Rise of Kyiv

According to the Chronicle of Bygone Years, in the first half of the 9^th century, two Vikings, Askold and Dir, left their lord Riurik of Novgorod, sailed down the Dnieper with their men and captured Kyiv. In 860 they launched a sea raid against Constantinople, when the Byzantine army was away fighting the Arabs.

In 882 Kyiv was conquered by another Viking from Novgorod, Oleh, who united Novgorod and Kyiv and proclaimed Kyiv the capital and “mother of all Rus cities.”

According the Chronicle of Bygone Years Oleh made a raid against Constantinople in 907 or 911. The result was quite a favorable trade treaty with the Byzantine Empire.[14] In 913 Oleg perished during the war against the Arabian Caliphate on the coast of the Caspian Sea. (According to a legend he died from the bite of a snake).

Oleh’s successor, Prince Ihor, ruled Kyivan Rus from 913 until his death in 945. In 941, when the Byzantine army was away fighting the Arabs, Ihor launched a sea raid on Constantinople. Though Ihor devastated some regions in Asia Minor his raid was a failure. Igor’s fleet was burned by the famous Greek fire. [15] Then his army was defeated by the Byzantine forces which had returned from the Arab campaign. The resulting peace treaty of 944 was not as good for the Rus as that of 911.

In 944 the Rus army attacked the Caspian coast and plundered several Muslim cities. Ihor perished in 945 when trying to collect a double tribute from the Drevlianians (a Slavic tribe west of Kyiv). He died in a horrible way. His legs were tied to the curved tops of two trees. When the trees became strait they tore Ihor into two pieces.

Princess Olha, the wife of Ihor, took revenge on the Drevlianians. She burnt their major city Iskorosten (present-day Korosten in Zhytomyr region). At the same time she promised not to collect more tribute from the subjugated tribes than it was agreed. Olha reigned from 945 till 964 while her son Sviatoslav[16] was under age. Olha was considered to be a clever ruler. The Chronicle of Bygone Years even said that she had “man’s brain.” In those times it sounded like a complement.

Sviatoslav spent all his life in military raids. He was a classic warrior-prince, simple, severe, brave, equally sharing with his men hardships of wars. Before attacking his enemies Sviatoslav sent a warning: “I am going to attack you.” In 964-966 Sviatoslav destroyed Khazaria, a powerful empire in the Volga region.[17] Then he engaged in long wars in the Balkans against Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire. Having achieved some impressive successes he even planned to move Rus’ capital from the Dnieper to the Danube. During his Balkan wars the prince showed himself as a cruel and merciless warrior. In Philipople, for example, he impaled several thousand prisoners (Bulgarian and Byzantine soldiers). Sviatoslav was killed by Pechenegs in 972 while returning from Bulgaria after an unsuccessful campaign against the Byzantines. The Pecheneg khan Kuria made a cup from Sviatoslav’s skull and drank wine from it before having sex with his wife. According to a Pecheneg tradition it could lead to the birth of a powerful ruler.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11