Inconsistencies in the death of Prophetic Oleg

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The death of Oleg is shrouded in the same impenetrable mystery as his life. The legend about the "coffin snake", which inspired Pushkin to write a textbook ballad, is only part of this riddle. Concerning the deadly snake bite, doubts have long been expressed - in the Dnieper region there are no such snakes whose bite in the leg could lead to death.

For a person to die, the viper must bite at least in the neck and directly into the carotid artery. Despite the seemingly unlikely possibility of such a bite, in "viperous places" such deaths are constantly recorded among those who thoughtlessly lie down on freshly cut grass or in heaps of collected hay. “Well, good,” another imaginative reader will say. “Those who conceived a sophisticated murder of the prince could specially acquire some kind of overseas adder and hide it in advance in the skull of Oleg's beloved horse.”

Here is what Nestor wrote in The Tale of Bygone Years:

In the Novgorod First Chronicle of the younger edition, the story of the death of Prophetic Oleg is presented somewhat differently.

It turns out that Prince Oleg died in Ladoga on the way to Novgorod. Recall that Staraya Ladoga is the first capital of the Rurikovichs, and it was here that Oleg was buried. Here is his grave, which, by the way, the guides show to the few tourists to this day (although archaeological excavations have not been carried out at this place).

Further: the Novgorod chronicler does not deny Oleg's death from a snakebite, but makes an important clarification, which Nestor does not have: the snake “bite” Oleg not on the Dnieper or Volkhov coast, but “overseas”! Indeed, "overseas", but not the Baltic (Varangian) or White, there are many snakes (not like our vipers), from the bite of which you can die on the spot. In the Novgorod Chronicle, however, it is said that after the bite, Oleg "got sick." If we combine the Nestorov chronicle with the Novgorod one, it will turn out: the prince was brought from overseas to the terminally ill, and he wished to die at home.

In this case, the question arises: behind what kind of distant and warm sea was Prince Oleg and what did he do there? In general, there is no particular guess on this score: the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was laid long ago, and it went through the Black Sea to Byzantium. Oleg more than once besieged Constantinople, over the gates of which the prince's shield was nailed, here he signed (exactly in the year of death) the famous treaty with the Greeks. So, did the cunning descendants of Odysseus not let the Russian prince admit the asp, along with the text of the treaty? However, the favorite and well-tested instrument of the Byzantines for dealing with the unwanted was ordinary poison, which was poured into food or dripped into wine. Well, then everything could be blamed on the asp.

But this is not the end of the riddles of Oleg's death, because its specific dates in the Novgorod and Nestorov chronicles do not coincide at all. The difference is hard to believe! - for ten whole years: according to Nestor, Oleg died in the summer of 6420 (912), and according to the Novgorod chronicler - in the summer of 6430 (922). How many amazing events this “lost decade” must have contained! So who do you command to believe? Personally, I believe in the Novgorod Chronicle and now I will explain why. The original text of the Nestorov Chronicle in the place concerning the death of Oleg is greatly spoiled. It is spoiled in many other places, but it is here that the later "ruler" is grasped by the hand. For it was not enough for him to cut out a clean story about 21 years of Oleg's reign and clean up the rest, but no - after reporting the death of the prince "from the snake", he suddenly inserts an extensive text that has absolutely nothing to do with Russian history. With a severe shortage of parchment, on which the chroniclers wrote, the uninvited editor suddenly inserts an instructive story about Apollonius of Tyana, the Hellenic Neopythagorean philosopher who lived in the 1st century AD. e.

But why, pray tell, the Russian reader, instead of learning additional details about the reign of one of the brilliant rulers of Ancient Russia, should get acquainted with the moralizing maxim about the ancient magician and sorcerer of the time of the Roman emperor Domitian? From the point of view of the goodwill to whom we owe this insert, there was a reason to reproach Oleg with the story of Apollonius, and what a reason. The long-suffering reader should have learned an instructive lesson for himself. It seems to us that it makes no difference to us. And from the point of view of the Christian orthodox, who supplemented the chronicle with a soul-saving history, he was doing a godly deed, blaming Prince Oleg for paganism and witchcraft. What is the matter here?

As established by philologists, the nickname of Oleg - "prophetic" - in the time of Nestor did not mean "wise" at all, but referred exclusively to his propensity to sorcery. In other words, Prince Oleg, as the supreme ruler and leader of the squad, simultaneously performed the functions of a priest, sorcerer, sorcerer, and sorcerer. For that, from the point of view of a Christian orthodox, God's punishment befell him. Exactly the same sorcerer, from the point of view of the author of the insert, was Apollonius of Tyansky, "working demonic miracles", artificially tied to the events of Russian history. Perhaps the entire maxim, which violated the logic of the chronicles and, most likely, written over the scraped-off chronicle text, was needed by the book herostratus for the sake of the last phrase: "Do not seduce with miracles …"

It is easy to "figure out" why the "co-author" Nestor has such a dislike for Oleg. Apparently, the lost articles spoke in sufficient detail not only about the military leader or managerial, but also about his priestly activities. A stern and unyielding sorcerer, invested with authority, he, it must be believed, was very intolerant of Christian missionaries. Oleg took the alphabet from them, but did not accept the teachings. The general attitude of the pagan Slavs to Christian preachers in those days is well known from Western European chronicles. Before their conversion to Christianity, the Baltic Slavs dealt with Catholic missionaries in the most cruel way. There is no doubt that the struggle for life and death also took place on the territory of Russia. Perhaps not the last role was played by the prince-priest Oleg. So they played on it after a century and a half …

However, what was deleted from the chronicles could not be erased from the memory of the people. The image of the Prophetic Prince was embodied in the mysterious epic hero Volga, whose names - (V) Olga and Oleg - actually coincide. By the miraculous gift of werewolves, which the epic Volga possessed, one can judge which abilities were attributed to the historical Oleg, especially since in some versions of the epic Volga is called Volkh (v), in full accordance with the exact meaning of the nickname of Prince Oleg the Prophetic.

… And in vapors, the princess suffered diarrhea, And she suffered diarrhea and gave birth to a child.

And in the sky the moon shone brightly, And a mighty hero was born in Kiev, Like a young Volkh Vseslavievich;

The earth sprouted cheese, The Indian kingdom was shaking gloriously, And the blue sea cracked

For-for the sake of the heroic birth

Young Volkh Vseslavievich;

The fish went into the depths of the sea, The bird flew high into the sky

Tours and deer went for the mountains, Hares, foxes in thickets, And wolves, bears in spruce forests, Sables, martens on the islands.

And there will be a Magus in an hour and a half, Volkh speaks as thunder rumbles:

“And goy thou, madam mother, Young Martha Vseslavievna!

And do not swaddle in a wormy shroud, And do not gird the silk around the poles, -

Swaddle me mother

The damask armor is strong, And put gold on the head with a shell, On the right hand - a club, And a heavy club of lead, And that club weighs three hundred poods."

And there will be a Volkh of seven years, Mother gave him to learn to read and write, And Volkh's diploma went to sciences;

I planted him to write with a pen, The letter went to him in the sciences.

And there will be a Volkh of ten years, Vtapory Volkh learned the wisdom:

And he studied the first wisdom

Wrap yourself in a clear falcon;

And he also learned another wisdom, Volkh, Wrap yourself like a gray wolf;

Wrap around a bay tour - golden horns….

Yes, there really was something for the Christian censors to dislike Prince Oleg. They could scrape off the parchment records for 21 years, but they were not able to destroy the image of the prince-sorcerer in the oral epic hymn. The deeds of Oleg the Prophet, the supreme ruler of the state he created, are a continuous series of heroic deeds, which culminated in unparalleled events in the history of Russia: the prophetic prince nailed the winner's shield over the gates of the defeated Constantinople. After his death, the process of further formation of the state of Rurikovich became already irreversible. His merits in this matter are undeniable. It seems that Karamzin said the best about them: “With the wisdom of the Ruler, educated states flourish; but only the strong hand of the Hero founds great Empires and provides them with reliable support in their dangerous news. Ancient Russia is famous for more than one Hero: none of them could equal Oleg in the conquests that affirmed her mighty existence. Strongly said! And most importantly - right! But where are these heroes today? Where are the creators? Unfortunately, lately some destroyers have flashed before our eyes …

In the famous treaty of Oleg with the Greeks in 912, concluded after the brilliant siege of Constantinople and the surrender of the Byzantines, there is not a word about Prince Igor, the nominal ruler of Kievan Rus, whose guardian was Oleg. Of the 33 years of his reign, the later editors completely deleted from the annals entries relating to 21 (!) Years. As if nothing happened during those years! It happened - and how! Only here Oleg's heirs to the throne did not like something in his deeds or genealogy. The latter is more likely, because, if you follow the logic of the Joachim Chronicle, Oleg could refer to Gostomyslov proper and the original Novgorod family. This is in no way contradicted by Nestor's message that Oleg, to whom Rurik before his death handed over and entrusted the upbringing of Igor's young heir, was a relative ("of his own kind") of the founder of the dynasty. You can also be a relative along the line of your wife. Thus, the line of the Novgorod elder Gostomysl - the main initiator of the invitation to the rulers of Rurik - was not interrupted. What happened to the other children of Rurik (if any were born at all)? The most incredible hypotheses are possible. For the imagination of fiction writers, there is a generally limitless field of activity here. On the whole, we have before us one of the exciting and unsolved mysteries of the distant past.

The fact that Oleg the Prophet was the first true builder of the Russian state was well understood at all times. He expanded its limits, approved the power of the new dynasty in Kiev, defended the legitimacy of Rurik's heir to the throne, dealt the first tangible blow to the omnipotence of the Khazar Kaganate. Before Oleg and his retinue appeared on the banks of the Dnieper, the "unreasonable Khazars" collected tribute from neighboring Slavic tribes with impunity. For several centuries they sucked Russian blood, and in the end they even tried to impose an ideology completely alien to the Russian people - Judaism professed by the Khazars.

With the time of the reign of Oleg the Prophet, one more mystery of the initial Russian chronicle coincides. One of the biggest gaps in The Tale of Bygone Years falls on the years of Oleg's reign. From 885 (the conquest of the Radimichs and the beginning of the campaign against the Khazars, about which the original text was not preserved) and to 907 (the first campaign to Constantinople), only three events were recorded in the annals that relate to the history of Russia itself. The rest is either "empty" years (what they mean, we already understand), or two episodes borrowed from the Byzantine chronicles and concerning the rule of the emperors of Constantinople.

What are the purely Russian realities left in the chronicle? The first is the passage of migrating Ugrians (Hungarians) past Kiev in 898. The second is Igor's acquaintance with his future wife, Olga from Pskov. According to Nestor, this happened in the summer of 6411, that is, in 903.