Oleg The Varangian

For ages and ages, none can say how many, the great plain of Russia

existed as a nursery of tribes, some wandering with their herds, some

dwelling in villages and tilling their fields, but all warlike and all

barbarians. And over this plain at intervals swept conquering hordes

from Asia, the terrible Huns, the devastating Avars, and others of

varied names. But as yet the Russia we know did not exist, and its very

name ad never been heard.



As time went on, the people in the centre and north of the country

became peaceful and prosperous, since the invaders did not cross their

borders, and a great and wealthy city arose, whose commerce in time

extended on the east as far as Persia and India, on the south to

Constantinople, and on the west far through the Baltic Sea. Though

seated in Russia, still largely a land of barbarous tribes, Novgorod

became one of the powerful cities of the earth, making its strength felt

far and wide, placing the tribes as far as the Ural Mountains under

tribute, and growing so strong and warlike that it became a common

saying among the people, "Who can oppose God and Novgorod the Great?"



But trouble arose for Novgorod. Its chief trade lay through the Baltic

Sea, and here its ships met those terrible Scandinavian pirates who were

then the ocean's lords. Among these bold rovers were the Danes who

descended on England, the Normans who won a new home in France, the

daring voyagers who discovered Iceland and Greenland, and those who

sailed up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, conquering

kingdoms as they went.



To some of these Scandinavians the merchants of Novgorod turned for aid

against the others. Bands of them had made their way into Russia and

settled on the eastern shores of the Baltic. To these the Novgorodians

appealed in their trouble, and in the year 862 asked three Varangian

brothers, Rurik, Sinaf, and Truvor, to come to their aid. The warlike

brothers did so, seated themselves on the frontier of the republic of

Novgorod, drove off its foes--and became its foes themselves. The people

of Novgorod, finding their trade at the mercy of their allies, submitted

to their power, and in 864 invited Rurik to become their king. His two

brothers had meantime died.



Thus it was that the Russian empire began, for the Varangians came from

a country called Ross, from which their new realm gained the name of

Russia.



Rurik took the title of Grand Prince, made his principal followers lords

of the cities of his new realm, and the republic of Novgorod came to an

end in form, though not in spirit. It is interesting to note at this

point that Russia, which began as a republic, has ended as one of the

most absolute of monarchies. The first step in its subjection was taken

when Novgorod invited Rurik the Varangian to be its prince; the other

steps came later, one by one.



For fifteen years Rurik remained lord of Novgorod, and then died and

left his four-year-old son Igor as his heir, with Oleg, his kinsman, as

regent of the realm. It is the story of Oleg, as told by Nestor, the

gossipy old Russian chronicler, that we propose here to tell, but it

seemed useful to precede it by an account of how the Russian empire came

into existence.



Oleg was a man of his period, a barbarian and a soldier born; brave,

crafty, adventurous, faithful to Igor, his ward, cruel and treacherous

to others. Under his rule the Russian dominions rapidly and widely

increased.



At an earlier date two Varangians, Askhold and Dir by name, had made

their way far to the south, where they became masters of the city of

Kief. They even dared to attack Constantinople, but were driven back

from that great stronghold of the South.



It by no means pleased Oleg to find this powerful kingdom founded in the

land which he had set out to subdue. He determined that Kief should be

his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach

than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were

courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by

force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and

treachery.



Leaving his army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper

with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at

length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground

near the river. Placing his warriors in ambush, he sent a messenger to

Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants,

whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and

desired to see them as friends and men of their own race.



Those were simple times, in which even the rulers of cities did not put

on any show of state. On the contrary, the two princes at once left the

city and went alone to meet the false merchants. They had no sooner

arrived than Oleg threw off his mask. His followers sprang from their

ambush, arms in hand.



"You are neither princes nor of princely birth," he cried; "but I am a

prince, and this is the son of Rurik."



And at a sign from his hand Askhold and Dir were laid dead at his feet.



By this act of base treachery Oleg became the master of Kief. No one in

the city ventured to resist the strong army which he quickly brought up,

and the metropolis of the south opened its gates to the man who had

wrought murder under the guise of war. It is not likely, though, that

Oleg sought to justify his act on any grounds. In those barbarous days,

when might made right, murder was too much an every-day matter to be

deeply considered by any one.



Oleg was filled with admiration of the city he had won. "Let Kief be the

mother of all the Russian cities!" he exclaimed. And such it became, for

he made it his capital, and for three centuries it remained the capital

city of the Russian realm.



What he principally admired it for was its nearness to Constantinople,

the capital of the great empire of the East, on which, like the former

lords of Kief, he looked with greedy and envious eyes.



For long centuries past Greece and the other countries of the South had

paid little heed to the dwellers on the Russian plains, of whose

scattered tribes they had no fear. But with the coming of the

Varangians, the conquest of the tribes, and the founding of a

wide-spread empire, a different state of affairs began, and from that

day to this Constantinople has found the people of the steppes its most

dangerous and persistent foes.



Oleg was not long in making the Greek empire feel his heavy hand.

Filling the minds of his followers and subjects with his own thirst for

blood and plunder, he set out with an army of eighty thousand men, in

two thousand barks, passed the cataracts of the Borysthenes, crossed the

Black Sea, murdered the subjects of the empire in hosts, and, as the

chronicles say, sailed overland with all sails set to the port of

Constantinople itself. What he probably did was to have his vessels

taken over a neck of land on wheels or rollers.



Here he threw the imperial city into mortal terror, fixed his shield on

the very gate of Constantinople, and forced the emperor to buy him off

at the price of an enormous ransom. To the treaty made the Varangian

warriors swore by their gods Perune and Voloss, by their rings, and by

their swords,--gold and steel, the things they honored most and most

desired.



Then back in triumph they sailed to Kief, rich with booty, and ever

after hailing their leader as the Wise Man, or Magician. Eight years

afterwards Oleg made a treaty of alliance and commerce with

Constantinople, in which Greeks and Russians stood on equal footing.

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. According to the

tradition, miracle had to do with his passing away. Nestor, the prince

of Russian chroniclers, tells us the following story:



Oleg had a favorite horse, which he rode alike in battle and in the

hunt, until at length a prediction came from the soothsayers that death

would overtake him through his cherished charger. Warrior as he was, he

had the superstition of the pagan, and to avoid the predicted fate he

sent his horse far away, and for years avoided even speaking of it.



Then, moved by curiosity, he asked what had become of the banished

animal.



"It died years ago," was the reply; "only its bones remain."



"So much for your soothsayers," he cried, with a contempt that was not

unmixed with relief. "That, then, is all this prediction is worth! But

where are the bones of my good old horse? I should like to see what

little is left of him."



He was taken to the spot where lay the skeleton of his old favorite, and

gazed with some show of feeling on the bleaching bones of what had once

been his famous war-horse. Then, setting his foot on the skull, he

said,--



"So this is the creature that is destined to be my death."



At that moment a deadly serpent that lay coiled up within the skull

darted out and fixed its poisonous fangs in the conqueror's foot. And

thus ignobly he who had slain men by thousands and conquered an empire

came to his death.