Russia

Yet Olga/Helen’s personal commitment to Christianity did not imply the Christianizatio of Russia. The opposition was far too strong for that. Most Rus were addicted to their own gods — gods who represented the forces of nature. Christianity, with its faith in the Son of God, who suffered to save the whole community and was resurrected every year, had undoubted attractions. But it could not easily replace the familiar sprites that had power over woods and streams. And was the Christian god as powerful as, say, Perun, the god of thunder, bringer of rain and of prosperity, by whom Russians swore their most solemn oaths? How could the memory of a crucifixion be as effective as the sacrifice of human beings in propitiating a god? And would these chanting black-garbed foreign priests be as effective as the Rus shamans in their magic clothes sewn with tinkling bells? Whatever their personal preferences, Olga and her successors had to take account of their subjects’ feeling if they were to survive.

The Christian priests who came to Russia were persuasive missionaries. They intoned the liturgy in fine voices, learned the local vernacular, and were able to relate and explain the stories of the Bible, the significance of every feast and fast day, and the merits of every saint in their calendar with reference to powerful and captivating visual aids called icons. Above all, they spread a vision of hell and the prospect of bliss through salvation. They also exploited the advantages of superior technology, bringing bigger, more resounding bells with them, and incense that smelled stronger and more interesting than the shamans’ concoctions. The number of Christian converts increased steadily. Yet, as more Rus became Christians, divisions and conflicts arose.

Resistance to the new religion was fed by interest as well as by affection for the familiar. Christianity threatened the shamans with loss of power and social standing, and also loss of income. Moreover, many members of the ruling elite were themselves pagans or were cautious enough not to alienate the people of their district by challenging their gods. Olga/Helen, though a Christian herself, dared not proclaim Christianity to be the religion of her people. That fateful step was to be taken by her grandson Vladimir some twenty years after Olga’s death. Meanwhile her son Sviatoslav ruled, a determined warrior and a pagan.

It was Sviatoslav who finally eliminated the Khazars, who had for so long controlled the commercial networks of the south. He drove them from their strong-points on the Sea of Azov and then from Itil, their strategic trading centre on the Volga. At the same time he overcame the Volga Bulgar tribes. Then, presumably in return for a favour or in expection of one, he answered a call from the Emperor to campaign against the Bulgars of the Balkans. The experience evidently whetted his ambition to control the delta of the river Danube, so great was its commercial value. There, in the words of an early Russian chronicler, ‘all the good things of the world converge: gold, precious silks, wine and fruit from Byzantium, silver and horses from Bohemia and Hungary, furs, wax, honey and slaves from Russia.’ ²⁰

Indeed, in 971 Sviatoslav decided to establish his capital in the delta. From that point on the Danube seems to have been embedded in the Russians’ collective imagination as a source of fascination. Long afterwards, popular folk songs were to reflect a yearning to possess it. ²¹ But, though Sviatoslav was at first succesful, he soon ran foul of Byzantine interests. The Emperor John Tzimisces, a former general who had killed his predecessor in a palace coup, found Sviatoslav’s initiative intolerable and resolved to drive him out. Sviatoslav proved to be no match for him in strategy. John led his army in a dramatically fast march which trapped the Russians in the stronghold they called Pereiaslavets on the Danube. Despite frantic resistance, Sviatoslav was forced to concede. The parley that ended the fight occasioned a pen-portrait of him by a Byzantine observer.

According to this, Sviatoslav was a man of medium height, broad shouldered, blue-eyed, bushy-browed and snub-nosed. He had a thick neck, long moustachios and a shaven head — except for a lock of hair on one side, the mark of his nobility. In one ear he wore a gold ring set with two pearls and a ruby, and he wore a suit of golden armour. Yet he seemed ‘gloomy and savage’, no doubt because his imperial hopes had been dashed. ²²Sviatoslav would not adopt an appropriate mien of humility, however, and this did not please the Emperor, whose agents soon arranged for the Pechenegs to ambush Sviatoslav and kill him. In this way, glittering ambition met a mean and dusty end.