Древняя Русь и Скандинавия: Избранные труды

The failure to achieve her aims or their only partial fulfilment might very well explain the events that followed Ol’ga’s visit to Constantinople if the date 957 for her voyage is accepted.

In 959 Ol’ga sent an embassy to Otto I of Germany asking for a bishop and priests, probably to introduce Christianity on a wider level. The mission of Adalbert spent about a year in Rus’ and returned to Magdeburg in 962 without success. Though the extant sources provide no information about the reasons of Ol’ga’s appeal to the German emperor, her embassy is viewed in the context of contradictions between Byzantium and Germany and is interpreted as an attempt of a Russian ruler to play on these contradictions and to gain by exploiting them[1425]. At the same time Ol’ga’s appeal to German (i. e. Roman) church could reflect rather vague, unofficial religious connections of Rus’ with Byzantium which could hardly be the case if Ol’ga were baptized in Constantinople.

Thus, Ol’ga’s baptism seems to reflect a new step in the process of penetration of Christianity into Rus’: the growth of authority of the new faith among the Russian elite and the appearance of people baptized in Kiev and not only in Byzantium.

Christianization of Ol’ga did not mean, however, a wide spread of the new faith. Nothing is known about Christians outside Kiev, the seat of the «Russian» princes. Ol’ga’s baptism looks more like a private act, and her son, a warrior prince Svjato-slav, the first prince with a Slavic name, felt no inclination to Christianity. The annalist stresses Ol’ga’s attempts to persuade him into Christianity and formulates Sv-jatoslav’s refusal with the words probably borrowed from oral tradition: «How shall I alone accept another faith? My followers will laugh at that»[1426]. In fact, far from all his followers and relatives would laugh at Svjatoslav. Even twenty years earlier, as we have seen, the number of Christians among Igor’s hird was large enough to make special provisions for their oath. But Christianity was and remained until 988 the faith not of princes but of their followers. Even if the eldest son and successor of Svjatoslav Jaropolk was baptized[1427], the spread of Christianity before 988 was far from wide. Two other Svjatoslav’s sons were heathens and after his accession to Kievan throne Vladimir renovated pagan cult by introducing a pantheon of several gods chosen from various tribal traditions with a supreme god Perun whose cult was supposed to become an official one[1428].

For several decades before the official Christianization in 988 there seems to be a co-existence of Christians and pagans both among the ruling clan of the Rurikides[1429]and among the Russian elite. This co-existence, however, was not as peaceful as one would gather from the sources discussed earlier.

V

Five years before the official Christianization of Rus’ in 988 the «Primary Chronicle» records a splash of confrontation between Christians and pagans in Kiev.

On his return from a successful raid Vladimir and his elders decided to make a sacrifice to pagan gods[1430]. They cast lots and the lot fell – «through the devil’s hatred» as the annalist put it – upon a young Varangian who together with his father returned from Byzantium. Both Varangians «adhered to the Christian faith». The messengers of the prince came to the house and demanded that the youth should be given to them. The father refused to do this and pronounced an invective exposing the false gods of pagans and proclaiming the mightiness of the true God. The citizens took up arms, attacked the Varangians and killed them.