In the same places where battles are taking place in Donbass today, Prince Igor was captured by the Polovtsy. It happened in the area of salt lakes near Slavyansk.
Among the Old Russian books, one always aroused mystical horror in me - "The Lay of Igor's Campaign." I read it in early childhood. At eight years old. In Ukrainian translation by Maxim Rylsky. This is a very strong translation, not much inferior to the original: “Having looked at Igor at the sun, that second, the darkness covered him, and said before the warriors:“My brother, my friends! Better for us to chop up bootie, I’m full of arrogance!”. And also this: "O Ruska land, already behind the grave!" (in Old Russian, since it was not the translator who wrote, but the author of the great poem himself, the last phrase reads like this: "O Russian land, you are already behind the shelter!"). “Shelom” is a hill that looks like a helmet, a high grave in the steppe.
What terrified me? Believe it or not: even then I was afraid most of all that “the times of the first strife” would return again and brother against brother would rise. Was this a presentiment of what our generation will face? I grew up in the Soviet Union, one of the strongest states in the world. The feeling of security that Soviet people then had, today's Ukrainian children cannot even imagine. The Chinese Wall in the Far East. Western group of Soviet troops in Germany. Nuclear shield overhead. And the song: “May there always be sunshine! May I always be!"
At school we were taught that Kievan Rus is the cradle of three fraternal peoples. In Moscow, Brezhnev ruled - a native of Dnepropetrovsk. There was no reason to doubt that the peoples were fraternal. The Moscow engineer received the same as the Kiev engineer. Lobanovsky's Dynamo won one USSR championship after another. A homeless person not only on Khreshchatyk (nowhere in Kiev!) Was not found either day or night. And yet I was afraid. I was afraid that this undeserved happiness would go away. Troubles, feudal fragmentation - these words haunted me even then, like a nightmare. I must have had a gift of foreboding.
And when in 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha three new "feudal lords" divided us, as once the princes of smerds, and we only silently listened, and the borders lay between the former fraternal republics, I remembered "The Word about the Regiment …" again. And he constantly recalled in the "gangster 90s", when the new "princes" divided everything around, like Igor's contemporaries. Didn't this sound modern: “Brother began to say to brother:“This is mine! And that is also mine! " And the princes began to say a little "this great", and to forge sedition against themselves, and the rot from all countries came with victories to the land of Rus "? The author of the Lay … defined the whole essence of our troubles 800 years ago, at the end of the 12th century.
After a long oblivion, "The Tale of Igor's Host" was discovered in the 1890s by Count Musin-Pushkin, a former adjutant of Catherine's favorite Grigory Orlov. After retiring, he started collecting old books and in one of the monastery libraries near Yaroslavl came across a manuscript collection. It contained the same mysterious text that is now known to anyone.
The find caused a sensation. The patriots of Russia were jubilant. Finally, we have dug up a masterpiece comparable to the French "Song of Roland". And maybe even better! Young Karamzin placed an enthusiastic note in the Hamburg Observer of the North, which included the following words: "In our archives, an excerpt from a poem called" Song to Igor's Warriors "was found, which can be compared with the best Ossian poems and which was written in the 12th century by an unknown writer" …
TWO-FACE IGOR … Almost immediately, doubts arose about the authenticity of the poem. The manuscript "The Lay of Igor's Regiment" burned down in Moscow in 1812, during the war with Napoleon. All subsequent reprints were made according to the first printed edition of 1800, entitled "Iroic song about the campaign against the Polovtsians of the appanage prince of Novgorod-Seversky Igor Svyatoslavich."It is not surprising that it was the French who later began to assert that the "Word …" is a forgery. Who wants to admit that your fellow countrymen destroyed, like barbarians, a great Slavic masterpiece?
The chivalrous Igor was, however, not as white as the author of "The Lay …" portrays him. He aroused sympathy in Russia when he became a victim - he was captured by the Polovtsy. We always forgive the former sins of the sufferers.
In 1169, according to The Tale of Bygone Years, young Igor Svyatoslavich was among a gang of princes who robbed Kiev. The initiator of the attack was the Suzdal prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. Subsequently, already in the XX century, some of the nationalist Ukrainian historians tried to present this campaign as the first raid of "Muscovites". But in fact, Moscow then was just a small prison that did not decide anything, and in the supposedly "Muscovite" army next to the son of Andrei Bogolyubsky - Mstislav - for some reason Rurik from the "Ukrainian" Ovruch, David Rostislavich from Vyshgorod (this Kiev!) And 19-year-old Chernigov resident Igor with his brothers - the elder Oleg and the youngest - the future "buoy-tour" Vsevolod.
The defeat of Kiev was terrible. According to the Ipatiev Chronicle, they robbed all day, no worse than the Polovtsians: they burned churches, killed Christians, separated women from their husbands and took them prisoner to the crying of crying children:, and the bells were removed by all these people of Smolensk, and Suzdal, and Chernigov, and Oleg's squad … Even the Pechersky monastery was burned … And there was in Kiev among all the people groaning and sorrow, and unabated grief, and incessant tears. In a word, it is also strife and also grief.
And in 1184 Igor "distinguished himself" again. The Grand Duke of Kiev Svyatoslav sent a united Russian army against the Polovtsians. The future hero of the poem with his brother, the inseparable "bui-tour" Vsevolod, also took part in the campaign. But as soon as the allies went deep into the steppe, a discussion broke out between the Pereyaslavl prince Vladimir and our hero about the methods of dividing the loot. Vladimir demanded that he be given a place in the vanguard - the advanced units always get more booty. Igor, who replaced the absent Grand Duke on the campaign, flatly refused. Then Vladimir, spitting on his patriotic duty, turned back and began to plunder Igor's Seversk principality - not to return home without trophies! Igor also did not remain in debt and, forgetting about the Polovtsians, in turn attacked Vladimir's possessions - the Pereyaslavl town of Glebov, which he captured without sparing anyone.
Defeat and flight. Illustrations by the artist I. Selivanov for "The Lay of Igor's Host".
Lake near Slavyansk. On these shores, Igor and his brother Vsevolod fought with the Polovtsy. In the same places where battles are taking place in Donbass today, Prince Igor was captured by the Polovtsy. It happened in the area of salt lakes near Slavyansk
PUNISHMENT FOR THE INTERCOURSE … And the next year happened that same ill-fated campaign, based on which the great poem was created. Only behind the scenes was the fact that the Ipatiev Chronicle contains a work that interprets Igor's failure from a much more realistic standpoint. Historians conditionally called it "The Tale of Igor Svyatoslavich's campaign against the Polovtsi." And the unknown author of it considers the captivity of the Novgorod-Seversky prince as a just punishment for the pillaged Russian city of Glebov.
Unlike "Lay …", where much is given only by a hint, "The Tale of the Campaign …" is a very detailed account. Igor is expressed in it not in pompous calm, but quite prosaically. In "Word …" he broadcasts: "I want to break a spear at the edge of the Polovetsky field with you, Rusichi, I want to either lay down my head, or drink a helmet from the Don!" And in "Tale …" he is simply afraid of human rumor and makes a rash decision to continue the campaign despite the eclipse of the sun, which promises failure: "If we return without struggling, then our shame will be worse than death. Let it, as God willing."
God gave captivity. The author of the Lay … briefly mentions: "Here Prince Igor moved from a gold saddle to a slave saddle." The chronicler in "The Tale …" tells in detail how the leader of the disintegrating Russian army before the eyes of the the flight of an arrow "from his main forces:" And the caught Igor saw his brother Vsevolod, who fought hard, and he asked his soul to die, so as not to see his brother's fall. Vsevolod fought so hard that even weapons in his hand were few, and they fought, going around the lake."
Here, in the words of the chronicler, he finds remorse for the presumptuous adventurer. “And then Igor:“I remembered the sins before my Lord my God, how many murders and bloodsheds I did on the Christian land, just as I did not spare the Christians, but I took the city of Gleb near Pereyaslavl as a shield. Then innocent Christians experienced a lot of evil - they excommunicated fathers from children, brother from brother, friend from friend, wives from husbands, daughters from mothers, girlfriends from girlfriends, and everything was confused by captivity and sorrow. The living envied the dead, and the dead rejoiced like holy martyrs, accepting the trial with fire from this life. The elders were eager to die, the husbands were chopped and cut, and the wives were defiled. And I did it all! I am not worthy of life. And now I see revenge on me!"
Igor's relationship with the Polovtsy was not so simple either. According to one version, he himself was the son of a Polovtsian woman. Be that as it may, the Novgorod-Seversky prince willingly entered into alliances with the steppe inhabitants. And no less often than he fought with them. Exactly five years before being captured by the Polovtsian Khan Konchak, Igor, along with the same Konchak, set off together on a raid on the Smolensk princes. Defeated on the Chertoriy River, they literally ended up in the same boat. Both the Polovtsian khan and the Russian prince, sitting side by side, fled from the battlefield. Allies today. Enemies tomorrow.
And in captivity at Konchak in 1185, the hero of "The Lay of the Regiment …" was by no means poor. He even managed to marry his son Vladimir to the daughter of this khan. Like, what time to waste? The crows pecked out the eyes of the fallen warriors in the steppe, and the prince was already negotiating with the enemy - about the future for himself and his inheritance in Novgorod-Seversky. Probably they were sitting next to Konchak in a yurt, drinking mare's milk, bargaining about the terms of the deal. And when everything was already decided, and the Orthodox priest married the prince and the Polovtsian woman who had converted to Christianity, Igor, taking advantage of the gullibility of the steppe inhabitants, at night, together with the Polovtsian sympathizer Ovlur, who sympathized with him, jumped on their horses, when everyone was asleep, and rushed to Russia: “God shows Igor the way from Polovtsian land to Ruska land … The evening dawn went out. Igor is sleeping. Igor is watching. Igor measures the field from the great Don to the small Donets. Horse Ovlur whistled across the river, ordering the prince to understand … Igor flew like a falcon, Ovlur dripped like a wolf, shaking off the icy dew, tearing his greyhound horses …”.
Whoever had to get up at night in the steppe and walk on the grass shedding dew will appreciate the poetry of this scene. And those who have never spent the night in the steppe will probably want to go to the steppe …
After escaping from captivity, Igor will live for another 18 years and even become a Chernigov prince. Immediately after Igor's death in 1203, his brother - the same "buoy-tour Vsevolod" together with "the whole Polovtsian land", as the Laurentian Chronicle writes, will set off on a campaign against Kiev: "And they took and burned not only Podol, but the Mountain and Metropolitan Saint Sophia was robbed and the Desyatinnaya holy goddess was plundered and monasteries and icons were stripped …”. According to the chronicler, "they have done a great evil in the Russian land, which has not happened since the very baptism over Kiev."
AGAIN LIKE THEN … I do not want to debunk the poetic images created by the author of The Lay of Igor's Host. I just draw your attention to the fact that Igor was a sinner. There was a lot of blood from his fellow tribesmen on his hands. If he had not gone on his last ill-fated campaign to the Steppe, he would have remained in the memory of his descendants as one of the countless feudal robbers. Or rather, I would simply get lost in the pages of the annals. Were there few like him, minor minor princes who spent their whole lives on strife? But the wounds received not only for their own destiny, but for the whole "land of Ruska", a bold escape from captivity, which surprised everyone both in Kiev and in Chernigov, the subsequent quite decent life seemed to atone for the sins of youth. After all, each of us has our last chance and our finest hour.
But even this is not important. Why did I remember Igor's campaign to the Polovtsian land once again? Because the action of the famous poem, which we do not think about, all its famous war scenes, take place in the present Donbass - approximately in the places where the city of Slavyansk is located today. Igor walked into the steppe along the Seversky Donets. He was the Seversky prince - the ruler of the Slavic tribe of the North. The purpose of his campaign was the Don, of which the Donets are a tributary. Somewhere near the salt lakes near present-day Slavyansk, in an area where there is no fresh water, Prince Igor was defeated by the Polovtsy. Most researchers agree precisely on this version of the localization of the place of the chronicle battle - it was between lakes Veisovoy and Repnoy in 1894, when laying a railway through Slavyansk, workers dug out at a shallow depth a lot of human bones and the remains of iron weapons - traces of the famous battle.
All of us to one degree or another are descendants of both the Russians and the Polovtsians. Two-thirds of today's Ukraine is the former Polovtsian land. And only one third - the northern one - belonged to Russia. And here again, in the same places as eight centuries ago, Slavic blood is shed. Strife has come again. Brother kills brother. That cannot but fill my soul with sorrow.
