From his horse. Prince Oleg died from a snake bite

For modern equestrians, a horse is, first of all, a beloved pet, a faithful comrade or partner in the sports arena. However, over the entire centuries-old history of the relationship between man and horse, our four-legged companions have directly or indirectly sent many people to the next world, among whom were very famous personalities. Horses don't want to kill riders and almost never do it on purpose, but facts remain facts. We bring to your attention ten great people who died from their equids

in the distant Middle Ages.

Oleg, Grand Duke Kyiv

The leader in our top ten is, of course, the famous Prophetic Oleg. This is the only character presented who did not die as a result of falling from a horse.

According to legend, the wise men predicted the death of the son of Rurik and the first prince of Kyiv from his beloved horse. Oleg listened to the advice and sent the horse away, declaring: “So I will never sit on this horse and see it.” Oleg ordered the horse to be fed with selected grain, groomed and cherished, but not allowed to come near him. Four years later, the prince returned to Kyiv after the Greek campaign and decided to find out about the fate of his favorite. He called the groom and asked: “Where is the horse that I set to feed and take care of?” The groom replied: “He’s dead.” Oleg laughed at the prediction and decided to see the bones in person. When the prince arrived at the place where the bare horse bones and skull lay, he got off his horse and stepped on the skull with his foot, saying with a laugh: “Should I die from this skull?” But then a snake crawled out of the skull and bit Oleg in the leg, causing him to get sick and die. In the Tale of Bygone Years, the chronicler wrote: “All the people mourned him with great lamentation, and they carried him and buried him on a mountain called Shchekovitsa. His grave exists to this day; it is known as Olegova’s grave. And all the years of his reign were thirty and three.”

Genghis Khan

One of the most brutal conquerors in the history of mankind - Genghis Khan - according to legend, was born “clutching a clot of dried blood in his right hand.” He conquered China and Tibet, states Central Asia, reached the Caucasus and of Eastern Europe. Perhaps the Mongol ruler would have subjugated the whole world if not for the horse. There are several versions of the death of Genghis Khan. According to one of them, one day while hunting he fell from his horse and was seriously hurt. By evening, the emperor began to have a strong fever, he was ill for a whole year and, as stated in the Mongolian chronicle, “ascended to heaven in the year of the Pig” on August 25, 1227.

Frederick I Barbarossa

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, nicknamed Barbarossa ("redbeard") because of his red beard, withstood numerous enemies, but fell victim to an accident. In 1187, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was again captured by Muslims, and almost all European monarchs responded to the call of Pope Clement III to start another crusade. The English, French and Normans, led by Richard the Lionheart and Philip II, went to Palestine by sea, and Barbarossa and his army set out by land. Further, the opinions of historians differ: according to one version, while crossing the mountain river Selif, the emperor’s horse stumbled, he fell into the water and, dressed in heavy armor, choked before the knights could pull him out. According to another version, Barbarossa wanted to avoid climbing to the top of the mountain because it was unusually hot, so he tried to take a shortcut across the river. The horse threw the commander, he fell into the water, but died due to a heart attack from severe hypothermia. So, thanks to the horse, Palestine remained unconquered that time.

William I the Conqueror

The Duke of Normandy and later the King of England, William the Conqueror, founded a unified Kingdom of England, created an army and navy, conducted the first land census, began building stone fortresses (including the famous Tower) and “Frenchized” English language. Ironically, it was not numerous wars that brought death to the king, but his own horse. When William arrived in Normandy at the end of 1086, after a siege, he ordered the burning of the city of Mantes. Driving through the fire, the royal horse stepped on hot coals, overturned and wounded William in the stomach (the horn of the saddle damaged the abdominal cavity). Over the next six months, the conqueror slowly died, suffering from severe pain caused by the suppuration of the wound. As a result, the king died at the age of 60 in the monastery of Saint-Gervais.

Geoffrey II Plantagenet

Geoffrey II Plantagenet was proclaimed Duke of Brittany, which his father had conquered. Geoffrey would have been heir to the English throne in the reign of Henry II if Richard the Lionheart had died, but since Geoffrey died before Henry II, the throne passed to Richard. The Duke wrote poetry, patronized the troubadours at his court in Rennes and, like all knights, loved tournaments. It was they who killed him: according to the most common version, Geoffrey died at a knightly tournament in Paris under the hooves of his horse on August 19, 1186.

Alexander III, King of Scotland

Alexander III became King of Scotland at the age of eight. As befits all monarchs, he waged wars and made marriages, but most of all he was worried about the question of succession to the throne. Alexander's first wife died after giving birth to three children, but they all died. Then the king married again, but his dreams of an heir were still not destined to come true. During a night journey to his queen, Alexander became separated from his guides, in the darkness his horse stumbled, and the 44-year-old king died, falling onto sharp rocks. Since Alexander never left any heirs, John Balliol became king of Scotland, recognizing the sovereignty of England, which was the cause of the three hundred year war for Scottish independence. Thus, if not for this accident and the king would have remained alive, everything could have turned out completely differently.

Isabella of Aragon

The nineteenth Queen of France, Isabella of Aragon, was the fourth daughter of King Jaime I of Aragon and his second wife Yolande of Hungary. On May 28, 1262, Isabella married Philip, the heir to the French throne, and subsequently bore him four sons. Being a brave woman, she dared to accompany her husband on the Eighth Crusade to Tunisia, despite the fact that she was expecting a child. On the way back, Isabella had an unfortunate fall from her horse, which caused premature birth and the death of the royal couple's fifth son. Seventeen days after this, Isabella herself died. Philip transported the remains of his wife and child to Paris, where they were buried with full honors in the Abbey of Saint-Denis.

King Roderic

Roderic, the Visigoth king who reigned from 709-711, fought both the Basques and the Arabs, but the decisive battle was the Battle of Guadalete. The armies of the king and the Arab commander Tariq, who was trying to take possession of Spain, met on the banks of the Guadalete River near Jerez de la Frontera. According to legend, the battle lasted eight days. Roderich was retreating and drowned, falling from his horse while fleeing the battlefield while crossing a river. The Muslims found only his white horse with a brocade saddle decorated with rubies and emeralds, which got stuck in a quagmire. A boot was found in the stirrup, but the body of the king himself was never found. With the death of Roderic, the organized resistance of the Visigoths was broken, and the Moors established control over most of the Iberian Peninsula.

King Fulk of Jerusalem also did not escape the sad fate of being thrown over by a horse. In 1143, the king and his wife were on vacation on the shore Mediterranean Sea and went hunting. While chasing the beast, the king's horse stumbled, fell, and the wooden saddle hit Fulk on the head. A contemporary describes this episode as follows: “And his brains poured out of his ears and nostrils.” Fulk, however, did not die immediately, lying unconscious for three days. The king was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Some impressionable individuals, after reading this collection, may think twice before getting into the saddle. However, do not be afraid - for the early Middle Ages, horseback riding was commonplace, but medicine and safety precautions were clearly “lame”. Nevertheless, these unknown horses played a significant role in history, changing the fate of entire states. Who knows what the world would be like now if one fine day one of the monarchs refrained from getting into the saddle.

the prince who accepted death from his horse

Old Russian prince

Old Russian prince, who was nicknamed prophetic

And Tabakov and Efremov

Each of these actors: Tabakov, Efremov, Dal

Male name: (Old Norse) holy, bright, clear

One of the Kyiv princes

Lermontov's poem

The role of R. Plyatt in the television film by T. Lioznova

Russian prince who called Kyiv “the mother of Russian cities”

Prophetic “Avenger of the Khazars”

Who killed the ancient Russian princes Askold and Dir?

Kiev prince who made a successful campaign against Byzantium

The name of the football player is Blokhin

His name means "holy"

Actor name Strizhenov

Actor name Basilashvili

Clown name Popova

Actor name Anofriev

Actor name Tabakov

Actor name Menshikov

The name of the singer Gazmanov

Actor name Yankovsky

. "prophetic" prince

Male name

Old Russian "prophetic" prince

Gazmanov

Anofriev

Clown Popov

Tabakov

Strizhenov

Football player Blokhin

Basilashvili

Deripaska

Efremov or Dahl

Yankovsky

Menshikov

Death by horse

Actors Tabakov and Dal (name)

Tabakov Sr. and Basilashvili (name)

Efremov and Anofriev (name)

Dahl, Strizhenov

Prince of Kyiv

Kyiv prince named Tabakov

About whom, about the prophetic, was the song?

Blokhin, Efremov

. “how the Prophetic One is now gathering...”

The prince who took revenge on the foolish Khazars

Who killed Askold and Dir?

Dal or Basilashvili

Poem by M. Lermontov

Avenger of the foolish Khazars

Actor Yankovsky

Singer Mityaev

Football player Protasov

Football player Salenko

Male equivalent of the name Olga

Famous Old Russian prince

A good name for a prophetic prince

Russian male name

Actor Menshikov

Svyatoslavovich, Prince of Volyn (1073-1078), Tmutarakan (from 1083), Chernigov (1094, 1097), Novgorod-Seversky (1097-1115)

Rurik's successor

Actor Tabakov

Actor Basilashvili

Svyatoslavovich - Prince of Drevlyansky, son of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Igorevich

Singer Gazmanov

Actor Dahl

Dahl, Strizhenov (name)

Said goodbye to the horse at Vasnetsov's

Annexed Kyiv to Novgorod

Male name (scand. saint, bright)

Old Russian prince (9th-10th century)

Poem by M. Lermontov

The death of Prophetic Oleg from a snake bite was reported by the first Russian chroniclers: this is stated in the Tale of Bygone Years, as well as in the First Novgorod Chronicle. According to legend, the Magi predicted the prince's death from his own horse. Oleg parted with the animal, and when the horse died, he remembered the prediction and, laughing at the wise men, ordered the remains to be shown to him. Seeing the bones of the horse, Oleg put his foot on its skull when she crawled out poisonous snake and mortally stung the prince.

a little about the prince

Oleg - Novgorod, and later the Kiev prince - brother of the wife of Rurik (the first Novgorod prince - the ancestor of the princes who later became royal dynasty Rurikovich). After the death of Rurik, he began to reign in Novgorod as the guardian of Rurik’s young son Igor (later the Prince of Kyiv). He received the nickname “Prophetic” for his unique ability to foresee the future.

sneaky horse

Narrow-minded people on the Internet call Oleg’s horse the most vile horse in history, but in my opinion, Oleg himself committed vileness towards his horse, for which he paid with his life.

A war horse, loyal to its owner, accustomed to risking its life on the battlefield, having saved its owner’s life more than once, accustomed to enduring all hardships and hardships with its owner, suddenly found itself out of work.

Elite food, a comfortable existence, wasting time - all this is not for him. The horse simply became melancholy and slowly died away from melancholy.

what was the horse's name

Now it is impossible to establish for certain the name of the horse, but from some not entirely reliable sources, or rather speculation, it is known that Oleg’s horse was called Faksi, which means Mane.

The end of Oleg's reign

The end of Oleg’s reign is described in the famous chronicle story dated 912: “And Oleg lived in peace with all countries, the prince in Kyiv. And autumn arrived, and Oleg remembered his horse, which he had once set out to feed, having decided never to mount it. After all, one day he asked the wise men and wizards: “What will I die from?” And one magician said to him: “Prince! You have a favorite horse that you ride, and you will die from it.” These words sunk into Oleg’s soul, and he said: “I will never sit on him and see him again.” And he ordered that he be fed and not taken to him, and so he lived for several years without seeing him, until he went against the Greeks. And after his return to Kiev (according to the chronicle in 907 - S. Ts.), four more years passed, and the fifth summer began, when he remembered his horse, and called the senior groom, and said: “Where is my horse, whom I ordered to feed and take care? He answered him: “He died.” Oleg grinned and reproached that magician: “The magicians speak lies, but all their words are lies: my horse is dead, but I am alive.” And he ordered the horse to be saddled: “Let me see his bones.” And he came to the place where his bare bones and bare skull lay, and got off his horse, and laughed, saying: “Should I die from this skull?” And he stepped on the skull; and a snake crawled out of his skull and bit him on the leg. And from this he fell ill and died. And all the people cried with a great cry, and they carried him and buried him on a mountain called Shchekovitsa; There is his grave to this day, it is known as Oleg’s grave.”

"Song about the prophetic Oleg"

(excerpt from the work)

The prince quietly stepped on the horse's skull

And he said: “Sleep, lonely friend!

“The Song of the Prophetic Oleg” was written by A.S. Pushkin in 1822. The plot was based on a chronicle story from the “Tale of Bygone Years,” given by N.M. Karamzin in Chapter V of Volume I of “History of the Russian State.” At this time, in addition to the historian N.M. Karamzin, Russian prose writers and poets paid great attention to the past of Russia. A.A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky writes historical stories, one of the thoughts of K.F. Ryleev is called “Prophetic Oleg”. In the context of interest in “the legends of deep antiquity,” one can explain the appearance of “Songs about the prophetic Oleg” in the work of A.S. Pushkin. However, from my point of view, there is another, perhaps more significant, reason for its creation.

The poet arrived in his first exile, in Chisinau, on September 21, 1820. The governor of the region was General I.N. Inzov, known for his sympathy for the Freemasons and personal participation in their meetings. At this time, the Masonic lodge “Ovid” operated semi-legally in Chisinau. On May 6, 1821, A.S. Pushkin was admitted to this lodge. But at the end of 1821, the Ovid lodge was banned by Alexander I - the first among all, since the Tsar became aware of the intentions of the future Decembrists to overthrow the autocracy. All Masonic lodges were prohibited by the Sovereign Rescript of August 1, 1822. It was in this interval, between the first prohibition of the Masonic lodge “Ovid” and the rescript of August 1, 1822, that “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg” appeared.

The theme of the tragic fate of the pagan prince did not in any way overlap with the current secular and passionate personal life of the poet, his spiritual quest in the mainstream of romanticism. The imagination of the singer of “heartfelt thoughts” was more excited by the theme of a captive, wanderer, exile, and the fate of the exiled poet Ovid was perceived by him as something deeply personal:

Ovid, I live near quiet shores,
Which exiled fatherly gods
You once brought and left your ashes.

And almost at the same time, from the depths of pagan Rus', the mighty image of the prophetic Oleg appears:

How the prophetic Oleg is getting ready now
Take revenge on the foolish Khazars,

He doomed him to swords and fires.

If it were not for this textbook poem by A.S. Pushkin, studied by many generations of students in the literature program in the fifth grade, we would not have known anything about some Khazars, because exactly two lines were written about them in history textbooks: “He [Svyatoslav] defeated the Khazar Kaganate and subjugated the Yas (Ossetians) and Kasogs (Circassians) tribes in the North Caucasus and the Kuban region.” All. What is the Khazar Kaganate? Not a word about this.

The “Khazar theme” was under an unspoken ban among Soviet historians. M.A. Artamonov’s book “History of Khazaria,” where for the first time it is shown as one of the “superpowers” ​​of Eastern Europe in the 9th-10th centuries, has not been published for more than 10 years.

It is also surprising that in pre-revolutionary popular studies on the history of Ancient Rus' there is either no mention of the Khazars at all, or they are mentioned in passing, or a distorted assessment is given: “The Khazar yoke was not heavy for the Slavs.” Then why were Oleg’s campaigns and Svyatoslav’s feat necessary? Historians are silent about this. And N.M. Karamzin himself mentions the defeat of the Khazar Kaganate in passing, but this event changed the course of Russian history: “Ancient Rus' seized hegemony from the Khazar Kaganate in the 10th century. Consequently, until the 10th century, hegemony belonged to the Khazars."

Why do we know so little about Khazaria? And not only us. Western researchers, in particular, Benjamin Friedman, in his work “The Truth about the Khazars,” expresses sincere surprise that “some mysterious, mystical force turned out to be able, throughout the lives of countless generations and throughout the world, to prevent the history of the Khazars and the Khazar Kaganate found its way into history textbooks and school curricula on this subject.”

But A.S. Pushkin probably knew this material, because he immediately included the Khazar theme in the fate of his hero and gave, at first glance, a strange definition of the Khazars, which seems to be “taken out” of the context, from the epic-epic style of narration in the spirit of Russian storytellers. Indeed, why are the Khazars called “unreasonable”? After all, they were enemies of the Slavs, they committed “violent raids.” Is it really So talking about enemies? Why didn’t A.S. Pushkin write, for example: “Take revenge on the restless Khazars, treacherous, hated”? This would probably be no less correct! But nothing “wrong,” let alone accidental, happens with geniuses.

The poet wrote exactly this way to convey to us not only the deep meaning of Oleg’s fate, but also the tragic meaning of Russian history.

So, three questions in the text of this work will interest us:

1. Why does A.S. Pushkin call the Khazars “unreasonable”?
2. What do the symbols “horse” and “snake” mean for understanding the meaning of Oleg’s fate?
3. What does the poet want to convey to us with the “Khazar theme”?

Let us turn to history and set ourselves the goal of understanding the special intended meaning of such a historical phenomenon as Khazaria. This is also important because, as the famous Russian philosopher-futurologist A.S. Panarin rightly noted, “since the emergence of the great world religions world history includes mystical component as a hidden spring and vector» .

The state of Khazaria existed from the middle of the 7th century to the end of the 10th century. The indigenous ethnic group is Turks. The territory of Khazaria included North Caucasus, Azov region, most of Crimea, steppe and forest-steppe from the Lower and Middle Volga to the Dnieper, the northern border passed through the lands of modern Voronezh and Tula regions. The capital of this huge state was the city of Semender, which was located on the territory of modern Dagestan, and from the beginning of the 8th century - Itil. There are two assumptions about the location of Itil: present-day Volgograd (Stalingrad, Tsaritsyn) or Astrakhan. In both cases, the location was very advantageous, as it made it possible to control the movement of cargo and passenger flows along the river in order to collect tribute, which amounted to 10% of all goods transported along the Volga. In addition, the Khazars very often carried out “violent raids” on neighboring Slavic tribes in order to seize property and people, who were enslaved and sold in slave markets. Khazaria contained a powerful multi-tribal hired army. The head of state was the Kagan, later also the Tsar Bek. From the middle of the 8th century, Judaism became the state religion.

An invaluable contribution to the history of Khazaria was made by L.N. Gumilyov, who devoted a lot of research to this topic, and, moreover, considered the history of the Rus, other peoples of the Great Steppe, as well as certain trends in world history in close connection with the problem of the Khazar Kaganate. The outstanding scientist considers this “zigzag of history”, a “chimera state”, which has embodied itself in an “anti-system”, a “hidden component of the world historical process”, to be precisely the problem.

Khazaria became a problem, according to Gumilyov, after the resettlement of Jews there who moved to the Caucasus and the Khazar steppes due to clashes with the Byzantines, Arabs and Persians. Western researcher Arthur Koestler, in his book “The Thirteenth Tribe,” generally believes that the flow of Jewish migration to Europe came largely from Transcaucasia through Poland and Central Europe. The thirteenth Israeli tribe, the tribe of Dan (from which, according to legend, the Antichrist should appear!), he calls that part of the Jews who went to the North through the Caucasus ridge after the fall of Israel in 722 BC, subsequently mixed with the Khazarian Turks and lost your Jewish identity. About how and why the Tribe of Dan ended up at the origins of the Khazar Kaganate, you can read in detail in the book by T.V. Gracheva “Invisible Khazaria” (Ryazan, 2010. pp. 187-189).

The Bible says that “Dan will be a serpent in the way, an adder in the way, biting the horse’s leg, so that his rider falls back. I hope for Your help, Lord!” (Gen. 49: 17-18). According to the heraldry of the tribes of Israel, the symbols of the tribe of Dan are considered to be a serpent and a horse. Among the amulets found in Khazar cemeteries, these two predominate: a snake (in various modifications, including in the form of sixes enclosed in a ring - an image close to what we have in modern Russian passports) and a horse (sometimes also in the ring).

“In the middle of the 8th century, the events that took place throughout the entire Eurasian continent changed the world in a way that no one could have predicted,” with these words Gumilyov begins the story about the birth of Khazaria, an artificial state, as a result of the resettlement of “traveling” Jews there, who immediately “turned around” and took power into their own hands. “The Turkic khans from the Ashina dynasty, due to the religious tolerance and complacency characteristic of the steppe inhabitants, believed that their power was gaining hardworking and intelligent subjects who can be used for diplomatic and economic assignments. Rich Jews presented luxurious gifts to the Khazar khans and beks, and beautiful Jewish women replenished the khan's harems. This is how the Jewish-Khazar chimera arose." In 803, Obadiah, an influential Jew in the Khazar Kaganate, took power into his own hands and turned the khan (khagan) into a puppet, declared Talmudic Judaism the state religion, and he himself became tsar-bek, that is, the real ruler. This is how dual power was born in Khazaria, this is how the chimera was born. Gumilev calls this artificial state a chimera, because the head of another people sits on the body of one people, as a result of which Khazaria has dramatically changed its appearance. “From systemic integrity it has turned into an unnatural combination amorphous mass subjects with the ruling class, alien to the people by blood and religion", into a community of people with a "negative attitude." L.N. Gumilyov states that “negative formations exist due to positive ethnic systems, which they corrode from the inside, like cancerous tumors.”

Judaism, in the apt expression of L.N. Gumilyov, spread in Khazaria “sexually,” that is, through mixed marriages. Moreover, children from such families were considered among the Khazars (where nationality was determined by the father) and among the Jews (if the mother was Jewish). That is, in any case, such a Jew was “suitable” for conducting profitable and large businesses.

What about the rest? Indigenous majority? And in its own country it turned into powerless and amorphous mass. The work of the Khazars was paid minimally, the natives were in awe of the formidable tax collectors, they prayed in the same huts in which they lived, simple Khazars-men, however, were given the right to protect Jewish merchants, the heads of Jewish communities squeezed funds from the Khazars for mercenaries who were supposed to in case of revolts of these Khazars, suppress. Thus, the Khazars themselves paid for their enslavement.

Jews exported from Slavic countries not only wax, furs and horses, but mainly Slavic prisoners of war for sale into slavery, as well as young men, girls and children for debauchery and harems. Trade in castrated Slavic youths and children was practiced. For castration, Jews equipped special institutions in Kaffa (Feodosia).

For some time, the Khazar Jews subjugated the tribes Eastern Slavs, forcing them to pay tribute. In Russian folklore, for example in epics, the memory of Kozarin and Zhidovin, of the struggle with “the king of the Jews and the power of the Jews” has been preserved.

Khazaria, from the point of view of L.N. Gumilev, was not only a state, but also an ethnic chimera, which was formed as a result of the invasion of representatives of one ethnic group into the area of ​​​​residence of another, incompatible with it. This chimera is even more terrible, since in place of a single mentality comes complete chaos of views and ideas, creating cacophony and general perversity. “It (the chimera, the anti-system) draws out passionarity from the ethnic group that hosts it, like a ghoul.” In such unnatural (anti-system) conditions, everything perishes, including culture. In fact, nothing remains of the Khazars, while other mounds still amaze during excavations with their masterpieces. You will not find the “masterpieces” of Khazaria in any museum in the world. Their vessels are devoid of ornament, their structures are primitive, and there are no images of people at all. Why were these steppe dwellers worse than others? Here's what. They, "unreasonable", either out of the kindness of soul, or out of spiritual blindness allowed themselves to be turned into a chimera. From a living people who warmed a snake on their chest (remember the symbolism of the Khazars!) and was poisoned by it, life was gradually leaving, as she left the mighty body of Prince Oleg, who never recovered from the snake bite, “as a result he got sick and died.” A people in whom will, reason and spirit are alive can reproduce culture. Through works of art, he strives to achieve immortality in history. In Khazaria, only rich Jews could be the “customer” of culture. And they didn't need art. Their religion (Talmudic Judaism) fundamentally denied art, the beauty of realism. They did not have their own artists, and if any appeared, they were engaged in drawing symbols and geometric shapes in the texts of Kabbalah (the prototype of abstractionism) or calligraphy, that is, they rewrote the Talmud.

The Khazars' own art in the Khazar Kaganate could not find not only a customer, but also a buyer, because the Khazars were poor. They even stopped erecting grave monuments, they simply laid the dead on mounds, where they were covered with steppe dust...

The common people of the former Khazaria, who did not belong to Judaism, came under the protection of Russia, while the Jewish elite and the trading and usurious class, who bound themselves to the faith of Talmudic Judaism, left these lands and, according to a number of European historians, moved to the western lands of Russia, to Poland , Germany and further, further... These settlers formed a branch of the so-called Eastern Ashkenazi Jews, the thirteenth tribe of Dan, “a hidden component of the world historical process.”

The Khazar kingdom disappeared like smoke. It disappeared into the Polovtsian steppe sea. Nothing remained of it: no ethnic group, no significant cultural monuments, no language, no gravestones, and the capital Itil turned into a ghost town, still inaccessible to archaeologists.

The time has come for the Baptism of Rus'. In The Tale of Bygone Years, the chronicler talks about how Khazar Jews came to Prince Vladimir with an offer to accept their faith - Talmudic Judaism. “And Vladimir asked: “What is your law?” They answered: “Be circumcised, do not eat pork or hare, and keep the Sabbath.” He asked: “Where is your land?” They said: “In Jerusalem.” He asked again: “Is she really there?” And they answered: “God was angry with our fathers and scattered us throughout various countries for our sins, and gave our land to Christians.” Vladimir said to this: “How come you teach others, but you yourself are rejected by God and scattered: if God loved you and your law, then you would not have been scattered across foreign lands. Or do you want the same for us??» .

This episode records the attempt of the Khazar Jews to take over the Kyiv Kagan, just as it happened with the Itilian. Then the Russians would quickly find themselves in the position of the Khazars. But Vladimir showed himself to be a very reasonable, far-sighted ruler, he knew about the recent past of the Khazar Kaganate, doubted the veracity of the words of the Khazar Jews that their land was in Jerusalem: “Is it really there?” - he asked again. Vladimir turned out to be more insightful and smarter gullible, " unreasonable» Turk Ashin and preferred an alliance with the Orthodox Greeks to dubious Khazar promises.

This is how a faith appeared in Rus', which directly pointed to the fighter against God and the enemy of the human race - the devil - and his “children” who had fallen away from the Lord: “Your father is the devil, and you want to fulfill the lusts of your father; he was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him... He is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

By providence or by God's permission, how often do human wisdom and common sense stumble upon the temptations of gullible carelessness or pride of self-will! Throughout his life, this struggle went on in Pushkin. From his youth until his last breath, people were constantly around him who, as they say, led him astray. And the true path is the path to God. Alexander Sergeevich found it difficult to find him. And in Chisinau, among the diverse Masonic “brothers”, he experienced “a kind of fall..., passed through dark gorges, where evil forces were circling, attacking, overpowering... Something was tormenting, covered the innate strength of his spirit." This is the description internal state The poet perfectly explains the appearance in his work of the image of the prophetic Oleg. All these dark Masonic “gorges” with their gloomy rituals and ominous symbols (and among them a snake and a horse) gave rise to disturbing thoughts in the poet about the connection of human destiny and human history with certain mystical forces that even bring down the hero.

“Mighty Oleg”!.. Behind him is a whole series of glorious victories, but he dies by accident, from a snake bite.

Let's make a small digression and clarification. Above we said that the part of Jewry that represented the tribe of Dan (“the asp on the way, biting the horse’s leg”) migrated to the Khazar Kaganate. But part of this tribe went to the British Isles, to England, which is recorded in the historical chronicles. And on the royal coat of arms of Great Britain there are those symbols that personify Dan: a lion, a horse and a serpent and the inscription below: “No one will harm me with impunity.” That is, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Where is the prophetic Oleg going? “Take revenge on the foolish Khazars”! And as a result, “they” took revenge on him. Here is the answer to the question about the tragic accident of his death. There is nothing accidental in this world, where there is an ongoing struggle between the devil and God, “and the battlefield is the human heart” (F.M. Dostoevsky). “The inspired magician” reminds the prince-warrior that “the deceptive shaft in the hours of fatal bad weather”, as well as the “crafty dagger” “spares the winner for years”, as long as “ invisible guardian given to the able.” One cannot help but remember this, because the voice of the “magician” is “friendly with the will of heaven”!

Years will pass... The sorcerer's prediction will be forgotten.

The prophetic Oleg feasts with his retinue
At the clink of a cheerful glass.
And their curls are white as morning snow
Above the glorious head of the mound...
They remember days gone by
And the battles where they fought together...

What a sad feast. Two ellipses instead of two exclamation marks. The prince doubted the veracity of the magician. With a bitter smile he recalls his “despicable” prediction:

“So this is where my destruction was hidden!
The bone threatened me with death!”

But here, on the contrary, there are two exclamation marks. The prince was indignant. And then what was said in the Bible came true: “The asp is on the way.” Prince Oleg does not see the snake, his mind is blinded by the carelessness of pride and glory. Therefore, the “invisible guardian” is taken away from the “mighty”.

Oleg is called “prophetic” in “The Tale of Bygone Years” because he is a soothsayer. He predicted to Kyiv: “May this be the mother of Russian cities.” But in Pushkin Oleg is “prophetic” also because he sends us, “as now” (that is, always), the news of an asp hidden somewhere in the dead head. Encroached on " foolish Khazars“- remember about the adder and his goal: “No one will harm me with impunity.”

This snake always crawls out from the depths of the lower world to a hero who is confident in his rightness and takes revenge on him for his daring exploits.

How black ribbon, wrapped around my legs,
And the suddenly stung prince cried out.

By the way, what color was Oleg’s horse? Pushkin does not write about this. We see Oleg’s “bright brow”, the “white curls” of the prince and his warriors, but the horse... The great Russian artist V.M. Vasnetsov was inspired by the poet’s idea. The horse, of course, is white in his illustrations for “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg.” And Oleg says goodbye to this white horse...

And the youths immediately departed with the horse,
And they brought another horse to the prince.

But another horse means a different fate for a warrior...

Prophetic Oleg. Prince-legend, prince-mystery... A great ruler, a great warrior, a great sorcerer, he brought the disunited Slavic tribes together with an iron hand. He conquered new lands, “took revenge on the foolish Khazars” and nailed his shield to the gates of Constantinople, forcing proud Byzantium to recognize Rus' as its equal. He ruled for so long that many began to consider the prince not only prophetic, but almost immortal, and his mysterious death inspired the poet to create a poem - a prophecy, a poem - a warning, because Oleg’s death was not accidental.

The circular buckets, foaming, hiss
At the mournful funeral of Oleg;
Prince Igor and Olga are sitting on a hill;
The squad is feasting on the shore;
Soldiers remember days gone by
And the battles where they fought together.

Our heroes are back at the top of the hill. Well! Life goes on. There are new battles ahead, a different story. Will she be suddenly caught or slowly, “through indirect action”, overcome by secret forces that “blow like hostile whirlwinds” and “viciously oppress”? And the One who “on the shore of the desert waves” “stood... full of great thoughts and looked into the distance”? Did he sense these forces when he incorporated Masonic-Khazar symbolism into the construction plan for the city and its architecture?

All flags will be visiting us, and we will lock them up in the open air!

The Bronze Horseman and the Serpent Under rear horse hoof. When you stand facing the monument, the snake is not visible. The rider too Not sees asp, his gaze turned into the distance.

What a thought on the brow!
What power is hidden in it!
And what fire there is in this horse!
Where are you going? proud horse,
And where will you put your hooves?

Or will you throw it away? This monument was also called the “Horseman of the Apocalypse”.

But St. George the Victorious on white horse sees an asp. He hits him right in the head with a spear. (By the way, this snake is never depicted as dead. It wriggles, crushed, tries to bite the victim, but it is alive!). Will it happen that St. George the Victorious, Saint Yegor, as he is also popularly called, the hero of numerous legends and songs among all Christian peoples and Muslims, will kill the serpent, the dragon that devastates the earth?

George is the Victorious because he is inspired by the knowledge of the Savior and His enemies. He himself accepted martyrdom for our Lord Jesus Christ. “You have chosen the Most High as your refuge. No evil will befall you, and no plague will come close to your dwelling... You will step on the asp and the basilisk; You will trample upon the lion and the dragon” (Ps. 91:9-13). “The Lord is my hope” (Ps. 91:9).

Elijah, the most revered Old Testament prophet in Rus', is also considered a “serpent fighter.” Ilya Muromets, famous for his numerous military exploits in the fight against the enemies of the Fatherland, defeated the terrible serpent: a “filthy idol” was prowling in the steppes, and the “Cursed Jew” threatened from the Khazar side. After his death, Ilyushka became a saint.

A.S. Pushkin knew already in 1822 in what spiritual blindness, in what mental confusion Russian society was, seduced by “enlightenment”, blinded by the glory of past victories (1812) and imagining itself so right that it had lost the need for an “invisible guardian” " “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg” is a prediction of our tragedy in 1917 and the collapse in 1991 - two Khazar coups. From our dead, empty heads crawled that “coffin snake” that now threatens us with death. And we still see ourselves on the top of the hill and “at the clink of a merry glass” we “remember the days gone by.” Only this funeral service can be the last. After all, there was nothing left of the Khazars.

... And then I woke up and screamed: “What if
Is this country truly my homeland?
Wasn’t it here that I loved and died here?
In this green and sunny country?
And I realized that I was lost forever
In empty transitions of space and time,
And somewhere the native rivers flow,
To which my path is forever prohibited, -

This is what the Russian poet N.S. Gumilev wrote, who was executed in August 1921 in Petrograd as part of a fabricated counter-revolutionary conspiracy.

Pushkin did not just write poems and poems. Pushkin prophesied in rhyme. He told us in 1822 that when we forget about Main, then the Khazar snakes bite us. They sting not only directly, like Oleg, but through various kinds of temptations: “what is good for food is pleasant to the eyes and desirable” (Gen. 3: 6).

As now, as now... Why exactly these verses, almost a hundred years later, became the unofficial anthem of the Russian army in the First World War, and then in the Civil War:

How the prophetic Oleg is getting ready now
Take revenge on the foolish Khazars,
Their villages and fields for a violent raid
He doomed him to swords and fires.
So louder the music! Play win!
We have won: the enemy is running, running, running.
So for the Tsar, for the Motherland, for the Faith
We will ring out a loud “hurray!” hooray! hooray!".

But it all ended in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.

“I hope for Your help, Lord!” (Gen. 49:18). And I always hold my spear towards the snake.

P.S. I was prompted to collect, summarize and present this material about the prophetic Oleg, the Khazars and the serpent by reading the article “They want to declare Russia the “successor” of the Khazar Kaganate” in the newspaper “Russkiy Vestnik”, N5 (2011), where it is said that the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and The Interaction of Civilizations Foundation held a round table on the topic: “Khazars: myth and history.” Its active participants were the following scholars: President of the Foundation Rakhamim Yashaevich Emanuilov, leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Vyacheslavovich Naumkin, President of the Institute of the Middle East Evgeniy Yanovich Satanovsky, historian Viktor Aleksandrovich Shnirelman and member of the Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation on interethnic relations and freedom of conscience, director of the scientific and educational center “Al-Vasatiy” Farid Abdullovich Asadulin. What were they talking about? That “Rus' was created not by Russian people through many, including bloody, sacrifices and the efforts of Russian princes and warriors, but by some kind of multinational conglomerate with the Jewish elite at the head.” The author of the article, Philip Lebed, exclaims, not without surprise: “The Khazars, therefore, turn from enemies into the first gatherers of Russian lands, and Judaism into the first state religion on the territory of Rus'!” . “Scientists” also proposed discussing the possibility of introducing a memorial date “on the adoption of Judaism in Rus'” (?!). “Afro-Russian” Pushkin was cited as an example of multiculturalism, “ which could would introduce Ethiopian literature» (?!?) .

What can I say? The serpent never sleeps! This commentary to A.S. Pushkin’s poem “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg” is my spear into the mouth of this serpent!

Evgenia Timofeevna Dmitrieva , Russian philologist, member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgorod Gracheva T.V. Invisible Khazaria: Algorithms of geopolitics and strategies of secret wars of the world behind the scenes. Ryazan, 2010. pp. 156-157. The Tale of Bygone Years // Fiction Kievan Rus XI-XIII centuries. M., 1957. P. 20.
The Tale of Bygone Years // Fiction of Kievan Rus of the 11th-13th centuries. M., 1957. P. 44.
Tyrkova-Williams A.V. Life of A.S. Pushkin. Volume I. M., 2010. P. 294.
There were rumors among the people that after returning from Europe, “the tsar was replaced by a filthy German or a damned Jew.”
Russian Bulletin, No. 5 (2011). P. 13.
Right there. P. 13.

The death of Prophetic Oleg from a snake bite was reported by the first Russian chroniclers: this is stated in the Tale of Bygone Years, as well as in the First Novgorod Chronicle. According to legend, the Magi predicted the prince's death from his own horse. Oleg parted with the animal, and when the horse died, he remembered the prediction and, laughing at the wise men, ordered the remains to be shown to him. Seeing the bones of the horse, Oleg placed his foot on its skull, when a poisonous snake crawled out and fatally stung the prince.

Application

A poem by A.S. gave a second life to the myth about Oleg’s death from a snake bite. Pushkin. The dramatic denouement of the “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”, vividly set out by the poet, formed a stereotype that the death of the prince was exactly like this.

Reality

The legendary nature of the chronicle legend about Oleg’s death was pointed out by a Russian historian of the 19th century. N.M. Karamzin, who called the “imaginary prophecy of the Magi or Magicians” “an obvious folk fable, worthy of note due to its antiquity.”

This is indirectly evidenced by the appearance of a similar plot in the medieval Icelandic epic. Main character saga about the Viking Orvar Odd, compiled in the 13th century based on ancient legends, died from a snake bite on the grave of his own horse - such a death was predicted to him in childhood, when the future Viking was 12 years old, by a witch. To prevent the prediction from coming true, Odd and his friend killed the horse, threw it into a pit, and covered the corpse with stones. It has not yet been possible to establish which story, about Oleg or about Odd, appeared earlier.

Establishing the exact circumstances of the prince’s death has become a difficult task for scientists. While telling in detail how Oleg died, the chronicles do not provide comprehensive answers to other important questions: where exactly Oleg died and where he was buried.

According to the Tale of Bygone Years, his grave is located in Kyiv on Mount Shchekovitsa. The Novgorod Chronicle reports that the prince was buried in Ladoga, but at the same time says that he went “overseas.”

Academician B.A. Rybakov in 1987 combined these two versions and came to the conclusion that the prince spent most of his life in Ladoga, for some time owned the Kiev throne, and after the campaign against Byzantium he disappeared without a trace, falling out of sight of Russian chroniclers.

In 2000, researcher A.A. Vlasov tried to assess the likelihood of Oleg’s death from a snake bite, based on the assumption that the chronicle legend may be true. Having studied the habitat of snakes in the prince’s possible places of stay, he suggested that if Oleg was in the Kiev area at the time of the events described, he could have suffered from the bites of three types of snakes: the common viper, the steppe viper or the forest-steppe viper.

A.A. Vlasov put forward a hypothesis that a meeting with steppe viper- in his opinion, the prince’s horse was most likely kept in a steppe pasture. Currently, this snake is not found in the Kyiv area; its habitat is much further south, but climatic conditions The 10th-12th centuries were different, and the presence of a snake in the possible place of the prince’s death was quite probable, the researcher notes.

This period was dry and warm; forest fires and droughts were often noted in chronicles. The way the vegetation is described in the Tale of Bygone Years was also quite conducive to the presence of these snakes in the region. In addition, marmots were found in those areas at the indicated time, and their habitat almost completely coincides with the boundaries of the range of vipers.

However, even if we assume that all these circumstances really coincided in this way, the prince could have received a fatal snake bite in the leg with a minimal degree of probability. For this, says A.A. Vlasov, it is necessary that the victim be completely without shoes, and the princes at that time, according to archaeological data, wore heavy and thick boots, which a snake could not bite through.

At the same time, even if the viper were somehow able to get to the unprotected parts of Oleg’s body, its bite - despite all possible problems health-wise, it couldn’t have been fatal.

Thus, even under the most fantastic set of circumstances, if the snake bit the prince, this could not in any way cause his death: in this case, Oleg could only die from improper treatment, summarizes A.A. Vlasov.

Toxicology researchers suggest that the most dangerous and often fatal decision in such cases is to try to apply a tourniquet to a swollen limb after a bite: the victim may develop “tourniquet shock,” poisoning the body with toxins as a result of prolonged deprivation of blood supply to the affected part of the body.

Sources and literature

Vlasov A.A. What viper bit Prophetic Oleg? // Steppes of Northern Eurasia: Materials of the II International Symposium, 2000.

Karamzin N.M. History of Russian Goverment. Volume 1-12. M., 2004.

Rybakov B.A. Paganism of ancient Rus'. M., 1987.