Olga of kiev biography sample

Olga wanted to unite people with some great idea, and decided that Christian religion might be a good choice. Besides, she understood that she needed new connections, enforcing her power and support from other mighty states. Therefore, in Olga paid a visit to Constantinople. In Constantinople, she was Christianized and given Christian name Elena.

There is an interesting story behind this event. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos was so charmed by outstanding personality and beauty of Olga that he decided to propose her. But Olga was a pagan, so it was impossible to arrange a marriage. The solution was obvious: Olga had to become a Christian. Olga accepted this, and Constantine personally performed the ceremony of her Christianizing.

However, then smart Olga, who did not plan to marry the emperor, said that they could not get married because she was not allowed to become a wife of her godfather. The emperor, impressed by her contrivance, gifted Olga valuable treasures and sent her home. In such a way, the princess Olga has achieved all her goals: the Byzantine Empire got aware about Kyiv Rus and began to support it.

The country received a well-organized government and began to integrate into political system of the Christian world. Olga built monasteries and churches in Kyiv Rus and preached Christ. She was even canonized by the Christian church as a saint. She precisely defined the lands where she collected tributes, established places for safekeeping gathered tributes and set central government points.

Domestic policy measures taken by Olga helped to unite former tribal lands into one powerful state. As for external policy, Olga preferred diplomacy to war. In , she signed agreement with Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos; according to this agreement, she sent her warriors to help the Byzantine Empire in its wars with Arabs, Northmen and Bulgarians.

Olga of kiev biography sample

By this time sickness had come upon the aging Princess Olga. At the same time her son wanted to move his residence to Pereyaslav which is on the Danube River , leaving Olga in Kiev. Olga restrained Svyatoslav from leaving until after she had died. She died on July 11 , and was buried by a priest , having ordered that there would not be a funeral feast.

While Olga was not successful in converting her son or many others to the Christian faith, her example may have been a great influence on her grandson, Vladimir, who in became an Orthodox Christian and led the inhabitants of Kiev and Rus' to follow him in the Baptism of Rus'. For her leadership in bringing Christianity to Russia, she is considered the first saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

From OrthodoxWiki. Jump to: navigation , search. Saint Olga Equal-to-the-Apostles. 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. 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 , Igor set out to the Drevlian capital, Iskorosten , to force the tribe to pay tribute to Kievan Rus'. 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. 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.

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. 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 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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 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.

She left the remnant to pay tribute. 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. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in , and saved the power of the throne for her son.

After her dramatic subjugation of the Drevlians, the Primary Chronicle recounts how Olga "passed through the land of Dereva, accompanied by her son and her retinue, establishing laws and tribute. Her trading posts and hunting-reserves are there still. She established hunting grounds, boundary posts, towns, and trading-posts across the empire.

Olga's work helped to centralize state rule with these trade centers, called pogosti , which served as administrative centers in addition to their mercantile roles. By cunningly setting the Drevlian capital of Iskorosten ablaze, she extinguished their threat. Beyond her vengeful streak, Olga also enacted transformative reforms. She established the first taxation system in Kievan Rus, introducing the concept of "polyudye," or fixed amounts of tribute.

This system extended beyond the Drevlian and Novgorod lands mentioned in the chronicles, shaping the entire economic landscape. Olga's most profound act was her conversion to Christianity in or in Constantinople. This pivotal moment laid the foundation for the eventual adoption of Eastern Orthodoxy as the state religion under her grandson, Vladimir the Great.