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- (Translated from Ukrainian)
Names
Igor Rurikovich - in Ukrainian historiography with a patronymic.
Igor I, or Igor I of Kyiv - in Western historiography with the number of the ruler and the name of the principality.
Igor the Old - with the nickname [2].
Biography
Origin
The Tale of Bygone Years calls Igor the son of Rurik I, which is one of the foundations of the Norman theory of the origin of Russia. Although the version of Igor's biography presented in the Tale is considered by most [source) Historians to be an artificial legend after Academician Shakhmatov's research, there is no unanimity on the question of Igor's origin. There are versions that he was the son of Rurik, or one of the voivodes of Oleg, or a descendant of Askold, or just the husband of Olga, who may have been the heiress of the princes - Kiev. Stepping on the prince's table, Prince Igor continued the policy of his predecessor, in which the prince's fleet was assigned almost the main military-diplomatic mission.
Campaigns
Prince Igor's naval campaigns had a wide international resonance, they were written about by his contemporaries - the Byzantine chroniclers Simeon Logotet, Gregory and Liudkrand and the Arab chronicler Masudi. According to their stories, in 941 Prince Igor started a war with Byzantium. The causes of this war remain unknown. The most probable version is that Byzantium again began to restrict Russia in trade and tried to colonize the Black Sea coast of the Ruthenians.
Byzantine campaigns
Igor's expeditions to Constantinople (Constantinople) in 941 and 944 are well known.
Having planted a wife of 40,000 on 1,000 boats (in other chronicles the unrealistic figure of ten thousand ships is called), the prince left the Dnieper and entered the Bosphorus Strait without hindrance. However, this campaign was unsuccessful, because near Constantinople, the Russian flotilla was burned by Greek fire.
The prince chose a convenient time for the campaign: he knew that the Byzantine fleet and most of the imperial army were at war with the Saracens. However, the Byzantine emperor, warned in advance by the Chersonese strategist about the entry of the Ruthenian fleet into the sea and trained in the experience of previous wars with them, managed to return his fleet to the capital. So, when the boats with the Ruthenian landing entered the Bosphorus, the Byzantine fleet under the command of the patrician Theophanes blocked their further path. Greek branders were armed with "Greek fire", which the Ruthenians did not have. And this gave the Greeks a great advantage in battle. But Prince Igor accepted the battle. In the Bosphorus or on the approach to it, a great naval battle took place, in which the Greeks defeated the prince's fleet.
Retreating to the sea, Prince Igor returned his fleet to the shores of Asia Minor and began to ravage the shores of Bithynia and Paphlagonia. While the prince's landing troops ruled there, the Byzantine emperor gathered all his land and naval forces there. Macedonian cavalry defeated the Ruthenian landing detachments, and Theophanes' flotilla blocked the prince's fleet from the sea. In September, there was a repeat naval battle between the two fleets, in which the prince's fleet was again defeated. The Greeks burned many princely boats with their "clear fire" (a combustible mixture resembling napalm and not extinguished by water). At night, Prince Igor managed with the remnants of his fleet to break through the blockade and headed for the Kerch Strait. Throughout the transition to Korchev (Kerch), the Ruthenians fought back from the persecution of the Byzantine fleet and lost many more of their boats and soldiers in battle.
Captive Ruthenians were brought by the Greeks to Constantinople, where, according to eyewitness chroniclers, they were beheaded.
In 944, an agreement was reached between Kyiv and Constantinople and an alliance and trade agreement was concluded, but with greater restrictions for Russia than was stipulated under Oleg. Russia undertook to help the emperor with troops and no longer claim Byzantine possessions in the Crimea.
Caucasian campaigns
But the failure of the campaign in Constantinople did not stop the hostilities of Prince Igor. In September 943 he made a large expedition to the Caspian Sea. The allies of the Ruthenians were the Alans (Circassians) and the Lezgins. As the Azerbaijani poet Nizami described, the Ruthenians, having reached the shore of Derbent, loaded on a ship and entered the mouth of the Kura River from the sea. By river, their flotilla reached the middle of Albania (the territory of present-day Karabakh).
After defeating the Muslim troops, Prince Igor occupied the capital of Karabakh - a large and rich city of Berdaa and placed his pond there. In a short time, he actually conquered the whole country. Six months later, an epidemic of dysentery in the army, probably caused by excessive consumption of subtropical fruits, forced him to return to Russia. With rich booty, Russia, according to the chronicle, "swam back, and no one dared to cross its path."
The second expedition to Byzantium, in which, in addition to the plains, detachments of Varangian mercenaries, Pechenegs, Slovenes, Krivichi, Tiverts, etc. took part, ended with a more favorable agreement with Byzantium, which greatly expanded the Rus' trade opportunities in Byzantium.
Death
In the last years of Igor's reign he waged war with the Derevlyany. The reason for the dissatisfaction of the people of Derevnya with the prince's power was the great polyudya (tribute), which Igor collected from them with the help of the Vikings.
When the month of November comes, - says Constantine VII Crimson, - the princes with all of Russia leave Kiev in the land of the subject Slavs to the people. They stay there all winter and return in April and then equip boats for the road to Byzantium.
Such "polyudya" was very sensitive for the local population. Not only did they have to pay a heavy tribute — furs, hides, honey, wax, or whatever Kyiv was waiting for — but they also had to keep the army all winter, which probably did not behave calmly. Therefore, the Slavic tribes have repeatedly opposed these heavy responsibilities.
The tribute in the Derevlya land was immediately ceded by Igor to his voivode Sveneld. The country was rich and the voivode had large incomes from it. But then Igor's wife began to complain that she was not living so well: "Sveneld's soldiers dressed in weapons and clothes, and we are naked! Come, prince, with us for a tribute, and you will get, and we ». Igor decided to increase the tribute to Derevlyany and went with his wife to Derevlyany land. The usual "torture" began - Igor's soldiers took what they wanted by force.
When they returned, Igor changed his mind and said to his wife: "Go home with a tribute, and I'll come back and come again." I thought to collect even more for myself. When the people of Derevnya learned that he was returning, they said: “If a wolf is among the sheep, it will carry away the whole flock until it is killed. So it will be with us, if we don't kill him, he will destroy us. " And they ambushed and killed Igor and his comrades near the town of Iskorosten. Byzantine chronicler of the second half of the X century. Leo the Deacon painted a more detailed picture of the massacre of Igor. He reported that he was tied to the trunks of two bent trees, released, and the trees tore his body in two. There are, in fact, legends about it. The chronicle gives the death of Igor in 945.
Family
Father: Rurik ( -879), ancestor, prince of Ladoga
Mother: unknown
Wife: Olga (902-969), marriage 913
Sviatoslav ( —972), Grand Duke of Kyiv (945—972)
Volodislav ( —971) [3]
Predslava [4]
Igor could also have had many other daughters who were married before 944. There may have been other sons who died during their father's lifetime.
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