Around that time a Rus' leader was impelled by the Byzantine government 'with great presents' to seize the Khazar fortress guarding the Straits of Kerch. Subsequently the Rus' were dislodged and their leader, named by our Khazar source as 'H-l-g-w', was overpowered and obliged to attack Byzantium. Reluctantly he complied and the Rus' expedition lasted four months, but the Byzantines were 'victorious by virtue of Fire'.[11] The latter details concur with our data for the well-attested Rus' attack on Constantinople of 941, the one serious mismatch being that its leader was Igor'. But the name H-l-g-w could well register the Nordic 'Helgi', and the earliest extant precursor of the Primary Chronicle actually names Igor' and Oleg (the Slavic form of Helgi) as jointly organising a raid against Byzantium.[12] The slight discrepancies in our sources could well reflect a joint arrangement, reminiscent of the dual ruler- ship mooted by Ibn Fadlan and the chronicle itself. The debacle recounted by our Khazar source also implies the precariousness of the Rus' hold on the middle Dnieper, while the importance of privileged access to Byzantine markets would be demonstrated a few years later. Igor' apparently lacked the wherewithal to satisfy his retainers and was put to death while trying to raise additional tribute from the Derevlians. Their prince sought the hand of Igor' 's widow, Ol'ga, albeit unsuccessfully. By this time, however, a new treaty had been negotiated with the Byzantines and commerce resumed. Princess Ol'ga, acting as regent, took measures to regularise the payment of tribute and set up hunting lodges where birds - probably of prey - could be caught for shipping to Byzantium together with furs, wax, honey and slaves. Ol'ga herself sailed to Constantinople, partly to confirm or improve the terms of the foresaid treaty. She was received at court 'with princesses who were her own relatives and her ladies-in-waiting' as well as 'emissaries of the princes of Rhosia and traders'.[13] During her stay Ol'ga was baptised and took the Christian name of the emperor's wife, Helena. However, no bishop accompanied Ol'ga-Helena back to Rus', and by autumn 959 she was asking Otto of Saxony for a full religious mission. Eventually a bishop, Adalbert, was sent but he soon returned together with his followers, describing the venture as futile.[14]
Evaluation of these events is difficult. Even the date of Ol'ga's visit to the emperor is controversial. The year 946 is one possibility but the main alternative, 957, has its merits, not least in more or less reconciling chronological pointers in the Rus' and Byzantine sources. What is certain is that Ol'ga made her journey against a background of economic boom and competent organisation. Constantine VII himself describes the marshalling of convoys at Kiev every spring. Slaves, together with the tribute collected over the winter by 'their princes (archontes) with all the Rhos', were loaded aboard for a voyage tailed by opportunistic nomads: if a boat was wrecked in the Black Sea, 'they all put in to land, in order to present a united front against the Pechenegs'.[15]The underlying stability of the princely regime is suggested by its survival through major setbacks and challenges in the 940s, although this owed something to Ol'ga's personality. A concentration of wealth and weaponry in the middle Dnieper region is also suggested by the finds of chamber graves at Kiev and Shestovitsa. Their occupants were equipped for the next world with arms and riding gear - sometimes horses or slave girls, too - while their dealings in trade are signalled by the weights and balances accompanying them (see Plate 1). Most were probably the retainers of the princes and other leading notables. The number of chamber graves on the middle Dnieper is not vast, but this tallies with Constantine VII's indication that Rus' military manpower was finite, further grounds for self-discipline.
The risks did not throttle trading along the waterway to Byzantium, and its range and vigour are registered at the site of modern Smolensk's precursor. Now called Gnezdovo, this was located near the outflow into the Dnieper of a river accessible via portages from many northern waterways, including the Western Dvina and Lovat. Its raison d'etre was as emporium and service station for boats hauled over lengthy portages and in need of repair or replacement. From the mid-tenth century the settled area expanded drastically to cover approximately 15 hectares by the century's end and it is from this period that the largest, most lavishly furnished, barrows date. Ten or so contain traces of boat-burnings and while finds of a few iron rivets need not denote the burning of entire boats, their symbolic value is none the less eloquent - of Scandinavian-style funerary rites and the status attaching to trade and boats. Pairs of tortoiseshell brooches attest the burial of well-to-do Scandinavian women and some chamber graves contain Byzantine silks, the single most valuable luxury obtained from 'the Greeks'. Many persons were drawn to Gnezdovo, whether to drag boats or make a living in smithies and other workshops. A pot with a Slavic graffito from the first half of the tenth century denotes, probably, a literate Slav resident. Comparable expansion was under way at Gorodishche, whose overspill began to take up the nearby site of Novgorod. The influx of Muslim dirhams, which had so long driven its economic growth, continued but Western markets were also involved in the networks of exchange. Silks of probable Byzantine manufacture played some part, as witness finds in the burial ground at Birka and, occasionally, still further west, in Scandinavian-dominated parts of the British Isles where dirhams of the later ninth and earlier tenth centuries have also come to light.
The pattern of finds of luxury goods is loosely congruent with that of chamber graves. Chamber graves have been excavated at Birka, Hedeby and elsewhere in Denmark, a kind of 'social register' of the well-to-do. Their occupants had not necessarily belonged to ruling elites, and war-bands could cause serious disorder, especially when legitimate authority was in dispute. However, the direct involvement of many retainers in trading gave them an underlying interest in stability. The distribution pattern of the chamber graves in Rus' charts princely strongpoints and the most regulated trading nodes from the end of the ninth century onwards: from Staraia Ladoga, Gorodishche and Pskov down to Gnezdovo and the middle Dnieper, with a cluster at Timerevo on the upper Volga. Membership of war-bands and trading companies was not closed to talent, and costumes, riding gear and ornament designs were adopted from both host populations and more exotic cultures. But their breeding- and, frequently, homing-ground was the Scandinavian world, long-range travel being a mark of membership.
Christianising impulses reached the Rus' in several ways - from individual warriors and traders frequenting Swedish and Danish kingly courts and emporia; from those who journeyed to Byzantium and back; and through missionary efforts by Byzantine emperors and churchmen. These impulses can hardly have failed to affect the sacral aspects of rulership, whatever its precise complexion at that time, and by 946 baptised Rus' were being paraded at receptions in the Great Palace. Whether to impress her Christian notables or out of personal belief, Ol'ga proceeded to associate herself sacramentally with the ruling family in Byzantium. The Byzantines' apparent reluctance to send a mission is understandable in light of Bishop Adalbert's experiences. After his mission was abandoned, several members were killed and Adalbert claimed that he had only narrowly escaped himself. Ol'ga maintained a priest in her entourage until she died in 969 and the presence of other priests and a church in Kiev would not be surprising, given that a number of leading Rus' were Christian. Yet powerful Rus' were opposed to Christianisation. Their stance is epitomised by the Primary Chronicle's tale of Ol'ga's attempts to convert her son, Sviatoslav. He responded: 'My retainers will laugh at this.'20 This image of Sviatoslav as swashbuckler, consciously reacting against his mother's new-found eirenic disposition, accords with an eyewitness description. Sviatoslav's head was shorn save for one long strand of hair, a mark of nobility among Turkic peoples. Members of the Rus' elite were no strangers to artefacts evoking myths and customs of steppe dwellers. The mounting on a drinking-horn depicts a scene of men and predators in combat which may evoke Khazar concepts of sacral kingship. The horn, one of a pair, was buried in the barrow of a Chernigov magnate in the 960s, as was a statuette of Thor.
11
N. Golb and O. Pritsak,
12
13
Constantine VII,
14
Adalbert,