Ukraine’s Saint Olga of Kyiv

To both Catholics and Orthodox, princess Olga is known as St. Olga of Kyiv and she is a woman of tremendous religious significance for the people of Ukraine. Like the origins of Kyiv and Ukraine, her life is steeped in legend. She will often appear on one of those lists so popular on the Internet, the sort which list ‘the top ten’ of something, in this case, lists of saints who had a violent or unsavoury history, or of saints with a ‘dark side.’

She was born in Pskov, one of the oldest cities in Russia. Not far from the border with the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, it probably began as a Viking trading settlement, the offspring of a fierce race, much like the princess Olga herself, born there some time at the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries. I want to look at Olga as an individual who moved from paganism to Christianity, and who had an incredible, if somewhat bloody, story.

Her path to sanctity began with her marriage to Igor, one of the earliest Grand Dukes of Kyiv. Kyiv had been a small trading outpost before two Viking warriors, Askold and Dir, took charge. They themselves were murdered in 882 by Oleg, who was acting as Igor’s guardian after Igor’s father, prince Rurik of Novgorod, died. Oleg decided he liked the look of this new acquisition. It was closer to Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, and as such perfectly positioned for the lucrative trade route that drew the Vikings into the Slavic lands in the first place. It would also provide a good jumping-off point for any future military expeditions to the south (as Askold and Dir had done in previous years).

In 907 Oleg did indeed use Kyiv to launch an attack on Constantinople, laying siege to the Byzantine capital and creating a few legends along the way. It was this siege where the Byzantines famously lay a chain across the Bosporus, stopping the Viking ships from sailing through. Oleg is said to have then placed wheels on his boats and sailed over the plains to lay his siege. In 911 the campaign ended when a new commercial treaty was signed between Oleg and the Empire. After all, profitable trade was the name of the game. As trade continued between Constantinople and the Vikings and Slavs of the north, there was a growing cultural exchange that probably saw the introduction of Christianity into some of the elite of pagan Kyiv. The Slav gods of the time consisted of figures such as Perun, the god of thunder and lightning, and Dazhbog the god of heaven and light. There are stories that these gods were demanding figures, hungry for human sacrifice.

Oleg’s end is a mystery surrounded by yet more legend. In 912 Igor assumed his role as the grand prince having come of age, and it was said Oleg stayed faithfully in the background. One story says that it was prophesied that a particular horse would cause Oleg’s death. Rather than kill the horse, Oleg kept the horse at a safe distance until it died. Happily, Oleg went to view the bones, stamping in triumph on the skull of the dead horse. Unfortunately for Oleg a poisonous snake lay hidden in the skull, biting Oleg and causing his death. Whatever the truth about Oleg and his end, he had left his ward in a powerful position.

In a probable attempt to stamp his own authority, Igor launched two attacks against Constantinople, one in 941 and another in 944. The second led to a new commercial agreement, but one that was tellingly not as good as the one Oleg had agreed with the Byzantines thirty years before.

But we really want to talk about Olga. Grand Princess Olga was said to have been 60 years of age when she gave birth to her son, Sviatoslav. The story of her age says more about the perception of her than it does about her possible health and extraordinary fertility. Fertility, after all, was important, as was the wisdom of age. Although we do not know how old she really was, the story presents a woman who was both young and old, fertile and wise, vigorous and cunning. It was her actions to secure the reign of her son that show not only her ability to move swiftly but also her willingness to take the measures necessary to keep them both alive and secure on the throne.

Grand Princess Olga moves into the illuminating glare of recorded history with the murder of Igor. The area Igor ruled is known to history as the Kyivian Rus. It was more a federation of different tribes than a unified state; tribes that would pay tribute to the prince. Igor would process from tribe to tribe to receive his tribute, using it as an opportunity to build relationships with the local chiefs as well as familiarise himself with his domain. On one of these journeys, he was returning from collecting tribute from the Drevlyane town of Iskorosten, when he decided that they had not contributed enough. Sending most of his entourage on, he turned around, and with a smaller group headed back towards Iskorosten. The Drevlyane then ambushed and killed him.

There was no clear successor to Igor’s throne. It would be another ten years before his 15-year-old son, Sviatoslav, would be old enough to ascend the throne. If the legends are to be believed, Olga would have been a mature age of 75 years at the time of Igor’s murder. Olga’s situation looked precarious, and the Drevlyanes decided to make a move to secure the throne for themselves. Mal, the Drevlyane’s prince, was proposed in marriage to the Grand Princess. It must have looked like the smart move to the Drevlyanes, after all, it would secure the Grand Princess from moves against her position, and assure the loyalty of the Drevlyanes. The Drevlyanes failed to take into account the relationship of a mother and son, as the only outcome of such a marriage for Sviatoslav would have been his death. Unfortunately for the Drevlyanes, Grand Princess Olga had lost her husband but she had no intention of losing her son.

The delegation sent to propose the marriage arrived in Kyiv by the river. Welcomed cordially by the Grand Princess, she proposed that they spend the night on their boat. In the morning they would be carried by her slaves to the centre of Kyiv to be greeted by the people of the city. In the morning Olga’s slaves dutifully arrived and carried the boat containing the delegates to the agreed spot. Waiting for them there was something they did not expect: a huge pit. The boat and all were thrown down into the pit and the slaves began to shovel in the earth on top of them. One of the last things these men heard as they were buried alive was the gloating voice of Olga asking them if they were enjoying the honour they were now being given.

Either the disappearance of the first delegation must have not seemed particularly unusual, or Drevlyane communications were poor, or the Drevlyanes must have been overexcited by the chances of taking power over the Kyivan Rus; because another gruesome act of vengeance now unfolded. Olga sent a message requiring the most important Drevlyane lords to travel to Kyiv and from there escort her to Iskorosten. The cream of Drevlyane society duly arrived and was shown to a bathhouse to refresh themselves after the long journey. They were promptly locked inside and the bath house set alight, the screams of dying men and the smell of burning flesh supplying more vengeance.

Sviatoslav may have been too young to sit on the throne himself, but he was old enough to learn the tricks of the trade and to be apprenticed into leadership. So it was that Olga sent her 15-year-old son at the head of a Kyivan army to plunder and destroy outlying Drevlyane settlements, before joining him as they lay siege to Iskorosten. The quick early successes of the campaign were not repeated here, and the siege lasted for several months. Olga decided on another of her ploys, and, yet again, the desperate Drevlyanes fell into her trap.

Olga offered to lift the siege if each household paid a tribute of three doves and three sparrows. It would be a symbolic offering from a people who had nothing left to give. The Drevlyanes agreed. That night Olga distributed the birds to her troops with small bunches of kindling. The kindling was set alight and the birds freed. The birds then flew back to the city, bringing the fire with them and setting Iskorosten aflame. The city was burned to the ground, much of the fleeing population slaughtered, and the survivors left with a hefty tax to pay to the Grand Princess as they rebuilt their city.

We have no way of knowing if the three stories of wile and bloodlust about Olga are true, but the end result was the same. She had secured her role as regent and ensured that her son would one day take his place as the ruler of the Kyivian Rus. He was duly crowned in 955.

Olga stayed active in affairs of state, even though she no longer held her position as regent. This was probably a good thing as the career of Sviatoslav was focused on expansion, leaving Kyiv vulnerable to attack. Olga led the defence for at least one siege before her death, and the tale that led to the sad end of Sviatoslav, slaughtered with his army, demonstrated a lack of luck and overconfidence in his self-belief when dealing with the powerful Byzantine Empire.

It was in 957 that Olga made her conversion to Christianity. She seemed genuine in her new faith and though she never managed to convert Sviatoslav to Christianity, she had more success with her grandsons. Christianity was probably becoming common in Olga’s court at Kyiv, practiced by traders from the south and maybe a few converts amongst the Kyivan ruling class. But it was in 957 that Olga travelled to Constantinople to visit the emperor Constantine VII and declare her desire to become a Christian, taking the name Helena. The hair-raising stories do not end with her conversion. As stated earlier, she defended Kyiv during a siege when her son was away campaigning, but this time there were no tales of buried boats and burning bath houses. It was her death in early 969 that led to Sviatoslav marching west, being outmatched by the Byzantines, and finally slaughtered whilst retreating by erstwhile allies in 972, a few hundred miles from the safety of Kyiv.

The conversion of Ukraine to Christianity took place under succeeding grand princes. Olga’s conversion had given Christianity a status amongst the warlike and pagan inhabitants of the Kyivan Rus and bore fruit in the conversion of her grandsons. Olga herself is considered a saint of the East and the West, venerated as ‘Equal to the Apostles’ in the Orthodox tradition.