"Vladimir the Red Sun" - Family and children. Kievan reign. Content. Vladimir "red sun" reign in Novgorod. Last years. In Kyiv, the baptism of the people passed relatively peacefully. Vladimir captured Polotsk, which had gone over to the side of Kyiv. Origin and upbringing. Baptism.

"Vladimir Svyatoslavich" - Religious literature says that the population unanimously adopted Christianity. Vladimir Svyatoslavich. Vladimir in an hour could find out about the approach of the Pechenegs. Also, in addition to the official version of Christianity, there was also a popular one. Origin and Education. Paganism corresponded to the primitive system, a collective society.

“The reign of Yaroslav the Wise” - Yaroslav told his fellow citizens about the trouble with tears: - My father died. Foreign policy of Yaroslav the Wise. Lesson plan Second strife. Yaroslav's foreign policy Yaroslav's domestic policy. Activities of Metropolitan Hilarion. Legislative activity. Read about the murder of Boris and Gleb in §9 on page 76.

"History of Russian princes" - Moscow is mentioned in the annals. Danila Romanovich Galitsky. History of Russia in faces. Maria Shvarnovna. Fragmentation of Russia. Dmitry I Ivanovich. Kievan Rus. Ivan Danilovich Kalita. Andrey Yurievich Bogolyubsky. Our truth is quite different. Answer with one sentence. Blessed Prince Michael. Mstislav Vladimirovich the Great.

"Princes in Russia" - Results of the reign of the first Russian princes. Rurik 862-879 Svyatoslav 962-972 Svyatoslav. Igor 912 - 945. Igor Rurikovich (Old) - Grand Duke of Kyiv, son of Oleg. The first Russian princes. Oleg 882-912 Olga 945-962 "I'm going to you." Oleg (Prophetic) - Prince of Novgorod and (since 882) Kyiv. Olga (Equal to the Apostles) - Princess of Kyiv, wife of Igor, mother of Svyatoslav.

"Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich" - The new religion began to spread throughout Russia. Vladimir (Novgorod). But there were cases of violent clashes between the pagans and the princely retinue. Perun. Yaropolk (Kyiv). Task: based on the text of the textbook, formulate the reasons for the adoption of Christianity. 980-1015 reign of Prince Vladimir in Kyiv. Svyatoslav.

The Greeks and Khazars bowed the neck

In front of a sword with a notch, features and cuts.

(A.Shiropaev "Rus")

The ways of historical sources are whimsical. Find yourself at the hand of the toparch - the governor of Klimatov, the Crimean possessions of Byzantium, a sheet of clean paper, that is, of course, parchment ...

But it didn't turn out. And a draft of an important document turned out to be inscribed on the blank pages of a book that turned up under the arm. Thanks to this, he survived, avoiding the usual fate of drafts. The final version, one must think, disappeared after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. For many days the conquerors then heated the city baths with the imperial archives and books of the palace library. It remains only to regret the unique sources forever lost to science.

I will not linger on the disputes of historians around this document, conventionally called the "Note of the Greek toparch." There are a lot of them, as always. And we learned from the "Notes" itself that's what ...

There lived a toparch. He did not grieve, ruled rich lands, but was glad that the capital was far away. So, he, the toparch, seems to be his own master. But one day he regretted it.

The evil barbarians attacked the lands in the neighborhood of the Toparch Climates. That is, before they were not evil. Previously, they showed "justice" and "legality"; and "cities and peoples voluntarily joined them." “Now everything is broken: they showed injustice ... in relation to their subjects, instead of caring for the good of the subject cities and for their own benefit to manage them in good order, they decided to enslave and ruin them.” These cities "under the pretext of a broken oath became the prey of violence and the sword."

Familiar, right, reader? Berdaa's neighbor could have written exactly the same thing ... if Berdaa had neighbored the possessions of the Romans. But it is very similar to the Russians! And this - former - obligation, and concern for subjects; and fierce punishment for "broken oath".

Here the toparch begins to get confused. One thing is clear - he collided with one of the detachments of the barbarians, and collided on the land they had already devastated. The impression is that the toparch decided on the sly to cut the land devastated by the barbarians to the imperial possessions - and stumbled upon them themselves. Having been defeated in the first skirmish, the toparch hastily retreated behind the walls of the ruined city. And in the morning he again attacked the enemy, rightly believing that you could not sit long on the ruins of someone else's fortress. He had a hundred horsemen and three times as many foot archers and slingers. Only the toparch's army did not have to show their prowess in the battle - the barbarians left somewhere overnight.

The toparch remained to strengthen the walls of the city and build a tower, but his soul was more than restless. He understood that he had challenged a terrible force. Indeed, only in the lands adjacent to its Climates, 10 cities and 500 villages were devastated. Punishers were "inaccessible to mercy." Therefore, the toparch sent messengers to his "advisers" from the local nobility. As often happens in remote provinces, the word of local magnates and planters sounded no quieter than decrees from a distant capital. And now the council had to decide neither more nor less than the question of the future fate of the region. About allegiance.

The imperial official, understandably, urged to turn to Constantinople for help. The local nobility, “either because they allegedly never enjoyed imperial favors, and did not care about getting used to civilized life, but above all they strove for independence, or because they were neighbors of the reigning north of the Danube, which is powerful a large army and is proud of its strength in battles ... one way or another, they decided to conclude a peace treaty with them (the barbarians - L.P.) and surrender to it (“reigning north of the Danube - L.P.), and together they came to the conclusion that I must do the same."

And the toparch, unwilling by the "advisors", set off on a long and dangerous path "through enemy territory", to put up with those whom he so carelessly touched. The path seemed so dangerous that the official of the God-saved Orthodox state resorted to astrological research, in other words, guessed by the stars. Saturn is in Aquarius.

I am neither a fan nor an expert in astrology; I don't know the meaning of this detail. Those of my acquaintances who understand it assured me that the situation is very favorable ("Saturn in his house"), especially for treaties, delimitation and similar diplomacy. Well, perhaps it is, unless the interpretation of this position has changed in more than a thousand years. She obviously, if not encouraged, at least strengthened Toparkh in his decision. I was pleased with the result of toparch research and historians. The book, the pages of which he used as a draft, of the 10th century. Features of the handwriting of the "Notes" say that they wrote it no later than the beginning of the next, XI century. Finding the time of this astrological position on this segment turned out to be easy. These are the years 964-967, or 993-996. The latter are gone. At the end of the 10th century, there were no previously “just” and powerful barbarians near the Crimean possessions of Byzantium, who were furious with their tributaries because of a “broken oath”; and “to the north of the Danube” then there were no “powerful with a large army and proud of their strength in battles” rulers. Levchenko, the same one who discovered Olga's embassy status during her Tsargrad trip, suggested that it was about the exorbitantly famous son of our hero. But in the 90s of the tenth century, he could not drive away the former vassals of his father and grandfather from the borders. There is no need to talk about “strength in battles”: the most striking chronicle evidence on this subject says how he ... hid from enemies under the bridge. Just try to imagine Oleg, Igor or Svyatoslav himself in his place! No one considered him during his lifetime, not only great or glorious - no matter how noticeable a warrior and commander.

But the glory of our hero flew to Byzantium. And just like that - "powerful", "proud", "strong in battle" - draw his Byzantine chronicles.

So, the "reigning" is Svyatoslav. Then the lands adjacent to the Climates are Khazaria. A. N. Sakharov suggests that we are talking about the same Khazar refugees who returned under the oath of obedience to the Rus to their native places. They, according to the researcher, did not keep this oath, and, quite naturally, paid for it. Maybe so. But maybe the "note" simply reflected the impression of the Byzantines from the defeat of Khazaria. In ancient Russian, the oath and the world order were called in one word "company". And the reason for the extermination of the rich cities of Khazaria by the barbarian-Rus, which, according to the Romans, should be “governed ... to own benefit in good order”, in violation of the laws of the world order by the Khazars. Then the message of the "Notes" should be put on a par with the messages of Ibn Haukal and the Russian fairy tale.

Significant and the title that he awards - in an official document! - toparch of our hero. At the beginning of the book, we said how reluctantly the Romans recognized the royal title for foreign rulers, even Christians. For a very long time, the Byzantines did not recognize the name of the king for the king of the Bulgarians, for Kaiser Otto. And then suddenly a pagan - and " reigning»!

But back to the toparch. He drove through a certain "Black Fortress" - Mavrokastron - to the "settlement" of Borion at the mouth of the Dnieper. There the toparch and his companions spent the winter. Local residents, having learned about the purpose of the trip, received the official very cordially and hospitably. He was provided with fodder, supplies, guides. The toparch who was leaving was “applauded”, looking “as if he were close to himself and placing great hopes”. It is easy to understand the joy of people from an unfortified village on the very road from Russia to the Crimea. The war of the Climates with the Rus promised Borion destruction and death, peace - life.

“He who reigns north of the Danube” received the toparch graciously and honored him with a conversation. He agreed to give Klimat his patronage, leave the toparch his power, and did not even object to the appropriation of one of the Khazar regions that had been deserted after the campaign of the Rus. So everything ended well for the Climates.

But the situation itself, from the point of view of Constantinople, was certainly unhealthy. So that an imperial official would be fine just negotiating with the barbarians! But that he would arbitrarily go to their leader for a decision on the fate of the imperial possessions?! Magnified him "reigning" and received confirmation of his title and power from him?! So he will soon decide that his capital is not on the Bosphorus, but there, “to the north of the Danube”! Today he goes to the barbarian for patronage - tomorrow he will send him taxes!

An experienced official, a toparch, could not but understand that his behavior, even if it was the only correct one in these conditions, looked very suspicious. That is why he gets confused in the draft report, furiously crosses out lines, cannot decide on the order of presentation of events (“Note” begins with the return of the toparch to Climates and ends with “advice” and a brief description of the trip to “reigning north of the Danube”), which is why he brings down all the blame on the "advisors", desperately emphasizing his loyalty to the throne. That is why he paints the joy and support of the population - there was no history of despotism that did not refer to the "voice of the people", "the interests of the nation", "public opinion". And then he even intertwines his exercises in astronomy: “It's not me! I am not guilty! So decided the stars, so decided Fate itself!

No, it's still wonderful - an official of the Orthodox Empire includes an excerpt from the horoscope in his report, without explanations and comments, clearly counting on the authorities who are knowledgeable in stellar wisdom. When you read the indignant outpourings of today's pastors about the "pagan dominance of superstitions and astrology", one recalls the birthplace of Orthodoxy - God-saved Byzantium...

Someone may ask: why, in this case, did the toparch not simply try to hide his trip to Kyiv? The question, of course, is very naive. Whistleblowing flourished in the Second Rome, if not from the day it was founded, then from the time of Justinian the Great. That Justinian, who, according to Procopius of Caesarea, decided to give any disputed case for investigation to the one who reported first. The toparch's only chance was to be the first to report, to have time to present his version of events to the imperial authorities. Otherwise, a double accusation - in separate negotiations with the enemy, and in an attempt to conceal them. Explicit treason, with all the consequences ...

The further fate of the toparch is unknown. Did they believe his excuses, did he retain his post, freedom and life? One thing is certain: after the "Note" the authorities, even if they missed the roar of the collapsed kaganate, could no longer ignore the power that had come out to the northern borders of Eastern Rome.

Moreover, for some time at the head of the empire was not a hawker and not a scribe, not a frequenter of taverns or libraries, but a military officer, a commander. However, the new emperor and the winding path that brought him to the throne is a completely different story.

2. The fate of emperors.

And don't wrap yourself in the philistine streets,

And in those lanes of Marinkina.

And whore damn Marinka Ignatievna

Poisoned, spent up to nine fellows,

All the princes, queens,

Poison you in tenths.

(Bylina "Dobrynya and Marinka Ignatievna")

We remember how Roman II met a young beauty named Anastaso. About the level of that, so to speak, institution where the heir to the throne of the Second Rome first saw his future wife, says that Anastaso was not only his, uh-uh ... employee, but also the daughter of the owner. Simply put, it was difficult to call this place even a tavern. Den - much more precisely. However, it was not easy then for the guards of the port quarters! Go and follow the order, if somewhere on the crooked streets the only child of the sovereign-emperor deigns to have fun. The trash and the punks, on the contrary, probably prospered (more precisely, they celebrated the night), and wished the young lord all possible blessings. Well, he got one benefit. Not even good, we have already said - fate. Although, of course, the narrow-minded Roman did not suspect that he had brought the fate of not one, but three (if not four) emperors from the eternal fetid night of the port slums to the palaces of the rulers.

The first intoxication of the miraculous ascension from the brothel to the palace must have passed quickly enough. And surely Anastaso - that is, already Theophano - was quickly tired of his father-in-law, this elderly, hard-drinking bookworm, living in dreams of the former greatness of the Roman Empire. Old intellectuals who have drunk themselves can indeed be very tedious, but they seem especially tedious to young and full of life animals like Theophano. Knowing Constantine, we can assume that, as sovereign and father-in-law, he considered it his duty to instruct the young daughter-in-law in the duties of not just a noble lady, but the wife and future mother of the heirs to the Eastern Roman throne. Judging by the writings that have come down to us, the style of Born in Purple did not shine with either fascination or variety. And his teachings, as you might guess, drove Theophano to a white heat.

The halo of the fairy-tale prince that surrounded Roman in the eyes of his young wife also faded with time. I can't guarantee if she realized that the "stubbornness" with which he stood up for their marriage was just the capricious stubbornness of a bearded baby, multiplied by the helplessness of his parents. Helena Lacapina simply adored her only son with maternal, animal blindness, but Born in Purple turned out to be completely untenable in the role of father. She probably didn't understand it at first. Still, it is not easy to admit that, to put it mildly, she was mistaken, taking for a hero, for the man of her dreams, a rag, a nonentity, a child unable to grow up. It's much easier to find someone to blame. In this case, it didn't take long to find something. Of course, Roman is "suppressed"! And no one, but his damned dad! Purplish bore! Now, if he were gone, then my Roman would show!

Well, not the last was the fact that Constantine stood in the way of the young couple to the uncontrolled use of the imperial treasury at their own discretion.

The astute reader has already guessed ... well, yes, in Constantinople, such issues were resolved in a rather uniform way. Sometimes they are solved in the same way in today's families, which can be easily seen by reading the section of the criminal chronicle in any newspaper.

However, how relations developed in the imperial family can be guessed from one circumstance. In 958, Theophano's son, Vasily, is born, the one who will remain in history under the eerie nickname of the Bulgar Slayers. It is somewhat strange, by the way, why exactly the bloody triumph over the Bulgarians is so merged with his name. The emperor distinguished himself not only by him. So, during the war with Georgia, he set a price for the heads of Georgians (regardless of gender and age). The terrible trophies brought by the soldiers, the Orthodox Caesar, four centuries before Tamerlane, piled pyramids on both sides of the road. Georgians, like the Byzantines, were Orthodox Christians. But now we are not interested in the bloodthirsty temper of Vasily, but in his appearance. Contemporaries describe him as a two-meter blond with icy light blue eyes. Appearance, for a Roman, to put it mildly, unusual! Pay attention to the date of birth of the future ruler of the Second Rome. The impression is that his mother showed an increased and by no means diplomatic interest in the Russian embassy. It remains to be hoped that her attention was attracted by a boyar or a noble combatant from Olga's retinue, and not an ordinary Griden bodyguard or just a hefty serf.

However, Feofano quickly became disappointed in her hubby if she began to seek solace on the side.

Cooling in relations, however, might not have happened - Roman was not distinguished by special intelligence and insight, and Feofano, of course, knew how to do her business in secret. In any case, the conspiracy drawn up by them against the elderly lord speaks of sufficient mutual trust of the young imperial couple. Constantine dies in 959. It was officially announced that the emperor caught a cold during a pilgrimage to one of the monasteries of Mount Olympus. But in the city, his killers were frankly named - a dissolute son and a daughter-in-law remembered by many under a different name and in a different capacity.

Thus died Born in Purple. And was it not purple that veiled his eyes during the painful hours of agony, when the poison devoured the insides of the old sovereign? Purple, damned poisonous purple...

The purple-born old man turned out to be the first of the emperors, whose fate was a girl from the port brothel of Constantinople.

Roman did not grieve for his father for long. First of all, he dismissed all his close associates from their posts and imprisoned the sisters who did not please him with some unknown reason. He thanked the crowned bastard and his mother for her blind love. Helena Lecapina was expelled from the palace shortly after her husband's death. Thank you, at least not to the monastery ...

Soon, the old woman, betrayed by her beloved son, died. They said out of grief. It is possible, though hard to believe, that the active daughter-in-law left her hated mother-in-law to the mercy of fate, relying on the empress's old age and grief.

Perhaps, behind all these dirty rearrangements, the hand of the beautiful Feofano is visible. Well, another argument in favor of the insignificance of her husband. It became even brighter later. Having become an autocrat, Roman did not show any interest in state affairs. He spent his life in an unrespectable company, whose members Leo the Deacon severely calls "slaves of the belly and what is under the belly." The real power was concentrated in the hands of two parties - the courtiers, led by parakimomen Joseph Vringa and Theophano with her new lover Nicephorus Foka, a famous commander, behind whose back was the army. The beauty Theophano did not and could not have any power over Vringa - only eunuchs were appointed to the position of parakimomen, as well as to many other court posts, in Byzantium.

Nicephorus soon marked the reign of the husband of his passion with victories over the Arabs. True, the first success of the Romans was in vain - the advanced detachments after the flight of the enemy began to immediately celebrate the victory, so much so that when the Muslim army returned, few were able to even escape. Well, what is the sovereign, such are his subjects. Nikephoros Foka, however, did not let the first defeat discourage him, and soon took revenge, completely clearing Crete from the Arabs. “Having cleansed” here should be understood in the most literal sense: the Orthodox army celebrated the victory over the enemy with unrestrained robbery and equally monstrous massacre. Nicephorus Foka, according to the Byzantine chroniclers, only made sure that his soldiers did not desecrate themselves (!) By violence against Arab women. The terrible victories of Phocas responded in the Muslim Middle East with Christian pogroms.

In the meantime, changes were taking place in the capital. The emperor's new friends made him addicted to "unnatural vices," as Leo the Deacon reports. Naturally, Theophano's influence on her husband began to decline. The thought of parting with the power that gave so much pleasure was so unbearable, and her husband, who had completely ceased to resemble a man, no longer evoked even a shadow of feeling in Theophano. Soon the emperor, upon his return from the newfangled game, dog hunting, which he indulged in during Lent, fell seriously ill and expired. The symptoms were suspiciously reminiscent of his father's death - a feeling of extreme weakness, severe shortness of breath. Some whispered about God's punishment, medical scientists importantly interpreted that the Caesar "had lethal spasms from immoderate riding," the majority insisted that Roman had been poisoned. Poisoned with poison "brought from the female half of the palace," as Leo the Deacon vaguely put it. Let's forgive the venerable chronicler for the vagueness of expressions - he wrote his "History" in the reign of the children of Theophano, Basil and Constantine. In addition to two sons, the tavern empress also gave birth to a daughter, Anna. It is difficult to vouch for the paternity of two younger children, given the nature of the mother and the new inclinations of the formal father, although Konstantin, who was born after the death of Roman, was very much like him in character. He added his name to the list of crowned revelers and drunkards, next to the names of his father, Alexander's great-uncle, Michael III, and many, many others.

Familiar with the history of Russia has already learned the names of the children of Feofano. Yes, it was the daughter of this, uh ... woman, that the unworthy son of our hero married. And it was from the hands of her brothers that he received the new faith. If he was not worthy of his father, then the bride, the Shuryas, and, especially, the mother-in-law - completely!

So Roman is dead. So decided his fate, the fate of the name of Theophano, which he once with his own hands led from a dirty alley under the purple palace vaults.

The alarmed Joseph Vringa in a panic tried to eliminate the dangerous popularity among the troops and the people, and most importantly, the connection with Theophano, the commander, and wrote a letter to one of the officers of Phocas, the Armenian John Tzimiskes. In a letter, he offered all conceivable and unimaginable blessings, up to the imperial throne, for support against Focas. But the veteran of undercover battles severely miscalculated. Whether out of blood enmity between the front-line officers towards the courtiers, whether out of physiological hostility to the “artificially made woman,” as Tzimiskes called Vring, or simply out of the soldier’s rejection of intrigue, Tzimiskes did not accept the offer.

However, knowing the Romans in general and Tzimisces in particular, we can assume that there was no smell of such simple and noble reasons here. It is very possible that the short, but ambitious, like Bonaparte, Armenian officer already then became close to, to put it mildly, the windy empress.

John not only did not accept Vringa's proposal. He personally appeared to the commander, presented him with a letter, and angrily slandering the courtiers in general and Joseph Vringa in particular, began to demand an immediate trip to the capital. The pious conqueror of the Saracens... fainted. John barely managed to bring the commander to his senses. In the meantime, the rest of the officers ran to the noise, and, having heard from the Armenian what was the matter, they warmly supported him. Nicephorus, not only pious, but also prudent, had a good idea of ​​how this event could end. For a long time he tried to unlock, if not from participation, then at least from the leadership of the campaign, he offered John the leaders and future emperors (which means that the initiative is punishable!). In vain. This time the officers did not want to listen to their beloved commander. Under the roar of the soldiers' throats and the gleam of swords taken out of their scabbards, the somewhat dumbfounded Nicephorus was proclaimed emperor, and the army moved towards the capital.

They didn't resist him for long. On the side of the victorious commander was the army and the inhabitants of the capital. The palace guards partly fled, partly went over to his side. Even the church, in the person of Patriarch Polyeuctus, who was extremely inflexible for a Byzantine priest, warmly greeted Foca, who was famous for his asceticism and fasting, as well as victories over the enemies of the faith. It looked especially advantageous against the background of the newly deceased sovereign, who had fun with his lovers during Lent. Vringa had to seek refuge in the same church where he had recently driven the aged father of his enemy, Vard Fok.

Soon the winner was married to the kingdom, however, only as a co-ruler of the baby Vasily and the newborn Konstantin. Along the way, he married their mother, the widow of his ill-fated predecessor. The fate of the deceased, apparently, did not teach the prudent and pious governor anything.

So another emperor entered under the purple vaults to meet fate by the name of Theophano ...

3. Mission Kalokir

Oh brother named

Old Cossack Ilya Muromets!

We have a great commandment,

Our signatures were signed, -

Listen to the big brother to the little one,

And the little brother of the big one,

And friend for friend to both stand

(Epic "Ilya's Revolt against Vladimir".)

No matter how tortuous were the paths that brought Nicephorus Fok to the Eastern Roman throne, he himself remained, first of all, a commander. He did not leave the boring affairs of state to the harlot wife and court eunuchs. The roar of the kaganate that collapsed overnight and the frightened cries of the toparch who had been at fault did not pass his ears, did not drown in the screeching and laughter of feasts, did not die out in the dead rustle of the palace offices. The experienced commander understood that a new, very strong and serious enemy had appeared in the north. A power loomed over the Byzantine coast of the Black Sea, in a single year crushing and absorbing the Khazar Khaganate, an old rival of the Romans. But the state is first of all the sovereign. Russia did not pose a danger as long as Olga ruled it, entangled in relations with her own subjects, just as Byzantium did not particularly frighten her neighbors during the reign of the Porphyrogenitus bookworm. However, the new sovereign of Russia ... how is he? Sfentoslav? Nikifor Foka must have heard a lot about him - at least from the "Russians", who, along with his troops, fought in Crete with the Arabs. As we have already said, the "Russians" fighting in the imperial army of that time could be Russian Christians who fled to Constantinople after Svyatoslav's coup.

Young and energetic. This is known.

A magnificent commander - something, but Fock could appreciate this. It is one thing to clear the island of enemies (although this is a lot), but to completely destroy the enemy state ... the best strategists of Eastern Rome did not think about entering Baghdad or Cairo. And in one more year?

How old is he? What?! Twenty four?! Mother of God! Meherkle! Yes... dangerous. Very dangerous. Too bad we don't have any. Shut up, slobber. Your "Divine" said no.

How sorry Fock was that Constantine, obsessed with imperial prestige, did not give up some relative for this barbarian ten years ago! But what's the point - it's a thing of the past. According to baptized Russians serving in the troops of the Roman Empire, the young prince does not tolerate Christians. It seems that some story came out there with Christian mercenaries from Slavic Germany and his father ... and even Konstantin, this Konstantin!

Ibn Haukal writes that the Rus in the Khaganate attacked synagogues, mosques and churches with particular ferocity. It is unlikely that the latter passed by the ears of the new Caesar. However, there was enough food for thought without this. The same Ibn Haukal reports that after the ruin of the Khazars, the Rus immediately attacked "Rum and Anatolus". If the confused Arab did not again confuse the eastern campaign of our hero with the Balkan one, this may mean that some leaders from the army of Svyatoslav, after the defeat of Khazaria, went "for zipuns" to the Asia Minor province of Anatolia. Another Arab, Yahya of Antioch, says that Russia and the empire were already at war by this time.

However, not even specific attacks on the northern shores of Byzantium or the Crimean provinces were important. The very attitude of Svyatoslav towards Christianity, known in Constantinople from the adherents of his deposed mother who had fled there, in the eyes of the fanatical Christian Phocas made him an enemy. So - the enemy, a new, strong, young, very talented commander, and probably insanely popular. What is the popularity of the commander who won the war, Fock, who flew to the throne on the wave of this popularity, also understood well.

That is, organizing a conspiracy will not work either. Eh, he would have a few mercenaries ... from Slavic Germany. Like his father. So it doesn't hold! No mercenaries, no Christians! No. It is pointless to regret what is not.

How the commander Foke lacked information about the enemy now! In the old way, according to the precepts of the Born in Purple, nothing can be done about it. The Khazars are no more, and the Pachinaks, as the Romans called the Pechenegs, are rumored to have sacked the Khazar cities together with the Rus, and now they just don’t make bloody sacrifices to the “big leader from the north.”

Surely the pious Foka repeated prayers for a long time on sleepless nights. He slept, to the great displeasure of his wife, not on a luxurious imperial bed, but on the stone floor of the dressing room, on a camping skating rink. Partly, to pacify the flesh, partly - according to army habit, partly - so as not to succumb to metropolitan luxury. And he begged for a solution.

In the same year, the Bulgarian embassy arrived in Constantinople. According to court tradition, it was supposed to bring gifts to the ambassadors for the Bulgarian royal family. According to the same tradition, these gifts were called "tribute" - in honor of the long-standing victories of Asparuh, Krum and Simeon the Great. Not even a shadow was left of the military power of Bulgaria for a long time, respectively, and the “tribute” took on a completely symbolic character. Tradition, polite gesture...

When the time set by the ritual of the audience for the removal of gifts had long passed, and meanwhile they did not smell, one of the Bulgarian boyars had the imprudence to inquire of the Caesar what had happened to the "tribute". And then it began...

Always more than balanced and cautious Foka threw, you can’t call it another way, a scene. He jumped off the throne, ran into the ambassadors, whipped them on the cheeks, knocked someone down, and while the ambassadors and the courtiers, stunned by such “diplomacy”, came to their senses, he turned to his father, the patrician Varda Foke, who was present, with a theatrical speech.

“Did you really give birth to me as a slave and hide it from me? Will I, the autocratic sovereign of the Romans, submit to a poor, dirty and in all other respects low tribe and pay tribute? After this tirade, he turned to the ambassadors and said: “Tell your leader, covered with skins and gnawing raw skins: the great and mighty sovereign of the Romans will soon arrive in your country to teach you, three times a slave from birth, to call the Romans your masters, and not demand taxes from them, as from slaves. After that, the boyars, who had not come to their senses, were thrown out of the palace, without being allowed to say that it was strange to hear about a “low in all respects tribe” from brothers in the Orthodox Christian faith; that at the Bulgarian court for the second hundred years they have been dressing and eating according to the latest Tsargrad fashion; that, finally, when pagans like Krum dressed in skins and drinking from skulls really sat on the throne of Bulgaria, Byzantium dutifully paid them a real tribute.

In the acting hysteria of Nicephorus, however, the real attitude of the Romans towards the Slavs, be they Christians or pagans, is clearly traced. It is worth noting that king Bulgarians Nikifor names leader... oh, backfired on his poor fellow toparch " reigning", could not help but go around!

However, buffoonery is buffoonery, but the war, and with the Byzantine Empire, but with the Victorious (this is how the name of the emperor is translated) Phocas, is a completely serious matter. Panic reigned in Bulgaria. The country, torn in two by the strife of the kings and the Western Bulgarian princes-comites, could not resist even the gangs of the nomadic Magyars, not to mention the armored cavalry of Byzantium, led by its living legend - the liberator of Crete, the winner of the Saracens Nikephoros.

Meanwhile, the living legend was engaged in a simple and uncomplicated business. Calling to the court a noble young man from Chersonesus, Kalokir, the son of a Chersonesos strategist, he elevated him to the rank of patrician. The newly minted patrician was sent as an ambassador to the Russians, with a proposal to stab Bulgaria in the back, since she is just preparing for a war with Byzantium and does not follow the northern borders. In addition to the request, not much was attached, not a little - four and a half centners of gold from the Tsargrad treasury. Nicephorus believed that he was making the barbarian "an offer that could not be refused."

That's what the whole farce was for. The Bulgarians were to be the scapegoat. "Barbarians against barbarians" is an old secret tactic of the Second Rome. Let the young, strong, victorious barbarian get bogged down in the struggle with other barbarians, with the Bulgarians, if he does not love Christians so much! A war with a fraternal people will shake its popularity. At war with Bulgaria, he will have to ally with the Magyars - this will repel the Pechenegs, the natural enemies of the Magyars. Well, it will undermine the forces - after all, it is not easy to get involved in another right after one big war. And Byzantium to get rid of a dangerous enemy. And Bulgaria ... a small price.

Poor Bulgarians. Well, Byzantium repaid them for their salvation from the Rus of Igor in 941. Well, such is the fate of traitors. They are used - and destroyed when needed.

However, Nikephoros outwitted himself. Svyatoslav, as we will see, was completely indifferent to gold, he despised any hireling, and from an attempt to hire him himself could only become furious. And the secret policy of the Byzantines had long seemed a secret only to them. It was more and more difficult for the Second Rome to find hunters to carry chestnuts from the fire. And it was completely in vain to look for such simpletons in Kyiv. In a few centuries, this tactic - "barbarians against barbarians" - will destroy the Second Rome. The crusaders called by him against the Saracens will attack Constantinople itself. And they will crush it so that Eastern Rome will never recover again, and a hundred years later it will be easily captured by the Turks.

And Nikifor made the main mistake in choosing the ambassador.

Upon arrival in Kyiv, the young patrician turned to the Grand Duke with a proposal that was very different from what Nicephorus had instructed him to convey. And he said, according to Skylitsa and Leo the Deacon, something like this: “Bulgaria is an excellent springboard for a campaign against Constantinople. To Constantinople, on the throne of which the patrician Kalokir will look no worse than the patrician Phocas.

Historians have long puzzled over this strange story. It was assumed that Kalokir was betrayed by the Macedonian dynasty, removed, in the person of the minor Basil and Constantine, by the "usurper" Phocas. In this regard, they point to a certain Kalokir, sent under Basil II as an ambassador to Otto III, and they say that this is the same Kalokir.

To be honest, it doesn't convince me. Firstly, no one “removed” the kids, and Nicephorus in this situation was more of a regent than a usurper. To be honest, looking back at the fate of the throne of Byzantium in the 10th century, I don’t quite understand who is the “legitimate” and who is the “usurper”. I'm not sure that the Romans themselves of the tenth century fully understood this. In any case, Nikephoros, anointed to the throne in Hagia Sophia in accordance with all the rules by Patriarch Polyeuctus, at that moment was the most legitimate, by Byzantine standards, sovereign. Secondly, what is this strange manner of being loyal to the dynasty - to invite the enemy into the country? And it's not just an enemy. A resident of Chersonese, a neighbor of Khazaria, should have had a good idea of ​​what the appearance of Svyatoslav's army was for a hostile country. His neighbor and contemporary toparch, in any case, understood this very well. No matter how well-intentioned the Byzantine was, inviting such guests to the empire, he was like a madman setting fire to the city to heat the water for washing. The third objection: it was easier to eliminate Foku by acting inside the palace - he was eliminated, finally - and not leading a barbarian army from far away to the impregnable walls of Constantinople.

The second version is put forward by Vadim Kozhinov, who, by hook or by crook, tried to prove that the Byzantines were good friends and allies of the Rus. He claims that Leo the Deacon and Skylitsa in general viciously slandered Kalokir, who was devoted to his sovereign, that he honestly fulfilled the order, and began to incite Svyatoslav to the capital after the murderer of his sovereign and benefactor reigned there. On a purely human level, this is a little more like the truth. But all other considerations are valid. The motive has become clearer, but the means, your will ... well, they didn’t ascend the throne of Byzantium like that - at the head of a foreign army! Not even at the head, in the convoy ... And no one would avenge the murdered sovereign by throwing, say, an atomic bomb on the capital - and the consequences of the entry of the Rus into the City of Tsars would be quite Hiroshima - no one would.

As for Kalokira, the same Leo Deacon speaks of another Kalokira, the patrician Kalokira Dolphin, who, having joined the rebellion Fok (the main rebels were unoriginally called Nicephorus and Barda), was captured and impaled. I do not mean that Kalokir Dolphin is the same person as the diplomat who carried out Foka's order in such an original way. I simply show that in the Byzantine Empire there was by no means only one patrician Kalokir. And not two. And probably not three.

And now I will say my version of events. I can’t say that it is very reasonable, but rather, again, according to Father Brown: “everything that“ is not evidence ”convinces me” and “I can’t prove anything, but I see that this is much more important.” It is based on two considerations. First, there must have been forces behind Kalokir. Not on the swords of the Russian squads, he was going to sit out his entire reign. But these were forces completely unrepresented in the capital of the Second Rome, forces that had nothing to do with any of the serpentine ball of parties and groups that hissed and bit under the palace carpets. These were forces that would have found it easier to bring the barbarians into the capital than to play a complex game on the board of mosaic floors in the throne room of Constantinople. Considering what Svyatoslav had recently done with the Khazar cities, these were forces ready to rule over the ruins. Simply put, these were forces that had little to lose. And yet, they were striving to seize power in the capital, even at the cost of its destruction, the capital. Or maybe they were striving for this destruction.

The second consideration: Svyatoslav not only agreed to participate in Kalokir's plan ... by the way, this in itself is puzzling. Intervene in some conspiracies of despicable Romans? Enter into an agreement with the ambassador of the state with which the Rus - remember Ibn Haukal and Yahya of Antioch - were at war? To entangle and entangle your army, your people in some kind of dirty tricks around the damned throne of the thrice-cursed Constantinople? Is this Svyatoslav, with his famous "I'm coming at you!"? It is not clear why Svyatoslav did not simply order to drown the intriguer with his gold in the Dnieper. But this is not enough. Not only did Svyatoslav agree to the plan, where he, it seems, was given the unrespectable role of a mercenary. Leo the Deacon reports that Svyatoslav and Kalokir fraternized. They write that twinning with a barbarian was considered a betrayal among the Romans - as if such things could excite a person who invited an enemy army to his country! It is much more surprising to me that Svyatoslav went for it! Twinning was an extremely responsible step for a Russian warrior. Let's remember our epics. The twin brothers were bound by indestructible ties of mutual support and mutual obedience. Brother became an extension of your "I" - but you also became its extension. As a sign of this, brothers in epics exchange a “colored dress”, as if dressing up, and in the language of the rite, turning into each other. In a certain sense, they became, as it were, one being. As you can easily guess, not everyone will go for this. And Kalokir - the only one known to us as the brother of Svyatoslav.

I'm going to venture my own guess.

As Andrei Valentinov noted in the wonderful book Spartacus, it is not customary for us to take ancient paganism seriously. The gods of the North still inspire a certain respect, and the Greek ... heroes of cartoons and children's books. Religion is not a game. Not gods - puppets.

For vaccination against such judgments, Arthur Machen's essay "Paganism" or the same "Spartacus" is very good.

And it goes without saying that this "wonderful childhood of mankind" could not resist the onslaught of Christianity for any long time.

Christian literature looks at things even more simply. Idolatry is nothing more than something, the “abomination of desolation” that we often take in vain, in fact, the biblical designation of the pagan Gods. Darkness is the absence of light. The transition from paganism to Christianity is the transition from darkness to light in a room where a lamp has been lit.

But sources show otherwise. In the lives of Byzantine saints, the theme of the dispute with the pagans remains relevant until the 8th century. In the Balkans themselves, the pagans held out until the end of the 9th century, when the city of Maina with a district in the Peloponnese was captured by the troops of Leo VI the Wise. Thus perished the last center of ancient religion and culture. It should be noted that we are talking here specifically about consistent, conscious, outspoken pagans. Dual faith, the inclusion in the Orthodox cult of the remnants of the ancient faith, lived much longer. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, travelers saw statues of ancient Goddesses in Greek villages with obvious signs of reverence. The village priest (!) answered the questions of foreigners: this is de “Saint Damitra” (in the Orthodox calendar, of course, not marked).

And all this in the heart of Orthodox Byzantium! It is worth noting that the Apostle Paul preached in Greece in the 1st century, and the transformation of Christianity into the state religion and the prohibition of pagan cults occurred in the 4th century.

Crimea is a special place in this respect. Since the time of Alexander the Great, well-organized fias brotherhoods, a kind of pagan churches, have been operating there. The shrines of these brotherhoods and their rites were often secret, and this developed the skills of conspiracy. The admirers of the Persian God of Light - Mitra were especially distinguished by their iron discipline. The organization of the Mithraists is explained simply: the majority of the "parishioners" of the Persian God were soldiers and officers of the army of Rome. Mithra was the God of warriors, the God of legions. As for the conspiracy, scientists are still wondering what the teaching of the Mithraists consisted of, and what rituals they had. The cult flourished throughout world power, from Egypt and Syria to Britain and the Rhine, and we know very, very little about it.

Although no Mithraic shrines were found in Chersonesos, but ... near Chersonesos stood legion. Legion - and without the God of the Legions, Mitra the Invincible? By the way, Kalokir's father is a strategist. Representative of the local military know.

I can't prove that it was. But to prove what could be, I hope I could.

They had nothing to lose. Their cult was fading away, being passed on within families. Warriors, they died in skirmishes, and someone might not have time to initiate sons, someone might not leave male offspring at all. In the Christian empire, there was nothing to think about recruiting new devotees of Radiant Mitra. The first candidate could become an informer and destroy the Brotherhood. There was no future. There was no hope. There was only the blind loyalty of the soldiers defending the last fortress in the country captured by the enemy. “The gods perished, and nothing remained for Rome but honor and the cold courage of despair,” G.K. Chesterton wrote this about the Punic Wars. But this is also about them, about the last fragments of Rome under the feet of the triumphant new Carthage, which treacherously stole speech, proud imperial symbols, the very name of its enemy.

What did they feel when an unexpected dawn flared up in the north? It's not for me to pass this on. Didn't the Invincible himself, the destroyer of falsehood and darkness, come down to earth for them in the guise of a northern barbarian?

Don't know. But I can assume that the father-strategist whispered to his son through the canvas and the tree of ritual masks in the not-found Chersonese mitreum.

Esse delendam!

11. "SVYATOSLAV, KING OF THE BULGARIANS"

And the chained brothers are waiting,

When your call is heard,

When wings are like hugs

Stretch over their weak head.

And the hour will come: the wings will get stronger,

Young claws will grow

The eagles will scream and the chain of violence

Rip with an iron beak.

Get up, Slavic brothers -

Bulgarian, and Serb, and Croat.

More like hugging each other

Hurry for father's damask steel!

(A.S. Khomyakov "Eagle")

1. Quiver of Kubrat

That brother called to the slaughter of his brother,

To tear out my brother's eyes!

(Sergey Kalugin "Nigredo")

What was Bulgaria like in those distant times? Let's start our story with a legend.

In the steppes between the Don and the Kuban, a tribe of Bulgarians roamed. They were ruled by the supreme khan - "khan subigi" - named Kubrat. There were many clans of different blood and language in that tribe, and therefore, although the Bulgarians spoke the Turkic dialect, their names were more and more ancient, Sarmatian. There were others - Gostun, Bezmer, Taurus. It can be seen that even on the Don, the steppe-Bulgarians made friends with the Slavs.

Before his death, Kubrat gathered his sons and ordered them to try their strength - taking arrows from his quiver, break the whole bundle at once. Even the eldest son, the strong man Batbai, did not succeed. The old man grinned, and, taking out one arrow at a time from his quiver, began to break them with his trembling, wrinkled hands. And then he said to his sons: “You sons are arrows in my quiver. As long as you are together, you are strong, our tribe is strong. Stick together so that they don't break you like these arrows."

But the sons eventually forgot the covenant of Kubrat. Separately, their nomad camps walked in the steppe, they made friends with people of different tribes. And when relatives-rivals, the Khazars, descended from behind the Kuban into their lands, the prophecy of the old khan came true - the sons were defeated one by one. Batbay with his people remained at home, to pay tribute to the kagan. His people became the progenitor of the black Khazars, who became the watchdogs of the kaganate and perished along with it.

Batbai's brother, Asparuh, went to the West. In 678, he approached the Danube, where the Balkan Slavs were exhausted in an unequal struggle with two powerful enemies - the Avar Khaganate and Byzantium. The Avars in the conquered lands tormented the conquered Slavs, women from the Duleb tribe were forced to carry them in carts, harnessing them instead of oxen or horses. They wintered in Slavic villages, disposing of the goods of the Slavs and their women as if they were their own. A hundred years later, when the Moravian state of Prince Samo breaks the back of the kaganate, the brutalized tributaries will simply cut out the Avars. And only a proverb will remain from the cruel nomads, which fell into the Russian chronicles: “you perished like a find.” That is, they disappeared without a trace, leaving neither offspring nor a good memory. To Asparuh's credit, he did not rush "wisely" to support the strong, to trample the fallen. He took the side of the Slavic power "Seven Tribes", concluded an alliance with the Slavic nobility - and soon expelled both the Avars and the Byzantine invaders from the lower Danube. He made the Slavic town of Pliska his capital camp, and his fellow tribesmen settled nearby. However, the Bulgarians did not move the Slavs either. Young Asparuh remembered his father's covenant - to stick together, and now - better late than never, if not in the former homeland, then in the new one - he was determined to fulfill it, not to let the enemies break Kubrat's arrows one by one. In 680, Asparukh defeated the troops and fleet of Constantine IV. A year later, an honorable peace was concluded with the empire and the Bulgarian state arose. Byzantium, however, did not abandon attempts to subdue him. Tsargrad emperors undertook nine terrible campaigns against Bulgaria. Under these blows, in the crucible of constant war with common enemies - images and the empire - the Bulgarians and Slavs became closer and closer. Far from their native steppes, the Bulgarians, willingly or unwillingly, learned a new settled way of life, rural and urban, adopting skills, crafts, and language from the Slavs. This unity became especially strong under Krum, who was more often called a prince than a khan.

When in 811 Krum went on a campaign against the Avars, Emperor Nikephoros I invaded Bulgaria, took and ravaged Pliska with a sudden raid. The Byzantine army, heavy from prey, crawled back, but in the mountain gorges it was overtaken by the swiftly returning Krum. The Romans were defeated, Emperor Nicephorus I was captured and executed. A bowl was made from his skull and Krum drank from it at a victorious feast, honoring his allies - the Slavic princes. Krum also sent a Slav, Dragomir, as an ambassador to Constantinople. He firmly held the arrows of Kubrat's quiver in his hand, not allowing them to scatter in different directions. However, Krum welcomed the disgraced nobles who fled from the capital of the enemy, demanding only one thing - the rejection of Christianity. Christian Krum did not tolerate.

The formidable prince inflicted defeat after defeat on the Romans, made sacrifices to the Gods under the walls of enemy cities, took Develt, Mesemvria, Adrianople. The threat of a siege loomed over Constantinople. In the Second Rome, a saying appeared - "become the prey of the Misyans", that is, to be destroyed, smashed to the ground, something like ours "how Mamai passed." The Greeks called Misyans the inhabitants of Bulgaria, located on the site of the ancient Roman province of Misia.

But in 814, Krum, a young and strong man, suddenly dies under the walls of the enemy capital. For his son Omurtag, the death of his father, apparently, was not a mystery. Krum did not tolerate Christians, but did not persecute them - like Svyatoslav in Kyiv. Omurtag, having barely ascended the throne, began furious persecution against them. Was it not the young prince who exterminated the murderers of his father?

Like his father, Omurtag not only fought against Christianity, but also pacified the Slavic nobility. Apparently, his wives were also Slavs, otherwise why is there not a single non-Slavic among the names of his sons? Their names were Morality Warrior, Zvenitsa and Malomir. The new title of Omurtag is also curious - “prince from God”. It was clearly not Christ!

The rejection of Christianity Omurtag instilled in his successor Malomir. He even executed Brother Nravota because he was baptized. Malomir understood that it was necessary to stick together, to keep all the arrows from Kubrat's quiver in a bundle. And how can this be done if some Bulgarians consider themselves “God’s chosen people”, “new Israel”, and consider the rest of their relatives, including their own ancestors, and even him, Sovereign Malomir, to be considered filthy pagans, dogs? But the heir of Malomir, Presian, became much more tolerant towards them and even allowed the construction of monasteries.

Christians immediately "thanked" Bulgaria for tolerance. Under the next prince, Boris, our old acquaintance, the blasphemer Caesar Michael III, invaded the lands of Bulgaria. The organizer of the "most drunken council" was not at all a good commander. However, he achieved successes that Byzantine troops had not seen in Bulgaria for a long time. The Bulgarian army was defeated, the fortresses fell, the prince was taken prisoner.

The chroniclers of Eastern Rome do not hide the fact that Bulgarian Christians became the reason for Michael's stunning successes. This "fifth column" supplied the enemy army with scouts and guides, from the inside opened the city gates in front of the Romans. Divided by the new faith, the Bulgarians broke, Kubrat's arrows broke.

The winner offered Boris peace, and even the return of the border fortress of Zagora on the condition that the prince himself and the whole country be baptized. Byzantine strategists importantly explained to Boris about the power of Christ, which helped them in this campaign. The monks showed images of the Last Judgment and insisted that a little over a hundred years were left before it.

The prince accepted the conditions of the invaders. He even changed the capital in the state, moving from the "pagan" Pliska to Preslav, located closer to Byzantium and, apparently, inhabited by a considerable number of Christians. To Boris's credit, be it said, he did not build a new capital in the middle of the swamps on a foundation of Bulgarian bones, but simply transferred it to an already existing city.

The way in which the apostate prince, who soon called himself king, converted his people to a new faith, is best evidenced by his correspondence with the Pope, Nicholas I. Let me remind the reader that the church in those days was still united, not divided into Catholic and Orthodox. The Pope in the eyes of Eastern Christians was not only a completely worthy clergyman - the “Table of Ranks”, compiled by Born in Purple, gives him the title of “best friend” of the emperors of the Second Rome and determines his place at the banquet table to the right of the Caesar. The Patriarch of Constantinople, according to the same document, was to sit to the left of the reigning couple. It is curious whether there was at least one dinner in Constantinople at which the "best friend" took his place?

So, the word to Nicholas I: “You inform us that you baptized your subjects, contrary to their consent, as a result of which a rebellion arose that threatened your life. Praise be to you, for you upheld your authority by ordering the slaughter of the useless sheep that refused to enter the sheepfold; you did not sin in the slightest by showing such sacred cruelty; on the contrary, praise to you, for you destroyed the enemies who did not want to enter the bosom of the apostolic church, thereby you opened the kingdom of heaven to the peoples subject to you. May the king not be afraid to commit murder if they can keep his subjects in subjection or subject them to the Christian faith! God will reward him for his sins in this world and in eternal life.”

The Pope only slightly scolded Boris that in the 52 noble families exterminated by him, who refused to betray the Gods, he did not spare infants. After all, they could grow up to be Christians... but oh well, everything is forgivable, what is done "out of jealousy for the Christian faith." Why are there other people's children - his own son, Vladimir, who refused to share the renunciation of the faith of his ancestors with his father, was blinded by an apostate and thrown into prison.

Reader, when you see or hear another stupidity that, they say, only evil Catholics committed violence and imposed their religion, while Eastern Christians acted exclusively with a meek sermon; that the Slavs, for some kind of spiritual affinity, willingly accepted Orthodoxy - I beg you, remember Prince Vladimir. Remember the one who preferred to change the palace chambers to a damp dungeon, but not to exchange the faith of the forefathers for the Byzantine one, who preferred to part forever with daylight, but not with their native faith. And 52 families of unnamed Bulgarian martyrs.

However, despite the atrocities of Boris, many Bulgarians continued to adhere to the religion of their ancestors. So, the life of George Svyatogorsky mentions “Bulgarians, called Slavs”, revering - in 1056 - a stone idol of a certain Goddess. “The sun and rain, and every blessing is given to us from Her, who has the power to give death and life to whomever she wishes,” said people whose ancestors carried their faith through the bloodbath of Borisov’s baptism, the “liberation” massacre of Tzimiskes and the nightmares of the Byzantine occupation of the times of the Bulgar-Slayers. An inscription of the 13th century mentioning Svarog was found in Veliky Tarnovo. In 1243, an anonymous author of a Latin manuscript from the Torino library says that the peoples living in the northern regions of Bulgaria "worship idols." The old faith was held in Bulgaria as firmly as in other parts of Europe.

Another son of Boris grew up as a hostage at the Byzantine court. He even had a Byzantine name from birth - Simeon. The Byzantines, presumably, tried to educate him as their tool. He had to be told in every possible way that the Bulgarians were the “spiritual children” of the Byzantines, and raising a hand against their “fathers” was the gravest sin.

This whole story brings to mind two others. Half a thousand years before Simeon, another barbarian prince was brought up at the court of Constantinople, trying in the same way to inspire him with awe and admiration for the "power of the Romans." And half a thousand years after Simeon in Constantinople, which had already become the capital of another, Ottoman, empire and was called Istanbul, they brought up a hostage prince from the Danubian principality. The Turks, presumably, no less than the Romans wanted to educate obedient vassals from young hostages.

The first boy's name was Attila. He went down in history under the formidable nickname "the scourge of God." He created a powerful barbarian state, which for many decades became a nightmare for both Roman empires, Western and Eastern. In his country, there were images in use where kneeling emperors served the Leader.

The second hostage was called Vlad. History has retained two nicknames for him, one more terrible than the other: Impaler - "Impaler" and Dracula the Devil. He nailed fez to Turkish envoys on shaved skulls, he beat Spagi and Janissaries to smithereens, retreating, he drove crowds of captured Turks to his capital, and every day he killed every tenth, cooked and fed nine survivors with a monstrous stew. The prisoners who survived to the end of the journey, he without exception put on stakes near the walls of the city, where he gave the last battle to the army of the Sultan - and defeated it utterly.

Exactly the same story happened with Simeon. No, he did not distinguish himself with that half-beast, half-divine ferocity that glorified other pupils of Constantinople. History calls him not the "Scourge of God" and not the "Devil", but the Great. But this was the only thing the Romans could console themselves with. Although Simeon in his youth was called with condescending approval "half-Greek" for his academic success, one gets the impression that he taught in Constantinople not Aristotle and Kozma Indikoplova, but "Strategems" and Vegetius. He, no less than the Byzantine strategists, dreamed of the reunification of Bulgaria and Byzantium, but ... but, as you might guess, under the rule of the Bulgarian kings, or rather, Simeon himself. After all, the great Justinian was a semi-barbarian from the Danubian provinces (at one time he was even considered a Slav), Emperor Leo III was a Syrian, Leo V was an Armenian. In the memory of Simeon himself, a dirty, illiterate peasant boy Vasily came from the province of Macedonia, became the groom of one of the nobles, then the servant of Caesar Michael, was elevated to court rank by him, then strangled his sovereign and benefactor and became the founder of the Macedonian dynasty, Emperor Basil I the Macedonian. So what prevents Emperor Simeon I of Bulgaria from becoming the head of the empire? Byzantine army? Little things…

In 897, Simeon defeated the Byzantines in Thrace under the city with the expressive name Bulgarofig. In 904, he captured a large part of Thessaloniki, tormented by Arab pirates. In 913, the dissolute emperor Alexander, the same uncle of the Born in Purple, made peace with Simeon on his terms, the royal title was officially recognized for Simeon, and the engagement of Simeon's little daughter with Alexander's hated nephew was fixed. The emperor, apparently, considered the baby already dead and could safely promise his hand and heart to even an Ethiopian. Simeon, for his part, expected to make the ruler of Byzantium his son-in-law, thus receiving the high title of "vasileopater" - the sovereign's father, which would allow him to marry the kingdom as a co-ruler and peacefully end up on the throne of the Second Rome. Fate, as we remember, decided otherwise, and Zoya, who returned from exile, decisively broke off her son's engagement. In this she was supported by Admiral Roman Lakapin. He also had a little daughter and certain plans.

Enraged Simeon, from whom the crown of the emperor, which seemed already his own, floated right out of his hands, again declared war on Eastern Rome. In 917, he defeated the Byzantine army near Aheloy, defeated it so that the place of the terrible battle a century later bore the terrible name "Kokyl" that is, "Bones", subjugated Serbia. The following year, he invaded Hellas. Having learned that Roman Lecapenus had married off his daughter to Constantine, Simeon made it clear that he was not going to be left with nothing, and appropriated the title of "Emperor of the Bulgarians and Romans" to himself "in advance". His troops invaded Thrace, approached Constantinople. Roman Lekapin in public was indignant at the utter impudence of the barbarian, meanwhile making desperate attempts to start peace negotiations with Simeon, from which the king evaded, and intrigued against him in Serbia and Croatia. Croatia entered into an alliance with Byzantium. During the campaign against her, Simeon was first defeated in battle, and soon fell ill and died. This was the last ruler of Bulgaria, worthy of the glory of Asparuh and Krum.

Simeon was not a particularly zealous Christian, although he sheltered in Bulgaria the disciples of Cyril and Methodius expelled from Moravia by the German clergy, and generously supported the circle of scribes that rallied around them. However, he did this more for reasons of prestige than out of zeal in the Christian faith. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why his eldest son, Mikhail Boyan (in Bulgaria then, as later in Russia, Christians wore the old, pre-Christian name along with the baptized, calendar name), who amazed everyone with his mind, erudition and poetic gift, turned out to be a staunch supporter of the former faith . Under the pressure of nobles - first of all, probably veterans of Boris's punitive campaigns, who had a good idea of ​​their future under a pagan king - Simeon was forced to imprison his eldest son in a monastery. Monastic imprisonment was never easy for anyone; it was thrice hard for a pagan. Already after the death of his father, Boyan fled from the monastery, at one time acted as a contender for the throne, but then disappeared. The authorities announced that the rebel had died, but the people believed this with difficulty - the last pagan of the Bulgarian royal family held the stubborn glory of a sorcerer, sorcerer and werewolf. His escape from the monastery prison was explained, as you might guess, by witchcraft. But where did Boyan actually disappear to? There is a version, it was expressed at the beginning of the 19th century by Yu. I. Venelin, and after him - the Bulgarian V. Nikolaev and the Soviet researcher A. L. Nikitin, the same one who put forward such a fascinating and convincing assumption about Asmund, as the son of a prophetic Oleg. This version identifies Boyan-Mikhail Simeonovich with Boyan, Velesov's grandson, the "nightingale of the old time" of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Indeed, in the great poem there are many places that sound like references to the times of our hero. So, the “nasty ones”, who are “tribute to the earth by obel (slave - L.P.) from the court”, are more like the Khazars than the Polovtsians or Pechenegs, who never took any tribute, much less such a monstrous one, in Russia. The words directly attributed to Boyan “It is hard for the head, except for the shoulder, anger, for the body except for the head - the Russian land without Igor”, can rather be attributed to Igor Rurikovich, the Grand Duke of all Russia, than to the ruler of the microscopic principality Novgorod Seversky. This version interprets the phrase “Boyan moves to Svyatoslav the songwriter” as “Boyan, the singer of the campaigns of Svyatoslav”. Boyan "Words ...", as well as the Bulgarian prince, is credited with both a poetic gift and the ability of a werewolf magician: "spreads a thought (a squirrel - L.P.) on a tree, a gray wolf on the ground, a shiz eagle under the clouds." His songwriting is more like shamanic sorcery, magic, than rhyming we are accustomed to.

But then it turns out that Boyan really did not die. Perhaps he understood that, speaking out against his brother-king, he weakens his native country, acting on the hands of the hated Byzantium, helping her to break the arrows of Kubrat. But he also could not live in a homeland that had betrayed the Gods, under the rule of a nonentity brother. And then the natural decision was to leave for the nearest country that preserved the ancient faith of the Slavs. To Russia. If this is so, then it can be assumed - from the quotes in the “Word ...” that Boyan survived Igor and lived to see the campaigns of his son, perhaps even to the Bulgarian - otherwise why the plural? Whether he returned home, we do not know. What a pity, what a pity...

But what can be easily assumed is that the pagan prince, closely acquainted with Christianity in all its forms - up to the monastery - was one of the main and most active participants in the pagan party. Perhaps it should not be called the party of Asmund and Svyatoslav, but the party of Asmund, Boyan and Svyatoslav. It can be assumed that the Bulgarian sorcerer and Svyatoslav's tutor became close friends. They had a lot in common - both were staunch opponents of Christianity, both were sons of great warriors, rulers and generals, the fathers of both fought with Byzantium and besieged Constantinople. True, the father of one was himself an ardent pagan, and the father of the other did not even have an ancient name. Well... the years of the monastery's prison certainly made up for that lack of dislike for the new faith, which could distinguish Boyan's upbringing from Asmund's upbringing.

Unfortunately, we will have to part with the prophetic Boyan, reader. We do not have a single clue that allows us to judge his role in the events of the Balkan campaign of Svyatoslav. But we know a lot about his brother, who took the throne in this turbulent time, about his brother, who had the unenviable fate of being Svyatoslav's opponent in this war.

2. Son of a genius

All your mottoes
Changed to know
With "Veni, vidi, vici"
On “fuck your mother”

(O. Medvedev "My religion")

The second son of Simeon the Great was named Peter Sursuvul. And he was another confirmation of the old hackneyed truth, which says that Nature rests on the children of geniuses. It was he who showed himself not only as an ardent Christian, but also as a diligent Greekophile. That's who took seriously the idea of ​​the spiritual fatherhood of the Romans. Peter treated the empire all his life with such reverent respect, which his own subjects rarely showed her. Before moving on to the story of his life, one curious detail should be noted - of the two sons of Simeon, it was the bearer of the Slavic name that turned out to be a convinced pagan, and the bearer of the proper Bulgarian name became a devout admirer of Byzantium and its god. This once again emphasizes, even under Krum and Omurtag, the connection between Slavic origin, or at least sympathy for the Slavs, and the rejection of Christianity. Let us recall that in the 10th century it was the “Bulgarians, called Slavs”, who worshiped the stone Goddess. Pagan burials, which continued in Bulgaria for another century, and where two after the events described here, are also Slavic. It is very likely that Boyan and Sursuvul were Simeon's children from different wives. Although polygamy was perceived sharply negatively by the church, it died out for a very long time among the peoples who adopted Christianity. Suffice it to say that among Russians, polygamy - not fornication or "running to the left" from a legal spouse, but a stable family with two or more wives living with her husband, leading the same household - was preserved in some places in the Russian North until the beginning of the twentieth century. In the 11th century, Svyatoslav Chernigovskiy, son of Yaroslav the Wise, had two wives. This phenomenon is all the more natural for Simeon, a Christian of only the second generation, and, as can be judged by the eldest son, not very zealous.

Peter began his reign with a peace treaty with the Byzantines. He himself arrived in Constantinople, married the granddaughter of Roman I, Maria-Irina, returned to the empire the lands conquered by his father - Develt, Agafopol, Sozopol, Mesemvria, Visa. In response, Roman graciously recognized the title of Tsar of the Bulgarians for the granddaughter's husband and allowed the Bulgarian church to have its own patriarch. The center of the Bulgarian Patriarchate was not the capital, but the Danubian town of Dorostol, glorified by the Christian martyrs of the 3rd-4th centuries, now called Silistra. In those days, the Slavs called this city Dristoy. Following them, subjects of the Second Rome began to call him the same. But his chroniclers continued to call him, for the sake of science, Dorostol. The same ancient name was established in our science - rather for reasons of euphony. We will stick to it too.

Tsar Peter always diligently complied with all the points of this agreement, although this was not easy for his country and his people. It was precisely this fidelity to the treaty of 927 that explained the fact that when Russian ships appeared off the coast of Bulgaria in 941, the Bulgarians hurried to report them to Constantinople. As we remember, the Bulgarians paid for this with the Pecheneg invasion in 944.

Not all Bulgarian nobles, even Christians - and there were no others left on the royal throne after the repressions of Boris - liked such “flexibility” of their sovereign. The lands given by Peter were conquered by Bulgaria in the most difficult wars, which cost the Bulgarian people enormous sacrifices. The new treaty made the Bulgarians responsible for the security of the European possessions of the empire from the Rus, Magyars and Pechenegs. All this caused a dull but strong discontent among the nobility and resulted in a conspiracy that predicted the third, youngest son of Simeon the Great, who bore the epic name Ivan, as the head of state. At the head of the conspiracy were the closest associates of the late lord, the best commanders and warriors of the kingdom. Regular military front-line soldiers, as a rule, are bad conspirators. Peter uncovered the conspiracy, but was faced with an extremely unpleasant need to punish his own brother and deprive his country of the best defenders with his own hands. The king did not dare to acquire the gloomy glory of a fratricide, but he was afraid of leaving his brother in the country. Instead, he sent Ivan to Constantinople, naively believing that Roman, observing allied obligations, would protect him from an unreliable relative. The emperor immediately thanked Peter for such trust, receiving the exile with honors, and in the future treated Ivan not at all as a prisoner, but rather as a prince in exile. Ivan was received at court, showered with expensive gifts and all sorts of favors, and soon married one of the most noble and wealthy brides of Constantinople, and the emperor himself acted as a matchmaker. Peter was clearly given to understand that from now on the Second Rome has a candidate for his place, which will be placed on him at the slightest disobedience of Peter.

In 930, Mikhail Boyan, Peter's elder brother, fled from the monastery and occupied the valley of the Struma River together with his followers. However, we have already talked about this incident and how it ended.

In addition to Bulgaria, exhausted by the wars of Simeon, a new misfortune fell from the north - the Magyars. Their hordes of fiery whirlwinds swept across the country, leaving behind corpses and destruction. In 934, the walls of Constantinople saw copper-cheeked horsemen in shaggy capes over chain mail, with three black braids on shaved skulls. The authorities of Eastern Rome threw thunder and lightning at the negligent ally. Peter just helplessly made excuses. What could he do about the horror of all Europe, which inspired no less horror than the raids of the Norman and Vendian Vikings and Saracen pirates? Magyar sabers - by the way, this word in Russian is of Magyar origin - in those years they watered the fields of half of Europe with blood, the Hungarians flew to Paris on their best horses in Europe. They generally, one gets the impression, hardly noticed Bulgaria, for them it was not a state, but a place, a region along which the road to the rich regions of Eastern Rome ran. What could Bulgaria, whose troops were beheaded by the executions and disgrace of the most gifted and beloved commanders after the collapse of Ivan's conspiracy? Byzantium only demanded the protection of its borders and threatened with punishment, but did not even think of helping its ally. But Roman I supported the Serbian prince Chaslav, who broke away from Bulgaria, and immediately recognized the Serbian state.

If the naive Peter believed that his situation could not get any worse, then he was deeply mistaken. His illusions were shattered when Roman, and a year later, his sons were overthrown and Born in Purple came to power. We have already said that for Constantine VII - and he spoke frankly about this - the Bulgarians were rather some "individuals" of a completely different "breed" than the God-chosen, as Patriarch Photius put it in his time, and the noble, in the words of Constantine himself, the people of the Romans . To be honest, it is very difficult to say what Constantine understood by nobility: we have already said that both Armenians and Syrians were on the throne of the Roman Empire, the Lecapen family and John Tzimisces were Armenians, and Patriarch Photius, for example, was, in the words Michael III, "Khazar muzzle". We will also see the Pechenegs in the rank of patrician! In addition, even then there was a widespread misconception in the empire that mixed blood improves the qualities of a person. Indeed, the Byzantines should have looked at neighboring Bulgaria. Being a state of pure-blooded Slavs and full-blooded Bulgarians, it was the third power in Europe after Byzantium itself and the Frankish empire. After the mixing of the two peoples about Bulgaria, it became possible to wipe your feet - which the Byzantines did. However, no matter how things really were, the new emperor revered the Bulgarians as beings of a lower order, and the Byzantine wife of Peter belonged to the Lakapin family that he had overthrown and did not evoke any warm feelings in the Born in Purple. Fortunately for Peter, the august scribe was neither a warrior nor a diplomat, in short, he was not a man of action, and his dislike for Bulgaria remained a purely platonic feeling. His son, however, did not care at all about what was happening outside the walls of his palace, or rather, those of his chambers, where he and, to put it mildly, his friends arranged orgies. For Bulgaria, this was just the case described by Aesop: than a king-stork, for frogs, it’s better a king-block ...

But before, it would never have occurred to anyone to compare Bulgarians with frogs.

The sixties of the tenth century were marked by two new proofs of the insignificance of the already elderly ruler of Bulgaria.

In 963, when “deadly spasms developed as a result of immoderate riding” or poison “brought from the female half of the palace” sent the dissolute Roman II to another, not necessarily better, world, the new rulers of the empire demanded that the neighbor update the treaty of 927 . Actually, it was time - one of the conditions of the agreement was its term - for 30 years, and they had long passed, it was just that then the emperors were not up to it - relations between the elderly couple of emperors and the young couple sharply worsened, the Russian embassy appeared, and the new patriarch Polievkt delivered a lot of headaches for Konstantin. Then the young rulers were not up to it - both set off in all serious ways, freeing themselves from the annoying supervision of the old emperor, and only after the death of Roman was a man on the throne who remembered such things as agreements with neighbors. Needless to say, the treaty of 927 with all its articles and obligations of Bulgaria in relation to the eastern neighbor was confirmed and its validity was extended. Moreover, the sons of Peter, the princes Roman and Boris - what, however, is the choice of names: the name of the person who turned the homeland into the spiritual province of Byzantium and the name of the Byzantine emperor, who trembled before Peter's father ... well, Roman and Boris were sent to Constantinople as hostages . So Peter once again confirmed his boundless obedience to Constantinople. Moreover, there was no urgent need for such cringing: Byzantine troops were almost completely concentrated on the eastern front, fighting the eternal enemies of the empire - the Muslims. This servile behavior in front of the primordial enemy caused strong discontent among the Bulgarians. The king lost the respect of his subjects. But that was not all.

In 965, when Svyatoslav went to Khazaria, Peter concluded an agreement with the Magyars, former vassals of the Khaganate. When reading it, one should remember that Peter concluded an agreement with Byzantium, obliging him to prevent the nomads in their campaigns against Byzantium in every possible way. That his sons are held hostage in the capital of the Second Rome.

The agreement contains the obligation of the Hungarians not to devastate the Bulgarian lands, if Peter does not interfere with them in their raids on Byzantium.

I do not know whether the people of Bulgaria have retained any respect for their sovereign; I do not know if the man himself retained any respect for himself.

Tatishchev reports, relying on a source unknown to us, “that the Bulgarians helped the Kozars” against the troops of our hero. If only this is so, it is difficult to suspect Peter of such "madness of the brave." It remains to be strongly suspected that once again the serpent-wise Byzantium was raking in the heat with the wrong hands, and Peter, once again, dutifully put his five fingers into the red-hot coals. Curiously, did Bulgarian help arrive at least in time for the capture of Sarkel? Or even appeared on the ruins?

One can imagine the shock the elderly lackey of Byzantium was plunged into by the sudden disgrace of the owner. All his life, Peter Sursuvul behaved like an exemplary primak in the house of a strict and rich father-in-law, like a downtrodden, downtrodden little son next to a despotic dad. All his life he looked into the mouth of the lords of Constantinople. And now, in his declining years, the reward - his ambassadors are thrown out of the palace, war is declared on the country - for which, to put it mildly, it is not ready. I don’t know what would have happened to him if he had understood - the owners from the Bosphorus turned him and his country into a bone thrown to the wolf. The “spiritual fathers”, whose obedient son this unfortunate man had been for a long life, threw their son on the altar - not God, like the Old Testament Abraham of his son, Isaac, although it hurts, but forgivable - their own selfish interests.

And at that moment, when he strained his mind in vain attempts to comprehend - " For what?!” behind him came the dooming voice:

I'm going to you!

Svyatoslav in Bulgaria can be said to be expected. Not only pagans - these, of course, for them the son of Perun from the northern lands was the long-awaited liberator from the oppression of foreign faith, from the wicked masters. Detachments of scamars - half-rebels, half-robbers - descended from the mountains and followed the squads of the Russian prince. The old sorcerers came out of the forest shelters, greedily peering at the crimson banners with the Rurik Falcon and the Cross of Dazhbog. The boyars of the remote outskirts, who remained faithful to the Gods of Krum, Omurtag and Malomir, left the ancestral cities at the head of the squads.

But Bulgaria was also waiting for him. All Bulgaria was waiting for the Warrior, the Ruler, the Husband - after almost half a century, it was waiting under the hateful boneless king, who had finally grown old in old age. She waited, as they wait for a shot at the ceiling, like a horse for a blessed burn of a scourge that points the way; like children tired of their own disobedience - a heavy fist on the table, saying - came Father.

The army hastily gathered by Peter simply fled after the first onslaught of the Russian squad. Most of them took refuge in the monastery of the patriarch, Dorostol. Svyatoslav passed through the country in a terrible summer thunderstorm - it was August outside, and Bulgarian cities fell into his hands one by one, like ripe apples. Eighty cities in one autumn opened their gates to the Russian army. It was hard to call it a conquest. Again, you have to remember the word from the twentieth century - Anschluss. Reunion.

It would be tempting to assume that the brothers of Kalokira in Mitra helped Svyatoslav in the capture of eighty cities. Moreover, the Roman provinces of Misia and Dacia, on whose lands the Bulgarian kingdom stood, were literally teeming with mithraeums. They were found in Phillipopol, the future Plovdiv, Durostorum-Dorostol, Serdika-Sredets, the future Sofia, Tresmis near Pereyaslavets Danube, as well as in Esk, Tomy, Troyan Trophy, Bessapar and Montana. Alas, not only is Kalokir's very affiliation to the Brotherhood of Mithra's worshipers purely conjectural. So it is only possible to assume that the Mithraists managed to survive and maintain faith in this passage courtyard of the barbarians - the Goths, the Huns, the Slavs, the Bulgarians - only a person with a completely unbridled imagination. Nevertheless, the lands of the Bulgarian kingdom are not a wilderness like Chersonese or Maina, not covered by mountains and the sea. Yes, there were other reasons too.

In the thunder of this impetuous campaign, in the last frantic attempts at resistance, in the jubilation of some and the panic of others, no one really noticed an insignificant, in general, event.

In an obscure fortress, abandoned by the army and nobles, cruelly betrayed by those whom he used to revere and forgotten by those whom he used to command, unnecessary even by enemies, the unfortunate old man, Peter Sursuvul, the son of Simeon the Great, was dying, no longer the king of Bulgaria. He died long and hard, in the exhaustion of all the bodily, spiritual and mental forces, the poor supply of which was allotted to him by a miserly fate. It is a pity that there was no one to tell him - after death the Bulgarian Church will proclaim him a saint.

At least something would console the dying, despised old man.

3. Cares of Caesar Nicephorus

Living power is hateful for the mob,

They only know how to love the dead.

(A.S. Pushkin "Boris Godunov")

Probably Nikifor Foka was initially pleased with the news from the Danube. Everything seemed to be going according to his plans.

To be honest, Nicephorus could not boast that in accordance with his plans, everything, or at least much, was in the empire. It turned out that managing an empire is much more difficult than commanding an army. Deeds, deeds, deeds, piled up from all sides, besieged like Saracens. The first ecstasy of the royal dignity has long since passed ... but was it? Patrician Foka is not an empty-headed whore from the harbor alleys. The courtier, he had long understood that the life of the Caesars was far from being just sweet honey, and the command of the army in the field should have long shown this not stupid person one simple sad truth: the larger the part that you command, the more difficult it is to get from it not only obedience - at least in order to start.

If he hadn't figured it out in the army, now he had to figure it out in full. All the love of the townspeople for the victorious commander waned sharply, as soon as Foka from the hero of enthusiastic tales of mercenaries skipping salaries in the capital's taverns and reports from distant fronts, and occasionally a triumphant in the Tsar of the Cities, throwing handfuls of Arabic silver, turned into a permanent resident of the imperial palace .

It began with his victorious entry into the capital. When the euphoria that gripped the townspeople subsided after the victory of their favorite, the defender of the faith of Christ, over the vile eunuch and intriguer Vringa, many townspeople recalled that Foki's soldiers did not behave very well. Simply put, not all of them, entering their own capital, were able or willing to abandon the sweet habits acquired during the capture of the Saracen cities. Well, capital. Well, the roof domes are topped with crosses, not horned crescents. So what? Or girls and women on the streets are not so cute? Exactly the same ... and in the same way, a lot of any badly lying or standing - as well as poorly locked, put on and nailed - just asks for the hands of valiant warriors. And in general, where the hell were you when my buddies and I were on Crete for you, for the rear rats ...

A familiar song that sounds everywhere where the place of a warrior - a priest of War - is taken by a soldier who is driven into battle by a thirst for money or fear of superiors.

The townspeople remembered, and leaned in to complain to the emperor. And they even got to him with their complaints, which suggests that Foki's soldiers pinched their tails not at all to ordinary townsfolk. But the emperor showed himself to be a soldier in everything. Like any commander, he, when his people quarreled with some civilians, stood up for his people with a mountain. He literally said the following: “Well, the guys were fooling around. There were a lot of them, you can't keep track of them all." He did not even think of punishing anyone.

After that, the pious Foka - under him for the first time they began to mint the face of the Virgin, whom the emperor-soldier considered his patroness - quarreled with the church. He stopped issuing funds from the treasury for charity, and even explained publicly that other bishops "badly use" the funds allocated for these purposes. He placed the inheritance of the property of the bishops under the supervision of the state. He demanded that the patriarch accept the dogma of equating a soldier who fell in a campaign to a holy martyr, regardless of any circumstances of his life and death. To be honest, the last idea commands considerable respect. Foka really was a good commander, he took care of the soldiers even after their death. Remembering that the "Russians" served in his army in Crete, you wonder if yesterday's pagans, with their faith in the good, by definition, afterdeath of a warrior, picked up this idea by the emperor? But the church, especially after the first two innovations, did not arouse any sympathy with the third.

Then Nicephorus set merchants and usurers against him. Having minted money with his image, he ordered that no others be accepted for payment. Before that, it didn’t matter which emperor was on the coin - anyhow there was some. In principle, it was possible to pay with the coins of even Nicephorus I - the very one from which Krum made a cup for himself - even Constantine the Great himself, if there was such an antique from some medieval numismatist. Old money was ordered to hand over. Moreover, they were accepted at face value, and not by weight, but the new money issued for exchange did not shine with quality. One can imagine the havoc that the emperor's decrees have brought to the life of countless metropolitan markets. Drought in the provinces of Honoriades and Paphlagonia destroyed orchards, fields and vineyards. Hunger has begun. The emperor not only did nothing to help the starving, but even doubled the price of state-owned bread. What private grain merchants did under these conditions, one can only guess. Bread prices skyrocketed. They tell such an anecdote: during the exercises, a gray-haired old man approached the emperor and asked him to take him into service. The emperor was surprised that such a decrepit old man wanted to serve, to which he replied: “Today I am stronger than in my younger years, sovereign. In my youth, I could hardly lift a bag of bread worth one gold, but now I can carry it away in one hand. The emperor laughed at the elderly wit, but did not punish.

The bewilderment and displeasure of the inhabitants of the capital was caused by the desire of Nicephorus to turn the palace of the emperors into a fortress. He surrounded the palace buildings with a wall, built warehouses inside and filled them with food and other supplies, built workshops and bakeries. At the same time, for the sake of his plan, Nicephorus demolished many beautiful buildings that had adorned the City of Kings for many centuries, sparing neither churches nor palace halls. As for the fact that sometimes the Caesar, having rolled up his sleeves, himself went to the construction site ...

And they certainly did not add love to the new emperor - this time, not only among the inhabitants of the King of Cities, but also among all subjects of the Roman Empire - numerous new taxes. In addition to the already fantastically numerous and varied taxes and requisitions that replenished the treasury of the Second Rome.

Probably the saddest thing for the emperor was the complete misunderstanding of his subjects. After all, it was not out of petty avarice that he invented new taxes and cunning with coins, it was not out of vulgar fear for his own skin that he built an indestructible citadel in the heart of the King of Cities. Nikifor was a warrior - always, in everything, above all. This explains all his innovations. The money that he, to the indignation of the townspeople, gained on the sale of state-owned bread, and the money that he did not give to charity, and the money that Nikifor Fok made on monetary reform, and new taxes - all this went to Nikifor's favorite brainchild.

To the army.

Nicephorus especially nurtured and groomed, among other troops, the Klibanophores, or, as they are also called, kaktaphracts, armored cavalry. The armor of the Klibanophor was extremely heavy, he was not even supposed to have a shield. Only knights at the end of the Middle Ages, in the 15th-16th centuries, achieved such a degree of protection for a warrior and a horse, when a knight who fell to the ground really could not rise on his own, but came out unscathed from a hail of blows. Of course, such armor, covering both the horse and the rider, was very expensive. It is all the more expensive that the craft in Byzantium has not yet reached the level that in Europe during the Battle of Grunwald and the Hundred Years War, but Nicephorus supplied them not with a small stratum of feudal lords, but with the Byzantine armies. Ibn Haukal notes that, thanks to Foki's financial "estimate", he managed to pay for large campaigns only through taxes, without spending a penny from the treasury. And then he adds that the subjects hated the lord for this. The Byzantine Zonara will later write that the tax collectors under Nicephorus ravaged the country no less ferociously than the enemies from whom his army defended them.

Simply put, the soldier emperor was not the emperor of the Byzantine people. He, with his new taxes, squeezing funds for army needs, willingness to take the side of the soldiers in any conflict with the civilians and the transformation of the palace into a military camp, was rather the emperor of the Byzantine army, and nothing more.

However, in the excitement of accumulation, Nicephorus Phocas also infringed on the army, imposing new taxes on military booty, which dropped him in the eyes of the soldiers. The emperor's brother, Leo, did not think about the army at all, but frolicked with might and main in the field of grain speculation in a starving country. On the rights of the emperor's brother, he bought bread cheaply, on the same rights he sold it at exorbitant prices. The custom, enshrined in the Second Rome by law, forbidding noble people to engage in trade and usury, was not written to Leo Foke. John Tzimiskes, the one who refused to betray Nicephorus, and was one of his accomplices in seizing power, tried to ask the emperor to appease his brother, who was lowering the prestige of the court and the military nobility in the eyes of the townspeople. Nikephoros Foka, who had long suspected John of having ties with his wife, used the "impertinence" of his officer to exile him to distant Chalcedon.

To top it all, rumors soon reached the capital that one of the southern cities had been wiped off the face of the earth by a strong earthquake. In the King of Cities itself, throughout the middle of summer, non-stop showers whipped, as if trying to wash the brainchild of Constantine into the sea. Angered by taxes, hunger and high cost, the people whispered about the signs and the wrath of God. It was said that the court astrologer predicted Foke's imminent death in the palace. It was said that the former commander planned to castrate the young princes and start a new dynasty. They recalled Basil I the Macedonian that, having seen the gloomy faces of the hungry on the streets on a holiday, simply - a former groom - asked them about the reason for their gloomy appearance. Having learned about the drought and the high prices for bread, he called to himself those responsible for the trade in state-owned bread and gave them a terrible dressing. After that, he ordered to sell bread six times cheaper than before. They remembered Vasily clearly in defiance of Nicephorus. Yes, and the fact that we are talking about the great-great-grandfather and namesake of the legitimate heir-tsarevich, on behalf of whom the skvaliga Fock rules, was also implied. In short, there was no trace left of the love of the inhabitants of the City of Tsars for the new Caesar. A dull hatred took its place.

Soon an event occurred that made the feelings of the townspeople for the Caesar obvious. An ugly fight took place in the city between sailors and urban mob from the port quarters with Armenian soldiers from the capital's garrison. The massacre left behind a lot of corpses. Eparch - the mayor of Constantinople and its chief judge - Sisinius, trying with his guards to separate the fighting, he himself almost died. After that, the emperor could no longer turn a blind eye to the unhealthy atmosphere in the city and decided to do something. He remembered the spectacles that had not been arranged for a long time at the hippodrome and ordered the races to be organized on the next holiday. To what extent the distrust of the Romans towards their sovereign reached, is shown by the rumor immediately spreading through the capital that the emperor wants to take revenge on the townspeople for the recent unrest, and kill them, like Justinian once did, at the hippodrome. The Greeks, greedy for spectacles, however, did not give up their favorite entertainment, and, having paid tribute to the gloomy gossip, they went to watch the races. Knowing nothing about this, Nikifor Foka also decided to amuse the townspeople with a surprise in the form of military maneuvers on the huge field of the hippodrome. In this way, the soldier emperor wanted to instill in the hearts of the townspeople affection for his precious army.

And in the interval between races, detachments of soldiers moved from several gates to the hippodrome, singing horns, with battle cries, with drawn blades.

The surprise worked.

The spectators of the lower rows, who found themselves at the edge of the bristling steel of the arena, rushed up, over the heads and bodies of those sitting behind them; the spectators of the upper rows simultaneously rushed to the exits.

In vain the emperor tore his throat, trying to block the thousand-voiced howl of the mortally frightened crowd and the deathly cries of the crushed. Attempts to restore order with the signals of military horns only increased the panic. In some places, stands collapsed under piles of human bodies ...

Dozens of those killed in the port massacre, like a drop in the ocean, perished in hundreds of victims of a walker at the hippodrome.

The next week, when the emperor and his retinue were returning from a miraculous spring in one of the city suburbs, a crowd of relatives of those who died at the hippodrome surrounded him at the grain market. It is not clear whether the place was accidental, but there was no better place to attack the new emperor. The square was crowded with people who could not leave their mouths with the furious rise in prices, the shameless extortion of the imperial brother, drought and crop failures, for a man of the Middle Ages, clearly showing the relationship of heaven to the new reign (and let those who did not hear his contemporaries blame the government for everything , including bad weather, they will throw a stone at them).

From all sides was heard: “Criminal! Killer! Did you go to wash off Christian blood, murderer? You are in it to the very eyes! Following insults and curses, more tangible manifestations of the feelings of the townspeople flew into the imperial motorcade: cobblestones, which even then turned into a favorite weapon of the Byzantine proletariat, dirt and all the rubbish that adorned the streets of the largest city of the Middle Ages in abundance. The bawlers could have had a very hard time, but they were saved against their will by the emperor, who, to the great dismay of his companions, collapsed into a swoon. Probably, this inclination, often noted by chroniclers in Phocas and, to put it mildly, strange for a military officer, was the result of some kind of illness, possibly nervous. She could have been a consequence of a concussion received in one of the battles. The procession of the cortege quickly turned into a retreat, if not a stampede, under the malevolent hooting of the crowd, impudent with impunity, every hour. Under a hail of stones, sewage and rubbish, the retinue with the insensitive sovereign escaped to Constantine Square, and only there the city authorities managed to take what was happening into their own hands. A chain of “well-intentioned citizens” in civilian clothes pushed back the troublemakers and accompanied the emperor and his companions to the very palace, filling the streets with well-rehearsed “manifestations of popular delight”, which, against the backdrop of a recent incident, sounded like outright mockery, which, perhaps, Foka, who had already regained consciousness, perceived them. It was terrible to listen to the on-duty joyful cries of the eparch's mercenaries fade away in the hostile silence of the city streets.

According to Skylitsa, it was on that day that the emperor realized that he was hated.

It was in these, let's say, turbulent days that reports of the Danube events burst out. And they remained comforting for a very short time.

The speed with which Bulgaria fell - there is no other word for it - into the hands of Svyatoslav turned out to be as unpleasant a surprise for Nikifor as for the townspeople - amusing battles at the hippodrome. Instead of a protracted, bloody war of the Slavs, instead of weakening the Rus, their almost bloodless reunion took place. Anschluss. Moreover, at the hand of the pagan Svyatoslav, a longtime enemy of Byzantium.

Bad schemers come from the military. So Foka tried himself in this matter, and what did he achieve?

Svyatoslav was across the sea - he was nearby, at his side.

The empire had a quiet, well-trained, obedient, like a lapdog, neighbor - Peter Sursuvul. Pious, humble, he prayed to Christ-God for the empire. Now he is gone, now the empire has a different neighbor - in one year he demolished the bulk of the Khazar Khaganate, in one autumn he took 80 Bulgarian cities. He despises Christians, although he does not seem to oppress him, he is faithful to his idols.

Exchanged Nikifor Fok's lapdog for a dire wolf.

There was hope that Svyatoslav would defeat Bulgaria, burn churches and monasteries, and get away. Maybe also Bulgaria ... that is, what remains of Bulgaria will be able to get their hands on it.

But soon Nikifor had to say goodbye to this hope. I had to when they showed him a gold coin. Brand new, shiny, with the inscription "Svetoslav Tsar Bulgar".

I am not imagining, reader. The Soviet historian Mavrodin wrote about such a coin. Unfortunately, he did not provide an image of the coin, which is a pity. After all, it means a lot - what is depicted on money. It would be very good if there was an image of Svyatoslav himself on it. Just think - a lifetime portrait of Svyatoslav the Brave! And in general - what kind of coins did it look like, what did the minters take as a sample?

If anyone knows anything about this coin, please let me know. I will be immensely grateful.

It could appear only in 967-968. In 968, Bulgaria had its own tsar - Boris Petrovich, and Svyatoslav did not encroach on his power. He could call himself tsar only in the first year in the Balkans, when Peter had already died, Boris was held hostage in Constantinople, and he, Svyatoslav, was the only power in Bulgaria. Our chronicle says that, having come to Bulgaria, Svyatoslav sat down to reign there. It is curious that, according to Leo Deacon, Svyatoslav had a dream before the campaign, where he ruled Bulgaria. That's really - a dream in hand! The coins spoke to a frightened, confused country - it was not a robber, not a raider who came. The owner has arrived. Not a predatory raid - a campaign of the sovereign. Look, Bulgarians, what a heavy, good gold coin! Read - “tsyr bulgarom”. Not a foreign invader - your king! And what about a stranger - didn’t Asparuh come once from behind the Danube? The coin was not a "unit of payment". The Bulgarians held in their hands a small golden manifesto of the new ruler. And Nikifor, who had turned pale, read the letter of the enemy. "Did you call me? - the coin said without words. - I'm here. And I won't leave."

This coin also speaks of one more circumstance. It is unlikely that Svyatoslav himself knew the life of the Bulgarians so well as to understand the meaning of the move with the coin. Who told him? Kalokir? Boyan? Or one of the local supporters? After all, this is not a quick business - to cut out new stamps for coins, to find gold, to arrange coinage.

Nicephorus realized that he had outwitted himself. Couriers rushed along the roads of the empire, and soon the hooves of the plate cavalry and the shod boots-caligas of the infantrymen thundered into the pavements of Constantinople. The troops were coming. The torches that illuminated the main streets of Constantinople at night cast inky shadows of rows of spears, feathered helmets, figures in angular armor, similar to outlandish living idols, on the locked shutters and doors of the silent City of the Kings.

Constantinople locked themselves in their houses and trembled with fear, cursing the relatives of fellow citizens trampled on the hippodrome. Well, they had to throw themselves at the Caesar! The inhabitants of the King of Cities certainly did not doubt that Nicephorus decided to take revenge on them for the shame of flight, for the stones and trash flying at him and his retinue. In the night, from the fading noise of the city, the sound of many carpenter's axes, coming from afar, stood out more and more clearly. And many were kept awake by terrible visions of gallows and scaffolds rising above the squares and crossroads of the City of the Tsars.

The next day, closer to noon, the townspeople were able to breathe a sigh of relief. The Klibanofors behaved peacefully, sitting in the barracks in which they were placed. The officers were already walking around the markets and shops, turning the goods in their hands and burning capital prices through their teeth. There were no scaffolds in the squares either. On the other hand, on the walls and towers of the city of Constantine, wooden monsters were piled up - spear-throwers and stone-cutters, who turned their lifeless snouts to the northwest. And in the city harbor council, merchants huddled, dejectedly quarreling with the secretaries-spafarians. There was no sense in swearing - even at night several teams of huge bulls, with an effort to turn the gates in the towers of Kentinarium and Castellarium on different banks of the Bosphorus, lifted an ancient chain overgrown with shells from the bottom and blocked the strait. This chain already once blocked the Bosphorus - during the time of Oleg the Prophet, whom the Greeks preferred not to remember, neither by night, nor by clear noon.

The townspeople did not know that the Caesar was no longer up to them, and not even before the unfortunate incident at the grain market. Foka seriously prepared for the defense of the capital.

However, Nicephorus would not have been the son of his people if he had limited himself to purely military measures. On the same day, several people left Constantinople. They were ordinary-looking, completely unremarkable people, ordinary merchants or government couriers, or wandering monks. No one would have suspected these people of being in an important public service. Some of them were supposed to make their way to Bulgaria, to those Christian nobles whose daughters left Bulgaria with the princes Boris and Roman. The girls did not even go in a retinue of noble hostages, but ... to the bride. Nikifor decided to pick up brides for his purple-born wards. Vasily at that time was nine years old, Konstantin - five. Needless to say, it's time to get married! Now the people of Nicephorus had to remind the fathers of the “brides” who had their daughters visiting. The boyars were obliged to raise a rebellion against Svyatoslav - unless they wanted their daughters in the Tsargrad palaces to be moved from luxurious, but well-guarded chambers to no worse guarded, but much less comfortable dungeons.

A much more difficult and dangerous task faced the other spies of Nicephorus Phocas. They were to travel deep into the Pecheneg steppes. The goal was to destroy the alliance of the Rus and the Pechenegs, to incite the nomads to Russia. This task was far from being as simple as it might seem. Let me remind you that both in Russia and in the steppe two generations of people grew up who did not fight each other. The Pecheneg contemporaries of Nikifor were born and raised in tribes who saw in the Rus - strong, respectable allies, but certainly not prey. If this respect was partially lost under Olga, Svyatoslav, who brushed away the bulk of Khazaria “from the tray of the universe” with one movement, compensated for the loss a hundredfold. Piles of booty taken by the Pechenegs on the ruins of the fortresses of the kaganate destroyed by the Rus were both a pledge of friendship with the Rus and a reminder of their power. Bribing here was not to solve the matter; it is often forgotten that the Pechenegs were simply too wild to be bribed. The most prominent domestic researcher of the nomadic world of the Great Steppe, S. A. Pletneva, believes that the Pechenegs were in terms of development with the Indians of the North American prairies of the 19th century, differing from them only in their familiarity with metal and, it seems, the wheel. Try to imagine bribing one of the heroes of Karl May or Fenimore Cooper.

However, Svyatoslav himself gave the Tsargrad spies an important trump card. In the campaign against Bulgaria, the Magyars, as Nicephorus expected, became Svyatoslav's natural allies. During the decades of raids on Byzantium through the Bulgarian land, the Magyars studied it well - roads, valleys, passes, location and strength of fortresses. Yes, and the main military force of the Rus - the "wall" of plate infantry - needed cover from the flanks. And in this respect, as in many others - reconnaissance, sabotage - the light cavalry of the Magyars was indispensable.

However, the Magyars have been blood enemies of the Pechenegs since the time when both tribes roamed the Black Sea steppes - remember the massacre perpetrated by the Pechenegs on the nomads of Arpad. Svyatoslav took the Pecheneg bloodlines, the former dogs of the kagan, on a new campaign, but he did not take them. Deprived of a share in production and, what is even more offensive - in glory. The spies of Nicephorus skillfully kindled the resentment of the nomads.

Horses neighed, whips whistled over bulls harnessed to wagons. The Horde moved to Russia.

Soon terrible news reached the Danube - Kyiv, the mother of Russian cities, was under siege!

12. "LOOKING FOR FOREIGN LAND"

But only the light of the moon is two-horned

Disappeared before the morning dawn

All Kyiv with a new alarm

Confused. Clicks, noise and howl

They appeared everywhere. Kyivians

Crowding on the wall of the city ...

And see - in the morning mist

Tents whiten across the river;

Shields shine like a glow,

In the fields riders flicker,

In the distance, lifting up black dust;

The marching carts are coming,

Bonfires are burning on the hills.

Trouble: the Pechenegs rebelled!

(A.S. Pushkin)

1. Kyiv besieged

The horde is dark and swarthy,

Thousand-handed, heavy ...

(V. Yakushev "The Horde")

For the first time, the Pechenegs came to Russia as enemies - for the first time after 915. Half a century of peace, won for southern Russia by the father of Svyatoslav, has ended. The city has lost the habit of seeing the enemy at the walls. People fled in horror to the mountain, to the princely fortress. The Pechenegs, one must think, collapsed suddenly, in the manner described by Theophylact of Bulgaria. From the Kyiv walls, the townspeople looked at the flood of the enemy army that swept the neighborhood. Oxen and camels roared in the Pecheneg carts, screams were heard in the guttural steppe dialect, and above all this hung the guttural roar of huge Pecheneg trumpets made in the form of the heads of the sacred animal ancestors of the Pecheneg tribe - the Oghuz bulls. Younger riders, in elegant belts with silver sets, flew up almost under the very slopes of the Kyiv Hill, prancing on handsome argamaks, throwing up and catching spears. And more and more new hordes were stretching towards the city, above which banners made of animal skins fluttered.

People from all over the neighborhood fled to the city, and it was spring outside - the hungriest time, when the autumn harvest was already eaten, and the winter harvest was not harvested. The ghost of hunger loomed in the city.

According to Leo the Deacon, Svyatoslav summoned "the entire young generation of the Russians" to march against the Greeks. Such campaigns, where the main force is the whole mass of free unmarried people, in Novgorod will later be called freedom. It is the freemen who will master the lands to the Urals, penetrate into Siberia, and even before the Kulikovo field and Vozha they will defeat the Golden Horde. But the city, from which all the young strong guys and most of the born fighters of the prince's squad left, was not easier because of that.

Voivode Pretich gathered the militia of the north, led to the Dnieper, but could not decide to cross the river. Neither the besieged nor the Chernigov help could contact each other. And in the meantime, there was nothing to eat in the city. Veche seriously discussed the surrender of the city to the Pechenegs. By the way, this is an interesting detail. We have already recalled that the annals twice speak of the siege of Russian cities by the Pechenegs, and both times the besieged seriously thought of opening the gates to the Pechenegs. Nothing of the kind is said about the later sieges of Russian cities by the Polovtsy, and even more so by the Horde. Or did the Russ of the Pechenegs not consider them such terrible enemies? But they knew, they could not help but know that the Pechenegs are capable of a lot - remember Theophylact of Bulgaria, remember the carved camps of the Arpad horde. And captivity, in particular - captivity among the steppes, the Russians considered as the greatest shame, and were ready to commit suicide in order to avoid it. Mystery!

In the end, they began to look for someone to inform the people of the "other side of the Dnieper" - the people of Kiev can no longer endure. One "lad" volunteered - either a teenager or a junior combatant: "I'll make my way." They answered him: "Go." The guy left the city - obviously at night - and, with a bridle in his hands, asking the oncoming Pechenegs - "Have you seen my horse" - he got to the river, threw off his clothes, rushed into the water and swam. The Pecheneg archers could not shoot him, and from the other side, attracted by the noise of the chase, a boat was already approaching.

What can be said here? Firstly, the lad here is still a junior combatant. He knows the Pecheneg speech, he has a Pecheneg bridle (it differed from the Russian one with solid bits), he can quickly undress and swim, diving, avoiding the shots of the Pechenegs - magnificent archers. It is difficult to imagine such qualities in a teenager. By the way, it was necessary to undress, and not only because the clothes could interfere with swimming. The youth could make his way through the Pecheneg camps only in Pecheneg clothes, but from the other side of the man in the attire of the steppe, they could, without making out for a long time, greet with an arrow or a spear. After all, the militia is a bastard staff. And a frightened and armed civilian is a very dangerous creature, ask any military man.

But here's the most interesting thing - the Pechenegs took him for their own! And besides, he hardly hid his face and shied away from the fires. Such behavior is the best way to attract the unhealthy attention of sentries or warriors just passing the time by the same bonfires. What happens? But it turns out that the Pechenegs did not look so much like the usual appearance of a steppe with a flat nose, narrow eyes, protruding cheekbones and stunted hairs on the upper lip and chin. A 10th-century author, Abu Dulef, describes the Pechenegs as "long-bearded and mustachioed." In the mouth of, say, a Chinese, such a description would cost little, but an Arab writes, a representative of the people, who is not offended by the vegetation on his face! The Pechenegs, therefore, had an appearance, if not Nordic, then completely Caucasoid; in any case, a resident of Kiev of the 10th century, the ancestor of the Ukrainians, among them could pass for his own. Yes, and the German Bruno-Boniface, who half a century later went to the Pecheneg steppes to preach Christianity, did not find their appearance worthy of a special description, which would certainly have happened if the Pechenegs were like Mongols or Kalmyks. Obviously, the Pechenegs were Caucasoid, Sarmatian-Alanian in origin, only recently switched to the Turkic language, a tribe. In this regard, it is worth saying a few words about the Pechenegs themselves.

The Pechenegs were divided into eight fem tribes. Each tribe consisted of five clans. The names of the clans have not been preserved, and the tribes are listed in his book Born in Purple. Scientists have restored their Turkic sound and meaning as follows: Yavdy Erdim - famous for their exploits. Kuerchi Chur - blue (heavenly, sacred) leader. Kabukshin Yula - the leader of the color of the tree bark. Suru Kulpei - Gray Kulpei. Kara Bey - Black Princes. Boro Tolmat - Dark Speakers. Yazy Kopon - Leader of Yazy. And finally, Bula Chopon - Deer Shepherds. Each clan and each tribe was ruled by a special leader - the archon, in the words of Constantine. The Russian chronicle calls the elders of the Pechenegs "the best husbands in childbirth." Foremen and centurions were chosen from the nobility, but the gathering also decided a lot - an armed meeting of all free men of the tribe. The power of the leaders was transferred within the same family, but only to cousins. Yavdy Erdim, Kuerchi Chur and Kabukshin Yula were called “kangars”, and were considered more courageous and noble than all the others. It is believed that the Pechenegs received this name in their Central Asian homeland. Chinese authors mention there "the country of Kang Yu", glorified by "heavenly horses with bloody sweat." From this latter one can only understand that the horses of the Pechenegs were good, and made the same impression on the Chinese that the Magyar horses on the Europeans. It was they, apparently, who provided the raids of the owners with the very speed of the “lightning strike”. According to the excavations, the horses of the Pechenegs just as little resembled the image of the “steppe horse”, squat and thick-faced, that has ingrained in our minds, just like their owners, like the typical flat-faced “steppe people” of our historical novels and films. These were the ancestors of the Turkmen Argamaks, Akhal-Teke. The very word Pechenegs is interpreted as "children of Beche". Even in historically very recent times, in the XIV century, Asian peoples were named after the names of their leaders - Nogais, Uzbeks. Displaced from their homeland by the Oghuz Turks, who were united with them by the language and the cult of the ancestor-bull, Oguz Khan, the "sons of Beche" left Kang Yu and moved to the west. What followed was what we already know - the massacre in the camps of the Magyars, the first meeting with the Rus, Igor's victorious campaign. The Pechenegs went on campaigns against Byzantium with Simeon the Great, and this could be another reason for Svyatoslav not to take them to the Bulgarians. Simeon's allies, most likely, were the tribe of Yazy Kopon, bordering on the Bulgarians, and Kabukshin Yula, bordering on the Hungarians. On the right bank of the Dnieper, Kara Bey and Yavda Erdim bordered on Russia.

The clothes of the Pechenegs, as can be judged from the words of Konstantin, were something like dressing gowns. They, as already mentioned, had long beards and mustaches, and, like all Turks, their hair was braided. Their main trades were war, hunting and cattle breeding - they bred sheep and horses. They did not have crafts, wagons, harness, dishes, each made and repaired himself, or got it in raids on neighbors. Silver and gold vessels from the plundered palaces and churches of Bulgaria and Byzantium coexisted in the camps with an ugly Pecheneg pot - hand-molded, unbaked, from clay mixed with cow dung.

The epic of Oguzes related to the Pechenegs, preserved by their descendants in Azerbaijan, sings of the miracles and wisdom of the great shaman and singer “Our Father Korkut”. But the leader with that name - Kurkute - was among the Pechenegs in historical times, and many identify him with Kurey, the Pecheneg prince of our chronicle. True, Konstantin mentions Kurkute as a figure of the past, the time of the arrival of the “children of Beche” from the country of Kang Yu to the southern Russian steppes, and in the annals Kurya outlived Svyatoslav. This contradiction is removed just by the Oguz epic. There, Kurkute-Korkut is a prophetic old man, the "Father" of the tribe and his supreme spiritual authority, an adviser to the khans and a seer, an eternal deep old man whom no one remembers young, Konstantin has an ordinary military leader. It can be assumed that we face the same person at different stages of his life. In his youth - a military leader, then - a shaman, finally, the supreme shaman and the highest authority for the scattered Pecheneg tribes, the "Father" of the Pechenegs. What our chronicle says about Kura is consistent with this image ... but more on that in due time.

So, having safely passed the enemy camp, avoiding death from the arrows of nomads and in the cold waters of the spring Dnieper, the youth told the people of Pretich: “If you don’t come to the city tomorrow, people will surrender to the Pechenegs.” The governor turned to his warriors: “Let's go tomorrow in boats, and, having captured the princess and princes, we will rush to this shore. If we don’t do this, Svyatoslav will destroy us.” Good suggestion; good argumentation. The communal governor of the Seversky Left Bank, obviously, had a good idea of ​​​​the capabilities and morale of the militia. Contrary to other today's singers of the community and its bastard warriors, who defended the Russian land almost without interruption from the production of bread and other agricultural crops, Pretich does not at all think that it is in the power of his army to defeat or even drive away the nomads. All that can be done is to take the surprise, the fear, and quickly withdraw the mother and children of the Grand Duke from Kyiv. No one remembers the fate of capital Kyiv, the mother of Russian cities. The main argument is fear of the prince. “Boyakhu afraid of him vehemently, there was no ferocious husband,” Tatishchev cites the lines of an annals that have not come down to us.

Here it is, the militia - in full growth.

Fear of a formidable prince overcame fear of a huge horde on the other side. In the dead predawn hour, Pretich's militia in boats moved en masse to the other side, blowing horns and trumpets, shouting, and generally making more noise. In response, there was a fuss in the city, Tatishchev even reports that the people of Kiev made a sortie, and "began to fight cruelly with the Pechenegs." In the sleepy heads of the steppe dwellers who did not expect anything like this, lightning struck:

Svyatoslav!!!

In an instant, the "countless multitude" of steppe savages seemed to be licked off by their ancestor Oguz Khan with his tongue. Only unburned fires blared and darkened in the morning fog with untidy piles of overturned and trampled tents-vezhas in a stampede. Of course, it did not occur to the Pechenegs that the prince could not have approached from the other side of the Dnieper, that he could not have appeared at the Dnieper cliffs from distant Bulgaria so swiftly. Firstly, everything happened too suddenly to reason, and the fear of Svyatoslav was too strong. The Pechenegs, no worse than Pretich, recognized the difference between the militia with axes and horns and the princely squad - especially the one led by Svyatoslav. They indifferently contemplated the regiments of Pretich all this time; one message, one thought about the appearance of Svyatoslav's squads turned the horde into a reckless, wholesale flight. Secondly, the Pechenegs certainly experienced before Svyatoslav that almost religious awe that the strong and cruel commanders of civilized peoples evoke among savages. Let us recall the worship of Asians to Iskander Dhul-Qarnayn, Alexander the Great, we recall the reputation of Yermolov among the peoples of the Caucasus, and some British commanders of the empire among the Arabs (it is worth remembering Chesterton's "Bottomless Well", with its "Arab legend" - Lord Hastings). We can also recall our Yermak, whom the natives of Siberia revered as a god and made his grave a place of veneration. Svyatoslav was strong and merciless, in one year Svyatoslav destroyed the eternal Khazaria that seemed to the nomads - this was enough for the Pechenegs to look at him as a god. And in relation to God, any kind of reasoning that he "could not" or "could" is highly inappropriate. Sinning against their earthly deity, besieging his native city, the nomads, consciously or not, were waiting for punishment - sudden and terrible, like a lightning strike. They are waited this thunderous roar of trumpets in the predawn, and therefore reacted to it instantly.

Only the leader of the Pechenegs, who, by virtue of his position, was obliged to be the bravest in the tribe, ventured to return and see what was really happening. In the "countless" horde, there was not a single person who dared to join him. Well, this is also the duty of the leader - to answer for the tribe before the gods. And if the earthly god is angry with the sons of Beche, then who better than the leader will explain to him why they came here, who better can beg forgiveness for the tribe from the fierce White God from the North? If he fails ... well, he is the leader, he will answer.

This is also the privilege of leaders, princes, kings - to lie down as a cleansing sacrifice for the people on the altar of an angry deity.

Maybe He will be satisfied with one sacrifice. Maybe He won't punish the tribe.

Having approached closer, the leader of the Pechenegs saw, for sure, the spectacle of Olga's evacuation with the court and grandchildren, which did not clarify anything for him.

He was noticed. Pretich, probably waving his hand negatively at some overly zealous militiaman who grabbed his bow, rode out to meet a smartly dressed lonely steppe dweller on a handsome horse in a magnificent harness.

Before they got too close, the Pecheneg called out...

Here's another omission - what language did they speak? Pretich could know the language of the nomads. But, given the circumstances, it was more likely that the Pecheneg turned to him, distorting, probably, godlessly Russian words: "Who is coming?" By the way, one can guess from the style of the dialogue that Pretich spoke his native language, building relatively long sentences. Pecheneg spoke in chopped phrases.

Pretich replied: "People from the other side." The answer, as they say, is diplomatic - the Pechenegs could not learn anything new from him. He himself saw that there were people in front of him, and that they had just crossed over the river Varukh, as the sons of Beche called the Dnieper.

I still feel, after more than ten centuries, the silence that hung after these words. The next question was too important for the savage, the answer might have been too terrible to be easily asked.

Finally, the leader decided: “Are you a prince?”

Pretich replied: "I am his combatant, I came as watchmen, and behind me - the main army and the prince, countless." The chronicler notes: "So he said to scare the Pechenegs." "In the watchmen" - speaking in the current language, in the reconnaissance detachment. So before us is a dialogue between the commander of Russian intelligence officers and the enemy commander in chief.

Pecheneg hardly heard him, literally crushed by the relief that fell on him after the first words of the governor.

Not Him! Let him be a man, but - a man, not He!

Hardly accustomed to being impenetrable in front of his warriors, the leader restrained a boyish smirk of relief. Or maybe he did, only the dark lynx eyes flashed with furious joy.

"Be my friend," said the steppe to Pretich.

“We will do so,” the governor answered him.

They hit each other's hands. In those days, it was not as cheap, completely devalued by courtesy on duty, worse - by correctness, a gesture, as it is today. That the distant tenth century - even a hundred years ago, far from everyone in society was given a hand. Even earlier, any important business between people was secured with a handshake. From the moment the matchmaker struck hand in hand with the father of the bride, marriage was considered an irrevocably decided matter. And the Novgorod judicial charter of 1471 requires the kissing of the cross to be secured with a handshake, the most, in general, the most sacred oath for Christians. Is it not from here that the Russian proverb later went: “Hands on, and for God”? This rite was not alien to the eastern peoples of Aryan origin, to which, as already mentioned, the Pechenegs belonged. “The given right hand is the surest pledge of friendship among the Persians,” ancient travelers wrote, “After the right hand is given, they are not allowed to either deceive or doubt.”

What was it for Pretich? Just a diplomatic move? Twice the Pechenegs besieged Russian cities, according to the chronicle, and twice the veche seriously talked about surrender. And both times they deceived the Pechenegs, escorted them off like a bear on tops and roots, like a really pale-faced cunning - an ingenuous son of the prairies. For other steppes, history has not retained such a reputation as simpletons, on the contrary. So, is it just a scam? Did the cunning Pretich swindle the savage? I don't think so. It seems to me that the Russian, the warrior and voivode, perfectly understood the steppe dweller, understood what brought him and why. A man who goes alone to where a huge horde fled from is a brave man. A person who is ready to answer for his tribe before God is a true leader. Even if he is a savage from a steppe tribe, he is worthy of the respect and friendship of the Rus.

Pecheneg presented Pretich with a horse, arrows and a saber. A lot has been written about what a horse is for a steppe warrior. This gift, in fact, was a symbol of the unlimited trust of the leader of the Pechenegs to a new friend. Well, not with two sabers and not with a clockwork horse, he broke through against the panic picked up by a hurricane, distraught with horror of the tribe?! A horse is a friend to a nomad, almost twin brothers. More - this is half of the own "I" of the steppe. He lives riding a horse. How it was necessary to strive for friendship, whom to see in a new friend in order to make such a gift?

Pretich appreciated the gift and answered with equal value. He gave the Pecheneg leader a sword, armor and a shield. This gift was, of course, very valuable in purely material terms - remember, reader, how the Arabs, magnificent gunsmiths, evaluated the chain mail and swords of the Slavs and Rus. How the Romans collected Russian blades, how Renaud de Montaban became invulnerable to enemy weapons thanks to the “chain mail from Russia”. But, of course, the meaning of the gift was different. The sword, the legacy of the father - remember: "I do not leave you any other inheritance, except for this sword" - the inseparable companion of the Russian warrior. This gift was worth the Pecheneg horse. This shows how seriously the voivode took friendship with the nomadic leader. Moreover, he did not part with the gifts of a friend until his death - they put him in the grave. With a horse in a Pecheneg harness, with a Pecheneg saber, with a Pecheneg bow and arrows. His mound bore the name of the Black Grave - legend connected it with the name of the defender of his land from the Khazar plague, Prince Cherny. But, after excavations, the remains of a Rus of the 10th century with armor and a horse were found in it, accompanied by his wife and a teenage boy (son? A squire?), they found a coin of Nicephorus Foki and Pecheneg weapons in the barrow. Then they remembered the noble Rus, who lived at the same time with Foka and exchanged weapons with the Pechenegs.

It is a pity that no Pecheneg grave was found, with Russian chain mail and a helmet, with a sword marked with the name of Ludota or Slavimir. Although, who knows - the fate of the steppe is changeable. Maybe the brave leader did not have any grave, and kites with ravens ruled over it, and a passing cloud cried on it ...

But I believe that the gods of the steppe did not leave the brave. Already after the death of our hero at the hands of the Pechenegs, the Pecheneg prince Ildea came to his eldest son and swore to serve him. There is something very familiar in this devotion and selfless courage. Wasn't Ildea then going to Pretich?

One must think that the governor gave the Pecheneg and a horse - he didn’t catch up with his tribe on foot? It was now difficult to find him even on horseback, and the foot steppe in a foreign, and after the raid - simply hostile - country was almost ready to be dead. It’s just that a Russian horse, albeit a good one, albeit a retinue, faded against the background of the horse of the leader of the Pechenegs and did not get into the annals.

As you can see, the tactics of the Kyiv princes fully justified themselves. True, at the same time, the prince must inspire respect even for wild robber neighbors. Here the youngest son of our hero did not inspire such respect for the Pechenegs. Just remember how at the ford on Trubezh - 50 kilometers from Kyiv! in one day on foot way! - the Pecheneg leader shouted to him: “let your husband out, and I let mine out, let them fight. Yours will overcome - I will give three years of peace, mine will overcome - we will ruin you for three years! This steppe dweller, in impudence, beats, perhaps, even Basayev - after all, he was rude in the face of “only” the prime minister, and not the ruler of the Russian state. And that proposal of the steppe accepted. And in all his army there was no one more suitable than a leather craftsman. Thanks to him, he defended Russia. Well, how could you not win? These legends about two youths are very revealing - the one with the bridle and the leather man. It can be seen how the attitude of the Pechenegs towards Russia, towards its ruler, changed after baptism. Actually, they showed much less respect for him than for an ordinary pagan who "came in watchmen."

But we digress. Before the baptism, before the savage laughing in the face of the son of the one whose name put the hordes of his ancestors to flight - more than one decade. In the meantime, let's draw a line under the story of how the Russ' estimating and the Pecheneg's fearless honesty put an end to the intrigue of Nicephorus Foki.

2. Sons

The eagle brought out the children,

Gray young eagles.

How a good fellow has grown in age,

His kids are getting older.

(Ballad "Eagle's Nest")

The Pechenegs are gone, but the memory of them remains. And not only memory - bandits of robbers still roamed the Russian land, the people of Kiev were afraid to water their horses in the river Lybid, named after the sister of the founder of Kyiv and the first Polyansky prince. Evidently, more than one leader and more than one horde came to Russia. Then a messenger with black news hurried to the Danube.

“You, prince,” the message said. - you are looking for someone else's land, and you take care of it, but you neglect your own, and the Pechenegs almost took us, and your mother, and your children. If you do not come and protect us, then they will take us. Don't you feel sorry for your fatherland, your mother, your children? What was the unification of the Slavs to the merchants and artisans? What was the fate of their fellow tribesmen who ended up in the Eastern Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation? What was the name of the Slavs - Sakaliba, Sclave - turned into the brand of a slave? They did not care about fellow believers, with whom, according to the precepts of St. Methodius, the galleys of Byzantine slave traders were stuffed in the belly, or the terrible path of Drang nach Osten was paved. There was no concern for the mortal danger that threatened the Slavic faith between the closing jaws of Christian empires. They did not even want to understand the simple thing that it was the glory of the sovereign obtained in the “search for foreign land” that saved them from the nomads, they did not want to understand. They knew only one thing - their lives, their property was in danger, and the prince was somewhere in distant lands.

Did they live to see the day when the Byzantine Christ unfolded his banners over Kyiv, when the Gods collapsed, and they were driven with swords and whips into the font of the Dnieper? Do you remember your whining? Gods judge them...

Svyatoslav did not take with him a young and fast, but stupid rein. He left him to sit in the garrisons - ambushes in Old Russian - on the governor of the Volk, saddled his horses and hurried with his retinue to Kyiv. There, having greeted his mother and children, he gathered a militia and organized a “cleansing” of the Russian lands from the remnants of the Pecheneg horde and wandering detachments. “And there was peace,” concludes the chronicler. Well, Svyatoslav knew how to fight for peace!

It is curious that during the Second Balkan campaign of Svyatoslav, Greek authors mention “patsinaks” in his army. One gets the impression that the prince did meet with the Pecheneg leaders - could it be through the mediation of the voivode Pretich and his new friend? - listened to them and agreed to take them on a campaign against the Romans. It is curious whether the role of the Byzantines in organizing the raid on Russia was already clear then? Hardly. If this were so, no force would have prevented the prince from immediately returning to the Danube and starting hostilities against the empire.

But what happened brought the prince face to face with a very important issue requiring an immediate solution. During his campaigns in Russia, the prince had to remain!

As we remember, the Russians imagined society as a living being, and the prince was his head. In this case, a situation arose when the “body”, not knowing where the “head” was and what happened to it, turned out to be helpless when attacked by the enemy. As the prophetic Boyan said - was the old man still alive? - “it’s hard for the head except for the shoulder, angry, for the body except for the head.” The same image emerges from Daniil the Sharpener two centuries later: “I saw: the beast is great, but it has no head; tacos and many regiments without the goodness of the prince. Daniel could see this with his own eyes: in 1152, Prince Izyaslav sent a detachment to defend the fords across the Dnieper from the Polovtsians. However, the guards fled under the onslaught of the attacking steppes. The chronicler explains the reason for the defeat simply: “Yes, the ford was not firm for him (Prince Izyaslav), because there was no prince there, and not everyone listens to the boyar.” And the matter was not in the age, not in the personal qualities of the prince, not in his courage, experience and military leadership. First of all, it was necessary to have it. There had to be a prince, a man of the Falcon family of Rurikovich. The helplessness of the people of Kiev and the militia of Pretich was also explained by the absence of the prince. Perhaps we judged them too harshly. Their distant descendants at the fords on the Dnieper will hold on much worse. And the times of princelessness in the vast majority of Russian city-states of subsequent centuries will be perceived as an alarming timelessness of unrest. It's another matter when there is a prince - even if it's a boy, barely sitting on a horse, barely able to push a light muzzle behind a horse's muzzle with his little hand ... yes, I'm talking about him, about our hero, about his first battle. And sometimes you don't even need to. Like Prophetic Oleg, when he descended from the boat onto the sand of the Dnieper shore and threw Oskold and Dira, pointing to baby Igor in the arms of a hefty Varangian: “You are not princes, and not of a princely family, but I am of a princely family and here is the son of Rurik!”.

Guided by these important considerations, Svyatoslav decides to make his sons princes. This is, of course, not about the "partition of Russia." It will be later, with his youngest son and grandchildren. After all, Russia was not divided under the father of Svyatoslav, when he himself was in Novgorod. Svyatoslav responded in this way to the complaints of the people of Kiev.

Of course, Svyatoslav had many wives, like any self-respecting ruler of a pagan state. Tatishchev mentions that the rulers of the Ugric-Magyars and Poles were the prince's father-in-law. Moreover, he also names the name of the Magyar woman - the wife of Svyatoslav. Her name was ... Predslava. Frankly, I do not really understand what to think about this. Why does a Magyar woman have a Slavic name? The easiest way, of course, is to say that Tatishchev made it all up. Yes, and even easier, as I said, not to deal with history at all. There is no reason to suspect Tatishchev of fiction, his unique information was confirmed many times in later sources, including archaeological ones. Therefore, let us take it for granted that Tatishchev did not fantasize this time either, but reported the data at his disposal of chronicles that did not reach us, which, as everyone understands, an unthinkable amount burned or otherwise died during our difficult history. In this case, there may be three explanations for the Slavic name of the Magyar woman. The first explanation: Predslava, in fact, is not a Magyar, but the wife of one of the Slavic princes from the lands occupied by the Magyars. There must have been many of these in those years. By the way, in the Western Frankish chronicles, a certain mysterious “Hungarian Hun Bratislao” is mentioned as an ally of the Saxon Wichman and the encouragers Nakon and Stoygnev. This is such a mystery. Medieval European chroniclers called the Hungarians-Magyars themselves Huns, but what does “Hungarian Hun” mean? Obviously Slavic name - Bratislava? Bryachislav? - makes us remember that other authors of the same era - Helmold, whom we know, for example, - called the Huns ... Slavs. So what, such a Slav, who lived under the hand of the Magyar leaders, descendants of Arpad, joined the army of Obodrites and pagan Saxons? It is possible, of course, but the chronicles describing the campaign of Wichman, Stoygnev and Nakon speak specifically of the Magyar cavalry, which was then well known in Europe. In our case, there is a slight doubt that the Grand Duke of Kyiv honored the daughter of some petty prince with his hand. The second assumption is that Predslava was the daughter of a Magyar prince from a Slavic wife. We remember the tragedy that preceded the migration of the Magyars to the Danube from the southern Russian steppes. There were no more women in Arpad's horde. Not one at all. They married captive Slavs. Hence, in the Hungarian language, all the words describing agriculture, domestic life, women's clothing are Slavic in origin. So the Slavic mother could well have given her half-Magyar daughter a Slavic name. Why are there women, if one of the heirs of Arpad, an older contemporary of our hero, wore, along with the Magyar name Ver-Bulchu, the Slavic Volisud. Finally, the third assumption. In ancient times, it was customary for many peoples to give their wife a new name during marriage. In India, this is still the norm. The Scandinavians, judging by some sources, also had this. Slavic princesses, daughters of the Pole Zemomysl or the Pomeranian Burislav, remained in Scandinavian history, like Sigrid, Astrid and Tordis - they were hardly called by these names at birth. We also trace the remnants of this custom in the annals. At one time, either a Krivichi woman or a Varangian from Pleskov Prekras became Princess Olga, and one of our hero's daughter-in-law, Rogneda, would be named Goreslava after the wedding. So, it is quite possible that some Irma or Yutosha could become the Kievan princess Predslava. This is all the more likely that the eldest son of our hero, Yaropolk, will call his wife Predslava, his younger brother will call his daughter Predslava. Yes, and in the time of Igor in Kyiv there will be some kind of Predslava, and quite close to the princely family - she is mentioned in the agreement with the Greeks among the top ten persons represented at the negotiations by their ambassadors. Perhaps this is the same Predslava, the wife of our hero, or rather, in those days, still the bride to be named. There is nothing incredible in this: the children of noble parents could be married even in infancy, in order to consolidate the union of their parents. And in the presence of her ambassador at the conclusion of the treaty, by the way, with a clearly non-Slavic name Kanitsar, no more strange than in the presence of the ambassador of the three-year-old Svyatoslav, Vuegast. But against the last two assumptions, a sharp prejudice, noticeable in our epics and ballads, speaks against marriages with foreigners, especially those of Asian origin. So I really don't know which of these options is more likely. But the name of the daughter of the Polish prince Zemomysl was not brought to us by the chronicles. True, it is alarming that one of them was called Sventoslava, and they gave her in marriage to a foreign sovereign, it seems to be a Swedish king ... but what if not? But nothing definite can be said here. Moreover, our chronicles also call Lyutichs and Pomeranians "Polyakhs". And it is much more natural to assume that Svyatoslav married the daughter of a prince of one of these pagan peoples than the sister of the already baptized Meshko. Nor do we know which of Svyatoslav's sons was born of which wife.

So, in Kyiv, Svyatoslav installed Yaropolk, his eldest son, as prince. Here he was at the head of Kyiv and the Polyana land - but also all those lands decapitated by the Khazars - Severskaya, Radimichskaya, Vyaticheskaya - on which the Rus laid a "light" tribute, who saw in the Kyiv princes not so much invaders as liberators. By the way, Yaropolk - the boy was thirteen years old - Svyatoslav brought a live "gift" from the Balkan campaign, a young nun Julia. They will call her Predslava. Chronicles say that she was of the royal family. It is quite possible that in a distant monastery, among the Bulgarian barbarians, there was a victim of some intrigues that were seething in the palaces of Constantinople. In the Derevskaya land, bloody "pacified" by Olga in the memory of those still living, Oleg was imprisoned. He was the prince over the "tormented" tributaries of Kyiv, the streets (the Bavarian geographer called them "the most ferocious people"), and the Drevlyans rebels. Supporters of Kyiv in those troubled lands also had to have a living banner, a “head”. This was also necessary in the event of a rebellion - Boyan had to tell the prince how "on time" rebellions broke out behind the back of his father, Simeon the Great, during his campaigns against Byzantium. This was also necessary in the event of another external attack - the same Pechenegs. Konstantin Porphyrogenitus says that the Pecheneg tribe of Yavda Erdim can raid the lands of the streets and the Drevlyans.

This completes the annalistic list of Svyatoslav's elders. John Skylitsa mentions that the fleet of the empire suppressed the Khazar rebellion in the Crimean possessions of Byzantium in 1015 under the leadership of the baptized Khazarin George Chula. The son of Svyatoslav greatly helped the Byzantines, whose name Skilitsa conveys as Sfeng (Sven? Zvenko? Zvyaga?), who attacked the rebels and captured Chula. Apparently, Svyatoslav did not leave decapitated the lands he himself had conquered from Khazaria. It is unlikely that "Sfeng" helped the Romans out of love for them, or at least out of Christian feelings - nowhere is it said that he was a Christian, he bore a clearly pagan name. Yes, and many Orthodox neighbors of the Second Rome - Georgia, Bulgaria - did not have any fraternal feelings for him, however, they had no reason to do so. Rather, the son of the winner of the kaganate was driven by hatred for the Khazars - the blood enemies of the Rus. Judging by the speed of actions of "Sfeng", he reigned somewhere not far from the places of the rebellion, most likely - in Tmutarakan.

So, Yaropolk in Kyiv, Oleg in Vruchie - this city, now Ovruch, became the capital of the Drevlyane land instead of Iskorosten burned by Olga. "Sfeng", whatever his real name is, in Tmutarakan. Everything seems to be...

But it turned out not all. The noble people from Novgorod who came to Kyiv at that time were indignant at such a distribution of princes. Why are they worse than the Drevlyans and the streets? They need a prince too! Or did the sovereign forget in which city he himself began to reign? I forgot where his family of falcons came from here, on this side of the cold Varangian Sea?! If so, the Novgorodians will again, as in the time of Rurik, themselves call for a prince!

Svyatoslav did not take this threat seriously. He chuckled: "Yes, who will go to you ...". Not that the land of Novgorod was such an unenviable possession. Even a hundred years before, it was, as you know, “great and plentiful,” and now, when the Novgorodians could go to the Arab and Persian lands without fear of the predatory tax collectors of the Kagan Bek, when the path from the Varangians to the Greeks was paved, trade Novgorodskaya was supposed to flourish at all. The Norman pirates have not yet tormented its shores - they will break through to them later, when the combat brotherhood of the Yomsky knights from the Slavic Volyn, who kept law and order in the entire eastern part of the Varangian Sea, will fall almost without exception in Norway. Another thing is that only a prince or a king, obsessed with suicidal mania, could arbitrarily sit down as a prince in the possessions of the winner of the Khazar Khaganate, a commander who captured Bulgaria in one autumn and took eighty cities. “Even a blind man is useful before being burned - what is the use of a corpse?” Elder Edda asked. The eldest sons of the prince were also not attracted by the idea of ​​reigning in a distant northern land. Apparently, "Sfeng" also refused, unless he was already sitting in distant Tmutarakan.

There is reason to believe that Svyatoslav had another son ... but the prince predicted a completely different future for him. However, more on that later.

The Novgorod ambassadors were despondent. But then they met a good fellow. The young man's name was epic - Dobrynya, but this is where any resemblance and connection with the epic hero, the winner of the fierce Serpent, ends. Because this Dobrynya was the brother of Malka, the housekeeper slave of the old princess Olga, and if he was not her brother, which could well happen, the Grand Duke instructed the boy to look after the slave who looked at him, said: be, they say, her brother. Well, I had to ... and so, if after all he was her blood, and not her named brother, then he was a Khazar.

Here it is necessary to say a few words about the version that has long been criticized to the dust, but still not from all the heads of the weathered version, that both Dobrynya himself and his sister were the children of the Drevlyan prince Mal. I must say right away that there are no serious grounds for it. So, there is some consonance between the name of the Drevlyansk rebel and a certain “Malka Lubechanin”, the father of Dobrynya and Malka. In other annals, she is called the glorified name of Malusha, but in Nikonovskaya, which has preserved many ancient details - for example, that Svyatoslav began the campaign against the Bulgarians at the instigation of Caesar Nikifor, that Oskold fought with the black Bulgarians, and much more - the original name is also preserved in this annals Dobrynya's sisters - Malka. That's what we'll call her. So, there is not a hint of the Drevlyan origin of Malka and her brother in the annals. If Malka were a Drevlyanian princess, then her son would begin to rule in the Drevlyansk land. There is no hint that Mal or his son is the heir! - could have survived after the massacre of 946. Olga - more precisely, the people behind her - could not leave alive the relatives of the person they accused of the death of Tsar Igor. If Mal and his family were involved in a conspiracy, they were all the more doomed.

Despite the apparent weakness of this version, it still appears in popular literature. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was fiercely defended by the Ukrainian local historian Anatoly Markovich Chlenov. He was not a professional historian, but on the basis of this flimsy version and far-fetched "data" Russian epics, he built a whole "drevlyanskaya theory". All his ideas are too long to retell, and it is not necessary. A few points will suffice to characterize the author and the idea itself: Members, with some kind of biological hatred, treated the Varangians, whom, “naturally,” he considered Normans. In his works, with the energy of a front-line political instructor, he vilified Rurik, Oleg the Prophet and Igor, while he portrayed Svyatoslav as a narrow-minded warrior, a puppet in the hands of the "Varangian invaders", who spent energy on campaigns that were unnecessary de Rus. On the contrary, he considered the Khazars to be good friends of Russia, who defended it from ... the Arabs (!!!). All the nasty things about the Khazar yoke are, of course, the inventions of the evil Varangians from the terrible "Varangian House". It is only unclear how they got into the annals, if Chlenov's favorite, Vladimir, defeated them and all subsequent princes, under whom the annals were compiled, were his descendants, and representatives of the good "Drevlyansky house". The fundamental work is completed by Chlenova’s phrase, which should be cited - it fully characterizes both the book and the author: by the hand of hosts. 12 (??) federal lands (???) of Russia were declared their true successors. There is nothing more to add to this book.

The version put forward in the 1970s by the Hebraist V. Emelyanov and A. Dobrovolsky is much more consistent. In 1997, it - alas, without reference to the discoverers - was expressed by Alexei Karpov in the biography "Vladimir the Holy" published in the ZHZL series. The basis of the names of Malka and her father - Malk - is not Slavic. I quote Karpov: “In the Semitic languages ​​(Arabic, Hebrew) the word “Malik” means “king”, “ruler”. It is impossible to agree with the assumption that Malak was “a Khazar bek who settled in the Russian Lyubech”. There were no "beks" in Lyubech and could not have been already in the time of Oleg the Prophet. Rather, it can be assumed that the chronicler or his source glorified some kind of Khazar nickname or title in this way. But with the following: “The Slavic name of the son of Malk Dobrynya in this case should not be embarrassing” - it remains to fully agree. Yes, it shouldn't. Even in the “Kiev letter”, a document from the business correspondence of the Jewish community of Kyiv, which a century before Svyatoslav led with fellow believers in Cairo, among others, there are Yehuda Severyata and Guests Kabiart ben Cohen. Obviously, Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky are not a new phenomenon at all.

So, Dobrynya approached the Novgorod ambassadors and advised him to ask Svyatoslav Vladimir. It turns out that the cunning slave managed to seduce the young prince and gave birth to a boy from him. The boy was named Vladimir, and sent out of sight with his mother. The compassionate Olga sent them to the village of Bududino, which belonged to her, most likely, saving them from her son - it is easy to guess how Svyatoslav would have reacted to the Khazar offspring. It should be recalled that among the Baltic Slavs, from whom his family descended, the father could kill an unwanted baby, and this was in the order of things. However, the Russians also have an epic, how Ilya Muromets kills his son - however, already an adult - from a woman from a hostile tribe, and at the same time remains the favorite hero of the epic.

However, the Cossacks, after half a thousand years having fun with captive Asians, took even more drastic measures to prevent undesirable consequences. Eh, our hero was not like Stenka Razin ...

The Novgorodians again came to Svyatoslav again and asked Vladimir to become a prince. "Here you are," was the short answer. The prince did not want to talk about the offspring of a slave from a hated tribe. Perhaps he assumed that it was in northern Novgorod, Rurik's stronghold, so close to the steel waves of the Varangian Sea and the rocks of Arkona rising above them, that "robichich" - the son of a slave - would be safe. Maybe he even hoped that the upbringing of "Novgorod people from the Varangian clan" would balance the Khazar blood of his youngest son. In this case, the prince did not take into account or did not know that Dobrynya went north with Vladimir, who was not going to let his nephew's upbringing take its course or trust him to the northern pagans. Yes, and Svyatoslav's thoughts were already occupied with completely different things.

3. Slavic state - to be!

That is not a word breaks into a word:

From the Urals to the Balkans

The brotherhood is growing stronger, formidable again,

The many-glorious brotherhood of the Slavs.

And merge with the new tradition,

Once in a single and formidable row

Lublin stood next to Luban,

Near Belgorod - Belgrade.

(S. Narovchatov. "Polish poems")

The division of thrones between the sons of Svyatoslav was completed. Now nothing kept Svyatoslav in the city, which had become almost a stranger to him. His capital was his retinue headquarters. The city on the Dnieper, after several years of campaigns, seemed boring and quiet, its towers and walls - a burden, a heavy burden. The people who lived here, merchants and artisans, and the owners of the nearby Polyana lands, lived in some other world. Not for their peace of mind, he crushed the Khaganate and taught the steppe savages to see in him the thunder of heaven. The meadows, who once called the Falcon family of Rurik from the north to reign, sincerely believed that the descendants of Rurik had done everything that was needed. After all, the Khazars are defeated, their robber nests of white stone no longer loom on the horizon of the Slavic lands. The forged cavalry of the kagan-bek will no longer trample the meadow fields, the villages will not blaze ... What else does the sovereign need?

Svyatoslav looked at the world differently. He saw the duty of the prince and the warrior in protecting the Truth - the Truth, and not the storehouses of the Kyiv boyars and merchants stuffed with good things. Yes, and the fact that ordinary people can live in peace according to the precepts of their ancestors, harvest crops, tinker in workshops, trade with distant lands, without fear of either dashing people or savages from forest, steppe or mountain tribes - is also True. But not all, no matter what they think about this kiyane. Next to him was Nakon - and not Nakon himself, but his fellow countrymen. Boyan was next to him. Next to him was Kalokir. Whether Asmund was still alive is hard to say. But what Svyatoslav heard from his new friends formed a terrible picture, confirming everything that the young prince had once heard from the son of Oleg the Prophet.

The people of Kiev thought that the world, if it changes, is for the better. Here - they paid tribute to the Khazars, now we do not pay. The Khazars could attack - now they can't. There was turmoil - now on the throne is a strong and terrible sovereign to the enemies. Hasn't it gotten better? And Christians... what are they? Well, the country is so beyond the sea. Well, in Kyiv - so a handful.

Svyatoslav saw how the world is changing. The world that lived and breathed in Kyiv, which got rid of the siege, was yesterday for the land of Nakon. Nakon could say: “Yesterday we thought so too. Yesterday, even in our country, Christians seemed like harmless strangers. The Shchetino sorcerers offered them to place an idol to their Crucified One in the main city temple, so that they could pray together with everyone. And in Volhynia, when a monk from a distant land, who could not connect two words in our way, attacked the idol of Volos with an ax, the priests took him away from the angry crowd, and laughingly escorted him, half dead from beatings and fear, to the ship.

Now we are at war with them. They bring troops from different lands, they have a lot of strength. But we fight - and sometimes we win. We have already expelled the damned Germans from our land - we will drive them out again.

Boyan could say: “Yesterday we fought against the Christians. Krum stormed their capital. Malomir persecuted them and executed them. And when they decided that they were not dangerous, they opened the gates of our cities to the enemy. Not romans. We, too, once said “Bulgarians or Christians,” we also once called Christianity the Roman faith, as you Varangians call German. But ours, the Bulgarians, became one of them, and we did not know how to fight with brothers. Not everyone was able to stand on a par with Malomir. And now the Christians rule over us. You, our fellow believers, tolerate Christians. They don't tolerate us. They only allow the peasants in the villages to worship the old gods, and the urban rabble to mix the old with the new. Those of the nobles, who want to remain faithful, hide in the mountains, on the flatlands, in the wilderness. They are waiting - all of a sudden everything will return ... ".

Kalokir could say: “And we left the capitals. And we waited. It was yesterday. And we were allowed to worship the old gods in the wilderness or hide idols behind icons. It was yesterday. Now we are huddled in the most remote corners. We live under the hanging ax of the executioner, under the eternal fear of denunciation, confiscation, execution. We are a handful, like you - Christians. But we are not tolerated as you tolerate them.

We have a long memory. And we remember - there was a time when Rome - that first and only Rome, the Eternal City of Cato and Scipio, Caesar and Trajan - was strong and powerful. How strong and powerful Russia is.

He also tolerated Christians.”

Nakon, Boyan, Kalokir. Varangians, Bulgaria, Byzantium. Tread of Ragnarok: Byzantium, Bulgaria, Vikings…

And everywhere, everywhere - uselessly splashed, turned on each other, brother against brother, the power of the Slavic peoples. Ancient Truth - without force. Young Force - without the truth. Boyan says that children who do not know the Slavic language are already growing in the Sea. Nakon says - even the Slavs already call Gam - Hamburg.

Step of Ragnarok.

What to do if nothing can be done? For a warrior, there is only one answer - to fight. They don't fight to win. They fight because it is the duty of a warrior. But Krum also fought. Stoygnev also fought. You still need to win!

We need a state. New Rome. To break the back of empires - sources of infection. But it is possible to break it - didn’t the Khaganate, which seemed eternal, collapse? And why not collapse in the same way the powers of the Kaiser and the Caesar? It just needs to be done sooner.

They say - soon their god will come to earth.

Well, we will meet him.

How? The answer was given by Oleg the Prophet, the father of Asmund's mentor.

He moved the capital almost to the battlefield - to Kyiv. Not in this quiet and peaceful one - in that Khazar borderland that was here seventy years ago. And already from here, from the new military camp - on campaigns, on ferocious continuous campaigns. With squads - for tribute, and tribute - for new squads. And gather tributaries into a single fist, people to people, bend the necks of the stubborn Niskins, and if they don’t bend, break them like the traitor Oskold!

Occupy land bordering with empires. Set up a capital there. Gather the surrounding Slavic peoples, taking tributaries from the empires. The Bulgarians have already accepted him - as the meadows accepted Oleg. Croat and other troublemakers - to torture, like Oleg and his father - the streets with the Drevlyans. Pagan savages - as allies. But before that - show strength. So that the Magyars remember his name, as the Pechenegs remember the name of their father! There is nothing for them to waste their prowess in senseless raids on distant Parises. Let them serve the state. To a bunch of steppe wolfs!

Is it possible? Svyatoslav did not ask himself about such things. Oleg, father, he himself succeeded in Russia - he and his descendants will succeed on the Danube. Under the banner of the falcon stood the clearing and the north, the Krivichi and the Slovenes, the Dregovichi and the Polotsk people, the Vyatichi and the Drevlyans, the Ulichi and the Radimichi, the Tivertsy. Well, now it's the turn of the Sagudats and the Velegests, the Strumants and the Smolens, the Dragovites and the Severovs, the Verzichis and the Baiunichis, the Runkhins, the Milings and the Jezeriches. All Bulgarians, Croats, Serbs.

And then - to Tsargrad! Not in boats, like Oleg and his father - on land. The Greeks were used to waiting for the enemy from the sea, just like the Khazars - from the steppes and forests. You don't have to do what the enemy is used to. Let him do as he is used to. And we will do it right!

You don't need a shield on the gate. May your childhood dream come true. Let Tsargrad share a place in Hell with Itil!

And then let their Dead Man come. If so, where.

Even before the division of thrones between his sons, Svyatoslav told his mother and boyars: “I don’t like Kyiv. I want to sit in Pereyaslavets on the Danube. There will be the center of my land. All the best goes there. From Greece - gold, silks, wines and fruits, from the Czech Republic and Hungary - silver and horses, from Russia - furs, honey, wax and people.

There was nothing particularly new in the transfer of the capital for Russia. About seventy years ago, Oleg moved the capital from Novgorod to Kyiv. Now, after the victory over the kaganate, Kyiv turned from a military camp before our eyes into a well-fed and quiet deep rear. The place is for the prince and his squad, which means the capital, in the forehead of the army. Get closer to the enemy. It was natural and more or less understandable. The prince leaves the children safe peaceful lands and goes to where his hand and iron will are needed.

But here is what Svyatoslav said later ...

Historians interpret something about "trade routes". What is common between Svyatoslav the Brave and trade?! Get a grasp!

Svyatoslav lists the lands from which he is going take tribute! He is already taking tribute from the Russian lands - now, of course, she will have to go to Pereyaslavets. And now the Balkans and Central Europe will join the list of tributaries. This is for starters, to topple Byzantium, as the Khazaria was toppled. And there…

It is unlikely that Svyatoslav would have left the lands of the Varangian ancestors without attention. "The middle of my land"... Look at the map. The border of Russia in the East runs along the Volga - the new "River of Rus" for the Arabs. Find Pereyaslavets at the Danube mouth. And count the same amount to the West. At least - a hard limit according to Labe for the Teutonic Drang nach Osten. And south, of course - to Morea. The Romans have not taken all the milings and Jezeriches to the Cairo markets yet!

This intention of Svyatoslav is clearly reflected in the annals. As we shall see later, it will also be reflected in Leo the Deacon's History. Could he succeed? In my opinion, it could. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on Svyatoslav's commitment to the old Gods and his rejection of the new faith. Of course, things were not so clear cut. The desire for glory, natural for a warrior and prince, and the still adolescent hatred of Constantinople, and the desire to unite the Slavic peoples played their role. But the desire to create such a power is quite obvious. There was, I believe, an opportunity. Two hundred years earlier, Karl-David "the Great" created a huge empire. Once created their powers Alexander, Caesar, Attila, Clovis. Many of them started out small. Another question is how long would such a power last? But in any case, it would change the face of Europe - if not the world. However, let's talk about probabilities, or, as it is fashionable to say now, virtualities, when we get to the “key”, turning point in the history of Svyatoslav. As long as it's not close.

Olga answered her son: “You see, I am sick. Where do you want to go from me? Bury me and go wherever you want.”

Unexpected humanity emanates from these plaintive words. It is not the former ruler of the state who turns to the rival who has taken power. This is not the head and banner of Kievan Christians speaking to the enemy and the persecutor of the faith of Christ, the sworn pagan.

The old mother asks for her grown-up son.

Olga was really sick. She lived only three days after this conversation. Perhaps the proximity of death helped her to free herself from the strongest feeling for her pagan son, which the future saint had experienced until then - from fear. Perhaps she realized that there are things and people much more terrible than her son, when the bonfires of the steppe hordes smoked around Kyiv. Before her death, she asked Svyatoslav for the last favor - to allow her to go to her god according to the Christian rite. Without a violent funeral feast with intoxicating ladles, with the sound of swords and plentiful sacrifices, without a mound arrogantly rising to heaven. Lie down in the grave level with the ground. Olga, according to the chronicle, professed Christianity in secret, and was very afraid that after her death she would be buried according to a pagan rite.

The son promised. And fulfilled. Olga was buried by her "prezvuter" - a priest. The grandchildren, accustomed to their grandmother, cried for her. Weeping people of the Kyiv Christian community. Svyatoslav also wept. So says the chronicle, and perhaps this is not just a literary stencil for describing the death of a righteous ruler. People of that era were much less shy about expressing their feelings. The absurd taboo on men's tears is a superstition of much later times. Severe and mercilessly cruel people did not hesitate to shed tears. The patriarchs of the Old Testament and the heroes of Homer wept. The heroes of epics, sagas and chivalric novels did not hide their tears. Russian princes and Mongol khans wept. It didn’t occur to them that “men don’t cry,” perhaps because they had no reason to doubt their own courage?

Olga's will was violated much later. Already after the death of Svyatoslav. Not pagans - co-religionists of Olga. The young Russian church needed relics. The grave was dug up, the bones were removed and placed in a slate sarcophagus in the Church of the Tithes, decorated with rosettes and pentagrams. Even after death, she did not receive peace. Although, who knows, maybe it would console her that even after death she would serve the cause of the Christian faith in Russia.

Now nothing else interfered with Svyatoslav in the implementation of his thoughts. Nothing kept the prince in the city, which in his eyes had already ceased to be the capital. The lands of Kyiv and Iskorosten, Novgorod and Tmutorokan found young princes, governors of their father. Now the Rus and local Rurik supporters will rally around in case of trouble. And more is not needed. There is no enemy on either border capable of attacking the realm of the Sons of the Falcon. Along the Volga, Russia seems to border on Khorezm, but in reality there is a wild, empty steppe, along which hordes of Torks-Guzes and Polovtsy-Kipchaks roam. Ciscaucasia after the Khazar campaign - "scorched earth". No enemy will encroach on Tmutorokan for a long time. As for the west, where son Oleg reigns and two tributary allies under the hand of Svyatoslav, Polotsk Rogvolod and Dregovich Tury, there simply are no enemies. Father-in-law Volisud, brother-in-law Meshko-Mechislav. And between them and Russia - a strip of wild forest and swamp peoples, from the Carpathians to the Varangian Sea. White Croats, Dulebs, Masurians, Yotvingians, Lithuanians, Zhmud, Letgola with Zemgola, Prussians. Not enemies and not friends, not needed either as tributaries or as allies. The Pechenegs are now peaceful. In Russia, everything is calm - except for new lands. His place is there, on the front line, in the advanced regiment. In his new capital - Pereyaslavets Danube.

And the prince was reminded of this very soon. Olga, according to the tradition of the church, reposed on July 11 - a few days before such an important holiday for Svyatoslav - Perunov's Day. The prince, apparently, went on his first campaign against the Bulgarians after the holiday of his heavenly patron, the Lightning Thrower, the God of Victories. It is not known whether he managed to celebrate it this time, or the black news coming from the Danube overtook him for the distribution of thrones between his sons.

These news read - in Bulgaria there was a rebellion against the Rus, the governor Volk gathered all the troops in Pereyaslavets and was holding the line. Svyatoslav, without waiting for the end of the gathering of the militias, entrusted this matter to the governor and hurried with the retinue that had rested in Kyiv and new allies - the easy-going Pechenegs - to Bulgaria.

4. SONS OF LIGHT, RESIDENTS OF DARKNESS.

Let the vow fall on the lips of silence.

Let's light the lamps and offer prayers.

We know - the mystical dawn is approaching:

We have gathered for the Mass of the God of Battle.

Let the night be dark and mourning palette,

But can the twilight hide the Divine Covenant?

Carrying the communion of slain comets,

Bright Mitra rises on Khara Berezait.

S. Yashin "The Liturgy of Mithras".

1. Journey of the toparch.

The Greeks and Khazars bowed the neck

In front of a sword with a notch, features and cuts.

A. Shiropaev "Rus".

The ways of historical sources are whimsical. Find yourself at the hand of the toparch - the governor of Klimatov, the Crimean possessions of Byzantium, a sheet of clean paper, that is, of course, parchment ...

But it didn't turn out. And a draft of an important document turned out to be inscribed on the blank pages of a book that turned up under the arm. Thanks to this, he survived, avoiding the usual fate of drafts. The final version, one must think, disappeared after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. For many days the conquerors then heated the city baths with the imperial archives and books of the palace library. It remains only to regret the unique sources forever lost to science.

I will not linger on the disputes of historians around this document, conventionally called the "Note of the Greek toparch." There are a lot of them, as always. And we learned from the "Notes" itself that's what ...

There lived a toparch. He did not grieve, ruled rich lands, but was glad that the capital was far away. So, he, the toparch, seems to be his own master. But one day he regretted it.

The evil barbarians attacked the lands in the neighborhood of the Toparch Climates. That is, before they were not evil. Previously, they showed "justice" and "legality"; and "cities and peoples voluntarily joined them." “Now everything is broken: they showed injustice ... in relation to their subjects, instead of caring for the good of the subject cities and for their own benefit to manage them in good order, they decided to enslave and ruin them.” These cities "under the pretext of a broken oath became the prey of violence and the sword."

Familiar, right, reader? Berdaa's neighbor could have written exactly the same thing ... if Berdaa had neighbored the possessions of the Romans. But it is very similar to the Russians! And this - former - obligation, and concern for subjects; and fierce punishment for "broken oath".

Here the toparch begins to get confused. One thing is clear - he collided with one of the detachments of the barbarians, and collided on the land already devastated by them. The impression is that the toparch decided on the sly to cut the land devastated by the barbarians to the imperial possessions - and stumbled upon them themselves. Having been defeated in the first skirmish, the toparch hastily retreated behind the walls of the ruined city. And in the morning he again attacked the enemy, rightly believing that you could not sit long on the ruins of someone else's fortress. He had a hundred horsemen and three times as many foot archers and slingers. Only the army of the toparch did not have to show his prowess in the battle - the barbarians left somewhere overnight.

The toparch remained to strengthen the walls of the city and build a tower, but his soul was more than restless. He understood that he had challenged a terrible force. Indeed, only in the lands adjacent to its Climates, 10 cities and 500 villages were devastated. Punishers were "inaccessible to mercy." Therefore, the toparch sent messengers to his "advisers" from the local nobility. As often happens in remote provinces, the word of local magnates and planters sounded no quieter than decrees from a distant capital. And now the council had to decide neither more nor less than the question of the future fate of the region. About allegiance.

The imperial official, understandably, urged to turn to Constantinople for help. The local nobility, “either because they allegedly never enjoyed imperial favors, and did not care about getting used to civilized life, but above all they strove for independence, or because they were neighbors of the reigning north of the Danube, which is powerful a large army and is proud of the strength in battles ... one way or another, they decided to conclude a peace treaty with them (barbarians - L.P.) and surrender to him ("reigning north of the Danube - L.P.), and together they came to the conclusion that I must do the same."

And the toparch, unwilling by the "advisors", set off on a long and dangerous path "through enemy territory", to put up with those whom he so carelessly touched. The path seemed so dangerous that the official of the God-saved Orthodox state resorted to astrological research, in other words, guessed by the stars. Saturn is in Aquarius.

I am neither a fan nor an expert in astrology; I don't know the meaning of this detail. Those of my acquaintances who understand it assured me that the situation is very favorable ("Saturn in his house"), especially for treaties, delimitation and similar diplomacy. Well, perhaps it is, unless the interpretation of this position has changed in more than a thousand years. She obviously, if not encouraged, at least strengthened Toparkh in his decision. I was pleased with the result of toparch research and historians. The book, the pages of which he used as a draft, of the 10th century. Features of the handwriting of the "Notes" say that they wrote it no later than the beginning of the next, XI century. Finding the time of this astrological position on this segment turned out to be easy. These are the years 964-967, or 993-996. The latter are gone. At the end of the 10th century, there were no previously “just” and powerful barbarians near the Crimean possessions of Byzantium, who were furious with their tributaries because of a “broken oath”; and “to the north of the Danube” then there were no “powerful with a large army and proud of their strength in battles” rulers. Levchenko, the same one who discovered Olga's embassy status during her Tsargrad trip, suggested that it was about the exorbitantly famous son of our hero. But in the 90s of the tenth century, he could not drive away the former vassals of his father and grandfather from the borders. There is no need to talk about “strength in battles”: the most striking chronicle evidence on this subject says how he ... hid from enemies under the bridge. Just try to imagine Oleg, Igor or Svyatoslav himself in his place! No one considered him during his lifetime, not only great or glorious - no matter how noticeable a warrior and commander.

But the glory of our hero flew to Byzantium. And just like that - "mighty", "proud", "strong in battle" - draw his Byzantine chronicles.

So, "reigning" is Svyatoslav. Then the lands adjacent to the Climates are Khazaria. A. N. Sakharov suggests that we are talking about the same Khazar refugees who returned under the oath of obedience to the Rus to their native places. They, according to the researcher, did not keep this oath, and, quite naturally, paid for it. Maybe so. But maybe the "note" simply reflected the impression of the Byzantines from the defeat of Khazaria. In ancient Russian, the oath and the world order were called in one word "company". And the reason for the extermination of the rich cities of Khazaria by the barbarian-Rus, which, according to the Romans, should be “governed ... to own benefit in good order”, in violation of the laws of the world order by the Khazars. Then the message of the "Notes" should be put on a par with the messages of Ibn Haukal and the Russian fairy tale.

Significant and the title that he awards - in an official document! - toparch of our hero. At the beginning of the book, we said how reluctantly the Romans recognized the royal title for foreign rulers, even Christians. For a very long time, the Byzantines did not recognize the name of the king for the king of the Bulgarians, for Kaiser Otto. And then suddenly a pagan - and " reigning»!

But back to the toparch. He drove through a certain "Black Fortress" - Mavrokastron - to the "settlement" of Borion at the mouth of the Dnieper. There the toparch and his companions spent the winter. Local residents, having learned about the purpose of the trip, received the official very cordially and hospitably. He was provided with fodder, supplies, guides. The toparch who was leaving was “applauded”, looking “as if he were close to himself and placing great hopes”. It is easy to understand the joy of people from an unfortified village on the very road from Russia to the Crimea. The war of Climates with the Rus promised Borion destruction and death, peace - life.

“He who reigns north of the Danube” received the toparch graciously and honored him with a conversation. He agreed to give Klimat his patronage, leave the toparch his power, and did not even object to the appropriation of one of the Khazar regions that had been deserted after the campaign of the Rus. So everything ended well for the Climates.

But the situation itself, from the point of view of Constantinople, was certainly unhealthy. So that an imperial official would - well, just negotiate with the barbarians! But that he would arbitrarily go to their leader for a decision on the fate of the imperial possessions?! Magnified him "reigning" and received confirmation of his title and power from him?! So he will soon decide that his capital is not on the Bosphorus, but there, “to the north of the Danube”! Today he goes to the barbarian for patronage - tomorrow he will send him taxes!

An experienced official, a toparch, could not but understand that his behavior, even if it was the only correct one in these conditions, looked very suspicious. That is why he gets confused in the draft report, furiously crosses out lines, cannot decide on the order of presentation of events (“Note” begins with the return of the toparch to Climates and ends with “advice” and a brief description of the trip to “reigning north of the Danube”), which is why he brings down all the blame on the "advisors", desperately emphasizing his loyalty to the throne. That is why he paints the joy and support of the population - there was no history of despotism that did not refer to the "voice of the people", "the interests of the nation", "public opinion". And then he even intertwines his exercises in astronomy: “It's not me! I am not guilty! So decided the stars, so decided Fate itself!

No, it's still wonderful - an official of the Orthodox Empire includes an excerpt from the horoscope in the report, without explanations and comments, clearly counting on the authorities who are knowledgeable in stellar wisdom. When you read the indignant outpourings of today's pastors about the "pagan dominance of superstition and astrology", one recalls the birthplace of Orthodoxy - God-saved Byzantium...

Someone may ask: why, in this case, did the toparch not simply try to hide his trip to Kyiv? The question, of course, is very naive. Whistleblowing flourished in the Second Rome, if not from the day it was founded, then from the time of Justinian the Great. That Justinian, who, according to Procopius of Caesarea, decided to give any disputed case for investigation to the one who reported first. The toparch's only chance was to be the first to report, to have time to present his version of events to the imperial authorities. Otherwise - a double accusation - in separate negotiations with the enemy, and in an attempt to conceal them. Explicit treason, with all the consequences ...

The further fate of the toparch is unknown. Did they believe his excuses, did he retain his post, freedom and life? One thing is certain: after the "Note" the authorities, even if they missed the roar of the collapsed kaganate, could no longer ignore the power that had come out to the northern borders of Eastern Rome.

Moreover, for some time at the head of the empire was not a hawker and not a scribe, not a frequenter of taverns or libraries, but a military officer, a commander. However, the new emperor and the winding path that brought him to the throne is a completely different story.

2. The fate of emperors.

And don't wrap yourself in the philistine streets,

And in those lanes of Marinkina.

And whore damn Marinka Ignatievna

Poisoned, spent up to nine fellows,

All the princes, queens,

Poison you in tenths.

Epic "Dobrynya and Marinka Ignatievna".

We remember how Roman II met a young beauty named Anastaso. About the level of that, so to speak, institution where the heir to the throne of the Second Rome first saw his future wife, says that Anastaso was not only his, uh-uh ... employee, but also the daughter of the owner. Simply put, it was difficult to call this place even a tavern. Den - much more precisely. However, it was not easy then for the guards of the port quarters! Go and follow the order, if somewhere on the crooked streets the only child of the sovereign-emperor deigns to have fun. The trash and the punks, on the contrary, probably prospered (more precisely, they celebrated the night), and wished the young lord all possible blessings. Well, he got one benefit. Not even good, we have already said - fate. Although, of course, the narrow-minded Roman did not suspect that he had brought the fate of not one, but three (if not four) emperors from the eternal fetid night of the port slums to the palaces of the rulers.

The first intoxication of the miraculous ascension from the brothel to the palace must have passed quickly enough. And surely Anastaso - that is, already Theophano - was quickly tired of his father-in-law, this elderly, hard-drinking bookworm, living in dreams of the former greatness of the Roman Empire. Old intellectuals who have drunk themselves can indeed be very tedious, but they seem especially tedious to young and full of life animals like Theophano. Knowing Constantine, we can assume that, as sovereign and father-in-law, he considered it his duty to instruct the young daughter-in-law in the duties of not just a noble lady, but the wife and future mother of the heirs to the Eastern Roman throne. Judging by the writings that have come down to us, the style of Born in Purple did not shine with either fascination or variety. And his teachings, as you might guess, drove Theophano to a white heat.

The halo of the fairy-tale prince that surrounded Roman in the eyes of his young wife also faded with time. I can't guarantee if she realized that the "stubbornness" with which he stood up for their marriage was just the capricious stubbornness of a bearded baby, multiplied by the helplessness of his parents. Helena Lacapina simply adored her only son with maternal, animal blindness, but Born in Purple turned out to be completely untenable in the role of father. She probably didn't understand it at first. Still, it is not easy to admit that, to put it mildly, she was mistaken, taking for a hero, for the man of her dreams, a rag, a nonentity, a child unable to grow up. It's much easier to find someone to blame. In this case, it didn't take long to find something. Of course, Roman is "suppressed"! And no one, but his damned dad! Purplish bore! Now, if he were gone, then my Roman would show!

Well, not the last was the fact that Constantine stood in the way of the young couple to the uncontrolled use of the imperial treasury at their own discretion.

The astute reader has already guessed ... well, yes, in Constantinople, such issues were resolved in a rather uniform way. Sometimes they are solved in the same way in today's families, which can be easily seen by reading the section of the criminal chronicle in any newspaper.

However, how relations developed in the imperial family can be guessed from one circumstance. In 958, Theophano's son, Vasily, is born, the one who will remain in history under the eerie nickname of the Bulgar Slayers. It is somewhat strange, by the way, why exactly the bloody triumph over the Bulgarians is so merged with his name. The emperor distinguished himself not only by him. So, during the war with Georgia, he set a price for the heads of Georgians (regardless of gender and age). The terrible trophies brought by the soldiers, the Orthodox Caesar, four centuries before Tamerlane, piled pyramids on both sides of the road. Georgians, like the Byzantines, were Orthodox Christians. But now we are not interested in the bloodthirsty temper of Vasily, but in his appearance. Contemporaries describe him as a two-meter blond with icy light blue eyes. Appearance, for a Roman, to put it mildly, unusual! Pay attention to the date of birth of the future ruler of the Second Rome. The impression is that his mother showed an increased and by no means diplomatic interest in the Russian embassy. It remains to be hoped that her attention was attracted by a boyar or a noble combatant from Olga's retinue, and not an ordinary Griden bodyguard or just a hefty serf.

However, Feofano quickly became disappointed in her hubby if she began to seek solace on the side.

Cooling in relations, however, might not have happened - Roman was not distinguished by special intelligence and insight, and Feofano, of course, knew how to turn her affairs around in secret. In any case, the conspiracy drawn up by them against the elderly lord speaks of sufficient mutual trust of the young imperial couple. Constantine dies in 959. It was officially announced that the emperor caught a cold during a pilgrimage to one of the monasteries of Mount Olympus. But in the city, his killers were frankly named - a dissolute son and a daughter-in-law remembered by many under a different name and in a different capacity.

Thus died Born in Purple. And was it not purple that veiled his eyes during the painful hours of agony, when the poison devoured the insides of the old sovereign? Purple, damned poisonous purple...

The purple-born old man turned out to be the first of the emperors, whose fate was a girl from the port brothel of Constantinople.

Roman did not grieve for his father for long. First of all, he dismissed all his close associates from their posts and imprisoned the sisters who did not please him with some unknown reason. He thanked the crowned bastard and his mother for her blind love. Helena Lecapina was expelled from the palace shortly after her husband's death. Thank you, at least not to the monastery ...

Soon, the old woman, betrayed by her beloved son, died. They said out of grief. It is possible, though hard to believe, that the active daughter-in-law left her hated mother-in-law to the mercy of fate, relying on the empress's old age and grief.

Perhaps, behind all these dirty rearrangements, the hand of the beautiful Feofano is visible. Well, another argument in favor of the insignificance of her husband. It became even brighter later. Having become an autocrat, Roman did not show any interest in state affairs. He spent his life in an unrespectable company, whose members Leo the Deacon severely calls "slaves of the belly and what is under the belly." The real power was concentrated in the hands of two parties - the courtiers, led by parakimomen Joseph Vringa and Theophano with her new lover Nicephorus Foka, a famous commander, behind whose back was the army. The beauty Theophano did not have and could not have any power over Vringa - only eunuchs were appointed to the position of parakimomen, as well as to many other court posts, in Byzantium.

Nicephorus soon marked the reign of the husband of his passion with victories over the Arabs. True, the first success of the Romans was in vain - the advanced detachments, after the flight of the enemy, began to immediately celebrate the victory, so much so that when the Muslim army returned, few were able to even escape. Well, what is the sovereign, such are his subjects. Nikephoros Foka, however, did not let the first defeat discourage him, and soon took revenge, completely clearing Crete from the Arabs. “Having cleansed” here should be understood in the most literal sense: the Orthodox army celebrated the victory over the enemy with unrestrained robbery and equally monstrous massacre. Nicephorus Foka, according to the Byzantine chroniclers, only made sure that his soldiers did not desecrate themselves (!) By violence against Arab women. The terrible victories of Phocas responded in the Muslim Middle East with Christian pogroms.

In the meantime, changes were taking place in the capital. The emperor's new friends made him addicted to "unnatural vices," as Leo the Deacon reports. Naturally, Theophano's influence on her husband began to decline. The thought of parting with the power that gave so much pleasure was so unbearable, and her husband, who had completely ceased to resemble a man, no longer evoked even a shadow of feeling in Theophano. Soon the emperor, upon his return from the newfangled game, dog hunting, which he indulged in during Lent, fell seriously ill and expired. The symptoms were suspiciously reminiscent of his father's death - a feeling of extreme weakness, severe shortness of breath. Some whispered about God's punishment, medical scientists importantly interpreted that the Caesar "had lethal spasms from immoderate riding," the majority insisted that Roman had been poisoned. Poisoned with poison "brought from the female half of the palace," as Leo the Deacon vaguely put it. Let's forgive the venerable chronicler for the vagueness of expressions - he wrote his "History" in the reign of the children of Theophano, Basil and Constantine. In addition to two sons, the tavern empress also gave birth to a daughter, Anna. It is difficult to vouch for the paternity of two younger children, given the nature of the mother and the new inclinations of the formal father, although Konstantin, who was born after the death of Roman, was very much like him in character. He added his name to the list of crowned revelers and drunkards, next to the names of his father, Alexander's great-uncle, Michael III, and many, many others.

Familiar with the history of Russia has already learned the names of the children of Feofano. Yes, it was the daughter of this, uh ... woman, that the unworthy son of our hero married. And it was from the hands of her brothers that he received the new faith. If he was not worthy of his father, then the bride, the Shuryas, and, especially, the mother-in-law, were completely!

So Roman is dead. So decided his fate, the fate of the name of Theophano, which he once with his own hands led from a dirty alley under the purple palace vaults.

The alarmed Joseph Vringa in a panic tried to eliminate the dangerous popularity among the troops and the people, and most importantly, the connection with Theophano, the commander, and wrote a letter to one of the officers of Phocas, the Armenian John Tzimiskes. In a letter, he offered all conceivable and unimaginable blessings, up to the imperial throne, for support against Focas. But the veteran of undercover battles severely miscalculated. Whether out of blood enmity between the front-line officers towards the courtiers, whether out of physiological hostility to the “artificially made woman,” as Tzimiskes called Vring, or simply out of the soldier’s rejection of intrigue, Tzimiskes did not accept the offer.

However, knowing the Romans in general and Tzimisces in particular, we can assume that there was no smell of such simple and noble reasons here. It is very possible that the short, but ambitious, like Bonaparte, Armenian officer already then became close to, to put it mildly, the windy empress.

John not only did not accept Vringa's proposal. He personally appeared to the commander, presented him with a letter, and angrily slandering the courtiers in general and Joseph Vringa in particular, began to demand an immediate trip to the capital. The pious conqueror of the Saracens... fainted. John barely managed to bring the commander to his senses. In the meantime, the rest of the officers ran to the noise, and, having heard from the Armenian what was the matter, they warmly supported him. Nicephorus, not only pious, but also prudent, had a good idea of ​​how this event could end. For a long time he tried to unlock, if not from participation, then at least from the leadership of the campaign, he offered John as leaders and future emperors (which means - the initiative is punishable!). In vain. This time the officers did not want to listen to their beloved commander. Under the roar of the soldiers' throats and the gleam of swords taken out of their scabbards, the somewhat dumbfounded Nicephorus was proclaimed emperor, and the army moved towards the capital.

They didn't resist him for long. On the side of the victorious commander was the army and the inhabitants of the capital. The palace guards partly fled, partly went over to his side. Even the church, in the person of Patriarch Polyeuctus, who was extremely inflexible for a Byzantine priest, warmly greeted Foca, who was famous for his asceticism and fasting, as well as victories over the enemies of the faith. It looked especially advantageous against the background of the newly deceased sovereign, who had fun with his lovers during Lent. Vringa had to seek refuge in the same church where he had recently driven the aged father of his enemy, Varda Fok.

Soon the winner was married to the kingdom, however, only as a co-ruler of the baby Vasily and the newborn Konstantin. Along the way, he married their mother, the widow of his ill-fated predecessor. The fate of the deceased, apparently, did not teach the prudent and pious governor anything.

So another emperor entered under the purple vaults to meet fate by the name of Theophano ...

3. Mission Kalokira.

Oh brother named

Old Cossack Ilya Muromets!

We have a great commandment,

Our signatures were signed, -

Listen to the big brother to the little one,

And the little brother of the big one,

And friend for friend to both stand

Bylin "Ilya's rebellion against Vladimir".

No matter how tortuous were the paths that brought Nicephorus Fok to the Eastern Roman throne, he himself remained, first of all, a commander. He did not leave the boring affairs of state to the harlot wife and court eunuchs. The roar of the kaganate that collapsed overnight and the frightened cries of the toparch who had been at fault did not pass his ears, did not drown in the screeching and laughter of feasts, did not die out in the dead rustle of the palace offices. The experienced commander understood that a new, very strong and serious enemy had appeared in the north. A power loomed over the Byzantine coast of the Black Sea, in a single year crushing and absorbing the Khazar Khaganate, an old rival of the Romans. But the state is first of all the sovereign. Russia did not pose a danger as long as Olga ruled it, entangled in relations with her own subjects, just as Byzantium did not particularly frighten her neighbors during the reign of the Porphyrogenitus bookworm. However, the new sovereign of Russia ... how is he? Sfentoslav? Nikifor Foka must have heard a lot about him - at least from the "Russians", who, along with his troops, fought in Crete with the Arabs. As we have already said, the "Russians" fighting in the imperial army of that time could be Russian Christians who fled to Constantinople after Svyatoslav's coup.

Young and energetic. This is known.

A magnificent commander - something, and Fock could appreciate this. It is one thing to clear the island of enemies (although this is a lot), but to completely destroy the enemy state ... the best strategists of Eastern Rome did not think about entering Baghdad or Cairo. And in one more year?

How old is he? What?! Twenty four?! Mother of God! Meherkle! Yes... dangerous. Very dangerous. Too bad we don't have any. Shut up, slobber. Your "Divine" said no.

How sorry Fock was that Constantine, obsessed with imperial prestige, did not give up some relative for this barbarian ten years ago! But what's the point - it's a thing of the past. According to baptized Russians serving in the troops of the Roman Empire, the young prince does not tolerate Christians. It seems that some story came out there with Christian mercenaries from Slavic Germany and his father ... and even Konstantin, this Konstantin!

Ibn Haukal writes that the Rus in the Khaganate attacked synagogues, mosques and churches with particular ferocity. It is unlikely that the latter passed by the ears of the new Caesar. However, there was enough food for thought without this. The same Ibn Haukal reports that after the ruin of the Khazars, the Rus immediately attacked "Rum and Anatolus". If the confused Arab did not again confuse the eastern campaign of our hero with the Balkan one, this may mean that some leaders from the army of Svyatoslav, after the defeat of Khazaria, went "for zipuns" to the Asia Minor province of Anatolia. Another Arab, Yahya of Antioch, says that Russia and the empire were already at war by this time.

However, not even specific attacks on the northern shores of Byzantium or the Crimean provinces were important. The very attitude of Svyatoslav towards Christianity, known in Constantinople from the adherents of his deposed mother who had fled there, in the eyes of the fanatical Christian Phocas made him an enemy. So - the enemy, a new, strong, young, very talented commander, and probably insanely popular. What is the popularity of the commander who won the war, Fock, who flew to the throne on the wave of this popularity, also understood well.

That is, organizing a conspiracy will not work either. Eh, he would have a few mercenaries ... from Slavic Germany. Like his father. So it doesn't hold! No mercenaries, no Christians! No. It is pointless to regret what is not.

How the commander Foke lacked information about the enemy now! In the old way, according to the precepts of the Born in Purple, nothing can be done about it. The Khazars are no more, and the Pachinaks, as the Romans called the Pechenegs, are rumored to have sacked the Khazar cities together with the Rus, and now they just don’t make bloody sacrifices to the “big leader from the north.”

Surely the pious Foka repeated prayers for a long time on sleepless nights. He slept, to the great displeasure of his wife, not on a luxurious imperial bed, but on the stone floor of the dressing room, on a camping skating rink. Partly, to pacify the flesh, partly - according to army habit, partly - so as not to succumb to metropolitan luxury. And he begged for a solution.

In the same year, the Bulgarian embassy arrived in Constantinople. According to court tradition, it was supposed to bring gifts to the ambassadors for the Bulgarian royal family. According to the same tradition, these gifts were called "tribute" - in honor of the long-standing victories of Asparuh, Krum and Simeon the Great. Not even a shadow was left of the military power of Bulgaria for a long time, respectively, and the “tribute” took on a completely symbolic character. Tradition, polite gesture...

When the time set by the ritual of the audience for the removal of gifts had long passed, and meanwhile they did not smell, one of the Bulgarian boyars had the imprudence to inquire of the Caesar what had happened to the "tribute". And then it began...

Always more than balanced and cautious Foka threw, you can’t call it another way, a scene. He jumped off the throne, ran into the ambassadors, whipped them on the cheeks, knocked someone down, and while the ambassadors and the courtiers, stunned by such “diplomacy”, came to their senses, he turned to his father, the patrician Varda Foke, who was present, with a theatrical speech.

“Did you really give birth to me as a slave and hide it from me? Will I, the autocratic sovereign of the Romans, submit to a poor, dirty and in all other respects low tribe and pay tribute? After this tirade, he turned to the ambassadors and said: “Tell your leader, covered with skins and gnawing raw skins: the great and mighty sovereign of the Romans will soon arrive in your country to teach you, three times a slave from birth, to call the Romans your masters, and not demand taxes from them, as from slaves. After that, the boyars, who had not come to their senses, were thrown out of the palace, without being allowed to say that it was strange to hear about a “low in all respects tribe” from brothers in the Orthodox Christian faith; that at the Bulgarian court for the second hundred years they have been dressing and eating according to the latest Tsargrad fashion; that, finally, when pagans like Krum dressed in skins and drinking from skulls really sat on the throne of Bulgaria, Byzantium dutifully paid them a real tribute.

In the acting hysteria of Nicephorus, however, the real attitude of the Romans towards the Slavs, be they Christians or pagans, is clearly traced. It is worth noting that king Bulgarians Nikifor names leader... oh, backfired on his poor fellow toparch " reigning", could not help but go around!

However, buffoonery is buffoonery, but the war, yes with the Byzantine Empire, but with the Victorious (this is how the name of the emperor is translated) Phocas is a completely serious matter. Panic reigned in Bulgaria. The country, torn in two by the strife of the kings and the Western Bulgarian princes-comites, could not resist even the gangs of nomadic Magyars, not to mention the armored cavalry of Byzantium, led by its living legend - the liberator of Crete, the winner of the Saracens Nikephoros.

Meanwhile, the living legend was engaged in a simple and uncomplicated business. Calling to the court a noble young man from Chersonesus, Kalokir, the son of a Chersonesos strategist, he elevated him to the rank of patrician. The newly minted patrician was sent as an ambassador to the Russians, with a proposal to stab Bulgaria in the back, since she is just preparing for a war with Byzantium and does not follow the northern borders. In addition to the request, not a lot was attached, not a little - four and a half centners of gold from the Tsargrad treasury. Nicephorus believed that he was making the barbarian "an offer that could not be refused."

That's what the whole farce was for. The Bulgarians were to be the scapegoat. "Barbarians against barbarians" is an old secret tactic of the Second Rome. Let the young, strong, victorious barbarian get bogged down in the struggle with other barbarians, with the Bulgarians, if he does not love Christians so much! A war with a fraternal people will shake its popularity. At war with Bulgaria, he will have to ally with the Magyars - this will repel the Pechenegs, the natural enemies of the Magyars. Well, it will undermine the forces - after all, it is not easy to get involved in another right after one big war. And Byzantium to get rid of a dangerous enemy. And Bulgaria ... a small price.

Poor Bulgarians. Well, Byzantium repaid them for their salvation from the Rus of Igor in 941. Well, such is the fate of traitors. They are used and destroyed when needed.

However, Nikephoros outwitted himself. Svyatoslav, as we will see, was completely indifferent to gold, he despised any hireling, and from an attempt to hire him himself could only become furious. And the secret policy of the Byzantines had long seemed a secret only to them. It was more and more difficult for the Second Rome to find hunters to carry chestnuts from the fire. And it was completely in vain to look for such simpletons in Kyiv. In a few centuries, this tactic - "barbarians against barbarians" - will destroy the Second Rome. The crusaders called by him against the Saracens will attack Constantinople itself. And they will crush it so that Eastern Rome will never recover again, and a hundred years later it will be easily captured by the Turks.

And Nikifor made the main mistake in choosing the ambassador.

Upon arrival in Kyiv, the young patrician turned to the Grand Duke with a proposal that was very different from what Nicephorus had instructed him to convey. And he said, according to Skylitsa and Leo the Deacon, something like this: “Bulgaria is an excellent springboard for a campaign against Constantinople. To Constantinople, on the throne of which the patrician Kalokir will look no worse than the patrician Phocas.

Historians have long puzzled over this strange story. It was assumed that Kalokir was betrayed by the Macedonian dynasty, removed, in the person of the minor Basil and Constantine, by the "usurper" Phocas. In this regard, they point to a certain Kalokir, sent under Basil II as an ambassador to Otto III, and they say that this is the same Kalokir.

To be honest, it doesn't convince me. Firstly, no one “removed” the kids, and Nicephorus in this situation was more of a regent than a usurper. To be honest, looking back at the fate of the throne of Byzantium in the 10th century, I don’t really understand who is the “legitimate” and who is the “usurper”. I'm not sure that the Romans themselves of the tenth century fully understood this. In any case, Nikephoros, anointed to the throne in Hagia Sophia in accordance with all the rules by Patriarch Polyeuctus, at that moment was the most legitimate, by Byzantine standards, sovereign. Secondly, what is this strange manner of being loyal to the dynasty - to invite the enemy into the country? And it's not just an enemy. A resident of Chersonese, a neighbor of Khazaria, should have had a good idea of ​​what the appearance of Svyatoslav's army was for a hostile country. His neighbor and contemporary toparch, in any case, understood this very well. No matter how well-intentioned the Byzantine was, inviting such guests to the empire, he was like a madman setting fire to the city to heat the water for washing. The third objection: it was easier to eliminate Foka by acting inside the palace - they finally eliminated him, and not leading a barbarian army from far away to the impregnable walls of Constantinople.

The second version is put forward by Vadim Kozhinov, who, by hook or by crook, tried to prove that the Byzantines were good friends and allies of the Rus. He claims that Leo the Deacon and Skylitsa in general viciously slandered Kalokir, who was devoted to his sovereign, that he honestly fulfilled the order, and began to incite Svyatoslav to the capital after the murderer of his sovereign and benefactor reigned there. On a purely human level, this is a little more like the truth. But all other considerations are valid. The motive has become clearer, but the means, your will ... well, they didn’t ascend the throne of Byzantium like that - at the head of a foreign army! Not even at the head, in the convoy ... And no one would avenge the murdered sovereign by throwing, say, an atomic bomb on the capital - and the consequences of the entry of the Rus into the City of Tsars would be quite Hiroshima - no one would.

As for Kalokira, the same Leo Deacon speaks of another Kalokira, the patrician Kalokira Delphine, who, having joined the rebellion Fok (the main rebels were unoriginally called Nicephorus and Barda), was captured and impaled. I do not mean that Kalokir Dolphin is the same person as the diplomat who carried out Foka's order in such an original way. I simply show that in the Byzantine Empire there was by no means only one patrician Kalokir. And not two. And probably not three.

And now I will say my version of events. I can’t say that it is very reasonable, rather, again, according to Father Brown: “everything that“ is not evidence ”just convinces me” and “I can’t prove anything, but I see that this is much more important.” It is based on two considerations. First, there must have been forces behind Kalokir. Not on the swords of the Russian squads, he was going to sit out his entire reign. But these were forces completely unrepresented in the capital of the Second Rome, forces that had nothing to do with any of the serpentine ball of parties and groups that hissed and bit under the palace carpets. These were forces that would have found it easier to bring the barbarians into the capital than to play a complex game on the board of mosaic floors in the throne room of Constantinople. Considering what Svyatoslav had recently done with the Khazar cities, these were forces ready to rule over the ruins. Simply put, these were forces that had little to lose. And yet, they were striving to seize power in the capital, even at the cost of its destruction, the capital. Or maybe they were striving for this destruction.

The second consideration: Svyatoslav not only agreed to participate in Kalokir's plan ... by the way, this in itself is puzzling. Intervene in some conspiracies of despicable Romans? To enter into an agreement with the ambassador of the state with which the Russians - remember Ibn Haukal and Yahya of Antioch - were at war? To entangle and entangle your army, your people in some kind of dirty tricks around the damned throne of the thrice-cursed Constantinople? Is this Svyatoslav, with his famous "I'm coming at you!"? It is not clear why Svyatoslav did not simply order to drown the intriguer with his gold in the Dnieper. But this is not enough. Not only did Svyatoslav agree to the plan, where he, it seems, was given the unrespectable role of a mercenary. Leo the Deacon reports that Svyatoslav and Kalokir fraternized. They write that twinning with a barbarian was considered a betrayal among the Romans - as if such things could excite a person who invited an enemy army to his country! It is much more surprising to me that Svyatoslav went for it! Twinning was an extremely responsible step for a Russian warrior. Let's remember our epics. The twin brothers were bound by indestructible ties of mutual support and mutual obedience. The brother became an extension of your "I" - but you also became its extension. As a sign of this, the brothers in epics exchange a “colored dress”, as if dressing up, and in the language of the rite, turning into each other. In a certain sense, they became, as it were, one being. As you can easily guess, not everyone will go for this. And Kalokir - the only one known to us as the brother of Svyatoslav.

I'm going to venture my own guess.

As Andrei Valentinov noted in the wonderful book Spartacus, it is not customary for us to take ancient paganism seriously. The gods of the North still inspire a certain respect, and the Greek ... heroes of cartoons and children's books. Religion is not a game. Not gods - puppets.

For vaccination against such judgments, Arthur Machen's essay "Paganism" or the same "Spartacus" is very good.

And it goes without saying that this "wonderful childhood of mankind" could not resist the onslaught of Christianity for any long time.

Christian literature looks at things even more simply. Idolatry is nothing more than something, the “abomination of desolation” that we often take in vain, in fact, the biblical designation for the pagan gods. Darkness is the absence of light. The transition from paganism to Christianity is the transition from darkness to light in the room where the lamp was lit.

But sources show otherwise. In the lives of Byzantine saints, the theme of the dispute with the pagans remains relevant until the 8th century. In the Balkans themselves, the pagans held out until the end of the 9th century, when the city of Maina with a district in the Peloponnese was captured by the troops of Leo VI the Wise. Thus perished the last center of ancient religion and culture. It should be noted that we are talking here specifically about consistent, conscious, outspoken pagans. Dual faith, the inclusion in the Orthodox cult of the remnants of the ancient faith, lived much longer. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, travelers saw statues of ancient Goddesses in Greek villages with obvious signs of reverence. The village priest (!) answered the questions of foreigners: this is de “Saint Damitra” (in the Orthodox calendar, of course, not marked).

And all this in the heart of Orthodox Byzantium! It is worth noting that the Apostle Paul preached in Greece in the 1st century, and the transformation of Christianity into the state religion and the prohibition of pagan cults occurred in the 4th century.

Crimea is a special place in this respect. Since the time of Alexander the Great, well-organized fias brotherhoods, a kind of pagan churches, have been operating there. The shrines of these brotherhoods and their rites were often secret, and this developed the skills of conspiracy. The worshipers of the Persian God of Light, Mitra, were especially distinguished by their iron discipline. The organization of the Mithraists is explained simply: the majority of the "parishioners" of the Persian God were soldiers and officers of the army of Rome. Mithra was the God of warriors, the God of legions. As for the conspiracy, scientists are still wondering what the teaching of the Mithraists consisted of, and what rituals they had. The cult flourished throughout world power, from Egypt and Syria to Britain and the Rhine, and we know very, very little about it.

Although no Mithraic shrines were found in Chersonesos, but ... near Chersonesos stood legion. Legion - and without the God of the Legions, Mitra the Invincible? By the way, Kalokir's father is a strategist. Representative of the local military know.

I cannot prove that it was so. But to prove what could be, I hope I could.

They had nothing to lose. Their cult was fading away, being passed on within families. Warriors, they died in skirmishes, and someone might not have time to initiate sons, someone might not leave male offspring at all. In the Christian empire, there was nothing to think about recruiting new devotees of Radiant Mitra. The first candidate could become an informer and destroy the Brotherhood. There was no future. There was no hope. There was only the blind loyalty of the soldiers defending the last fortress in the country captured by the enemy. “The gods perished, and nothing remained for Rome but honor and the cold courage of despair,” G. K. Chesterton wrote this about the Punic Wars. But this is also about them, about the last fragments of Rome under the feet of the triumphant new Carthage, which treacherously stole speech, proud imperial symbols, the very name of its enemy.

What did they feel when an unexpected dawn flared up in the north? It's not for me to pass this on. Didn't the Invincible himself, the destroyer of falsehood and darkness, come down to earth for them in the guise of a northern barbarian?

Don't know. But I can assume that the father-strategist whispered to his son through the canvas and the tree of ritual masks in the not-found Chersonese mitreum.

BOARD OF PRINCE VLADIMIR. BAPTISM OF RUSSIA

Task 1. Match the statement with the name of the prince to whom it belongs.

Answer:

1. Oleg - B)
2. Igor - G)
3. Svyatoslav - A)
4. Vladimir - B)

Task 2. Study the illustrations of the textbook (pp. 52-53) and correlate them with the text of the textbook. You have noticed that the illustrations contain additional information that is not reflected in the text. Specify this information for each illustration. Do you think the information presented in the illustrations always corresponds to historical reality? Justify the answer.

Judging by historical documents, the townspeople did not approve of the overthrow of pagan idols, they were horrified, because they feared the wrath of the gods for such treatment of idols. And the picture shows that the townspeople themselves overthrow the idol of Perun and this is done by almost children, which in fact could not be.

The Kievans took off their shoes and entered the river, and did not undress completely, as shown in the picture. Those who hesitated were driven into the water by combatants, and they are not visible at all in the picture, like Prince Vladimir and Princess Anna, who stood on the carpet and looked at the rite of baptism.

Task 3. Fill in the gaps in the scheme "Reasons for the adoption of Christianity by Russia."

Task 4. Fill in the table "The significance of the adoption of Christianity for Russia."

Significance of the adoption of Christianity for Russia

Task 5. Calculate how many years have passed from the adoption of Christianity by Princess Olga to the Baptism of Russia.

From the time of the adoption of Christianity by Princess Olga to the Baptism of Russia, 33 years have passed.

Task 6. Read an excerpt from the work of the Russian historian S.M. Solovyov and answer the question.

The main feature of Vladimir's activity is the defense of the Russian land, in the constant struggle against the steppe barbarians. Svyatoslav deserved a reproach that for a foreign land he left his own, which the barbarians almost took possession of. Vladimir, on the contrary, was always on the alert against these barbarians and set up a guard line from a number of towns or fortifications along rivers close to the steppe ...

Do you agree with S.M. Solovyov's assessment of the military activities of Prince Vladimir? Justify your opinion.

Yes, I agree with S.M. Solovyov's assessment of military activity. The creation of several lines of fortifications and fortresses on the southern border and the involvement of the best soldiers to protect the borders of Russia can probably be considered the main military achievement of Prince Vladimir.

Exercise 1. Fill in the table "Activities of the first Russian princes."

Ruler's name	years	Domestic politics	Foreign policy
Oleg	882-912	He founded the ancient Russian state, uniting the northern and southern centers of the east. Slavs (Novgorod and Kyiv), conquered the Drevlyans, northerners, Radimichi, Tivertsy, streets. Fortified the southern border by creating a line of outposts.	As a result of campaigns against Byzantium, he achieved favorable terms of trade for Russian merchants (cancellation of duties, repair of ships, lodging for the night). He freed the northerners and Radimichi from tribute to the Khazars.
Igor	912-945	Conquered the Drevlyans, who seceded from Kyiv after the death of Oleg	Unsuccessful trip to the Caspian. Campaigns against Byzantium: 941 (unsuccessful) and 943, ended with the taking of tribute and the signing of an agreement.
Olga	945-962	She established a system of "graveyards" - centers of trade and tax collection. Established the amount of "polyudya" - taxes in favor of Kyiv, the timing and frequency of their payment - "dues" and "charters". Introduced a division into adm. units and assigned tiuns to them. Start of stone construction.	Embassy to Constantinople, where the princess was baptized according to the Orthodox rite.
Svyatoslav	962-972	Conquered the Vyatichi. The first of the rulers appointed the "prince" to his sons. Reorganized the team.	The Khazar campaign, which ended with the defeat of the Khaganate and the capture of the capital Itil. Conquest of Bulgaria in 969. War with Byzantium 970-971.

Task 2. Match the statement with the name of the prince to whom it belongs.

1	2	3
B	AT	BUT

Task 3. Write the names of the princes to whom famous Russian poets dedicated their poems.

1) Look in formidable beauty,
air regiments,
Their shadows are flying high
Above our tents...
Oh ..., the scourge of ancient years,
Behold your eagle's flight,
"Let's die! The dead have no shame!”
Rattles in front of the squad.
(V. A. Zhukovsky) about Svyatoslav

2) Your name is glorified by victory
Your shield on the gates of Tsaregrad...
(A. S. Pushkin) about Oleg

3) As after, led by a beloved leader,
Fought, walked the squad
Through towns and villages with sword and fire
To the city of Tsar Constantine;
How is the winner nailed to the gate
Your shield, famous in battle,
And how he dressed his squad
Riches of Greek tribute!
(N. M. Yazykov) about Oleg

Task 4. Find evidence in the text of the paragraph that the Old Russian state was not completely unified. Write your answer in the form of short abstracts.

Evidence that the Old Russian state was not completely unified: the existence of specific principalities; weak economic ties between regions; differences in life and customs; lack of a unified monetary system; lack of unified management; different social structure.

Task 5. Conduct your own historical research on the topic "Pechenegs and Rus". Make a universal content plan, according to which you can create an abstract on this topic.

Universal plan for the content of the essay on the topic "Pechenegs and Russia":
a) the origin of the Pechenegs;
b) their appearance in the Black Sea region;
c) features of the economy, life and customs;
d) relations with the ancient Russian state;
e) significance in the history of the ancient Russian state.

The solution contains answers to the questions of the educational edition and is made in an easy-to-read PDF format.