GRAND PRINCESS OLGA: FROM HIGH PRIESTESS TO A WELL-KNOWN ENLIGHTENER OF RUS`

Mikhail N. Kozlov

Mikhail N. Kozlov, DSc in History, Professor, The Sevastopol State University, University St., 33, 299053 Sevastopol, Russia. E-mail: kmn_75@mail.ru

Theory and history of culture

2017

Vol. 43

Pp. 81–95

October 06, 2016

March 15, 2017

009+94(47)

63.3(2)4

The subject of this research are historical events associated with the reign of one of the most vivid personalities of the old Russian history, Princess Olga. The main purpose of this article is a historical reconstruction of the events of 944–945 basing on a chronicle legend about the revenge of the Grand Duchess on Drevlians, as well as a number of Byzantine, West German written sources and folk tales and legends. Paper offers original historical analysis of the chronicle legend of the revenge of Princess Olga on Drevlians. The author touched on such archaic unexplored part of our culture as funerary rites of ancient military elite, pointing at a clear relationship between the old Slavic tradition of sacrifice of widows on the grave of distinguished warriors and the adoption of the Christian faith by Grand Princess.

Princess Olga pagan customs, funeral rites, human sacrifice, the Christian faith, anti-princely insurgencies.

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