Древняя Русь и Скандинавия: Избранные труды

Annalist’s invectives against Oleg’s heathenism are supported by the earliest extant Old Russian document, the treaty concluded by Oleg with Byzantium in 911 after his successful attack on Constantinople in 907. The treaty was included in the «Primary Chronicle» and it is supposed to be translated from Greek at the end of the eleventh century[1399]. One of the paragraphs stipulates that an oath shoull be sworn to confirm the treaty. The text of the oath leaves no doubt that the Rus’ of that time were pagan. Christian Greeks were to swear «in the name of the Holy Cross and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity of your one true God», whereas «we (i. e. the Rus’. – E. M.) have sworn to your Emperor… according to our own faith and the custom of our nation»[1400]. This custom was described earlier, in the preamble to the treaty of 907:

According to the religion of the Russes, the latter swore by their weapons and by their god Perun, as well as by Volos, the god of cattle[1401].

Even if the Christian community that could have appeared in Kiev in the third quarter of the ninth century still existed, as Dmitrij Obolensky maintains[1402], it had no influence on the new aristocracy and the number of Christians in Oleg’s retinue, if any, was so small that no special provisions for them were necessary.

Still even during Oleg’s reign the acquaintance of his warriors with Christianity started. The compiler of the «Primary Chronicle» adds after the text of Oleg’s treaty:

The Emperor Leo honored the Russian envoys with gifts… and placed his vassals at their disposition to show them the beauties of the churches, the golden palace, and the riches contained therein. They thus showed the Russes much gold and many palls and jewels, together with the relics of our Lord’s Passion: the crown, the nails, and the purple robe, as well as the bones of the Saints. They also instructed the Russes in their faith, and expounded to them the true belief[1403].

If the entry is not modeled after the account of Vladimir’s mission to Constantinople before adopting Christianity in 988, as Dmitrij Likhachev suspected[1404], it can be viewed as an important evidence of the proselytizing efforts of the Byzantine church. It seems not neccessary that among those “Russes” who benefited from the excursion and the instructions, should be Christians, as Henrik Birnbaum would like to think[1405]. But it can point to the fact that the Patriarchate never stopped attempts and used any chance of pressing Christian ideas on the Rus’ heathens.

Ill

It is only in the middle of the tenth century that a new rise of Christian activities begins to be attested in the sources. The next treaty with Byzantium concluded by Kievan prince Igor’ (< Yngvarr) in 944 witnesses that there appeared Christians among the Rus’ warriors and their number grew so large that two forms of oaths became required. «Those of us (i. e. the Rus’. – E. M.) who are baptized have sworn in the Cathedral, by the church of St. Elias, upon the Holy Cross set before us…». The rest of the Rus’ took oaths upon «their shields, their naked swords, their armlets, and their other weapons..»[1406].

The Rus’ that participated in the conclusion of the treaty belonged to the elite of the Old Russian state. It was a new warrior elite that emerged less than a century earlier after Oleg’s seizure of Kiev. By the 940ies the Rus’ comprised both Norsemen and Slavs – according to the names of the members of the princely family, emissaries and witnesses mentioned in the treaty – though the proportion of non-Scandinavians was still very small[1407]. The spread of Christianity among the warrior elite seems very rapid and so substantial that the Christians had to be taken special account of.

A rather wide spread of Christianity in the 940ies is further substantiated by other clauses of the treaty that make provisions for both Christians and heathens among the Rus’: