Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Olga, Primorje.

;United States

Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, Chicago

;Canada

Saints Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral and Parish Hall, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Saints Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church, Dauphin, Manitoba
Saints Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church, Windsor, Ontario

;Australia

Saints Volodymyr and Olha Church, Woodville, South Australia

Modern reception

thumb|Image of Saint Olga on a seal of [[Lyachchyzy village in Belarus. The sword is commonly included in Olga's modern iconography linking her to the female bogatyr image.]]

Scholarship has traditionally focused on Olga's role in the spread of Christianity to Eastern Europe and Russia as well as her role in advising her son against persecution of Christians in the Kievan Rus'.

Modern publications, on the other hand, reflect a broader interest in Olga beyond her role in expanding Christendom. Detailing her story, a 2018 article claimed she showed her countrymen how "a woman could rule with strength and decision." The Russian Primary Chronicle's claim that Olga was of Viking descent also received attention for its possible contribution to her "warrior spirit".

Russian historian Boris Akunin argues though she certainly reconquered the Drevlians, only her killing of their first envoy is plausible, since Iskorosten was just two days' ride from Kiev, making it difficult to conceal the first public murder.

Arts and literature

In 1981 a new ballet based on Olga's life was composed to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the city of Kiev.

Toponyms

In most cities of Ukraine there is Knyagini Olga Street. There is Olhynska Street in the city of Kyiv.

Cleveland has Saint Olga Ave. There is also St. Olga Street in the city of Hamilton (Canada).

Gallery

File:Месть княгини Ольги.jpg|Olga's revenge for her husband's death

File:Radzivill Olga-Avenge-to-Drevlians.jpg|Fourth revenge of Olga: Burning of Derevlian capital Iskorosten

File:Приём Ольги Константином Багрянородным (2).jpg|Reception of Olga by Constantine VII

</gallery>

File:Olga illustration from 1869 book.jpg|Kievan Rus ruler Olga (1869)

File:Святая великая княгиня Ольга.jpg|'s ' (1901)

File:Saint Olga by Nicholas Roerich - 1915.jpg|Nicholas Roerich's Saint Olga (1915)

File:Sketch for Saint Olga by V.Vasnetsov (1885-93, GTG).jpg|Sketch for Saint Olga by Viktor Vasnetsov (1885-93)

File:Archangel Cathedral - NW column, 2nd lev., east - Olga.jpg|Fresco of Saint Olga at the Archangel Cathedral in Moscow.

</gallery>

Notes

Bibliography

Primary sources

;Old Church Slavonic

Primary Chronicle ( 1110s).
(The first 50 pages are a scholarly introduction).

;Greek

De Ceremoniis ( 950s), written or commissioned by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos.
John Skylitzes, Synopsis of Histories ( 1070s).

;Latin

Adalberti continuato Reginonis, continuation of Regino of Prüm's Chronicon ( 970).

Literature

Historical Dictionary of Ukraine. By Z. Kohut, B.Nebesio, M. Yurkevich. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland. Toronto. Oxford. 2005.
Plokhy, Serhii, The Gates of Europe. A History of Ukraine. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
(e-book)