Igor of Kiev
Igor of Kiev was Rurik's son and the first prince of Kyiv whose existence is confirmed outside the Primary Chronicle: the Byzantine historians record his fleet burned by Greek fire off Constantinople in 941, and the treaty of 944 that followed names him and his envoys. He was killed the next year by the Drevlians, whom he had gone back to for a second tribute, and his widow Olga's revenge and regency are the chronicle's most famous pages. He was the child Oleg showed to Askold and Dir at Kyiv in 882 as the true prince, and he came into his own on Oleg's death about 912 as a grown man with a wife, Olga of Pskov, and a household of Varangians. The Drevlians of the forest west of Kyiv, whom Oleg had made tributary, revolted at once and were subdued. The Pechenegs appeared on the steppe in 915 and he made peace with them and then fought them. In 941 he took a fleet down the Bosporus, the Byzantines say a thousand ships, ravaged the Bithynian coast while the imperial fleet was away, and was met on his way home by fifteen old ships fitted with the siphons for Greek fire, which burned the Rus ships in the water; the survivors said the Greeks had lightning from heaven. He raised a second army with Varangians and Pechenegs in 944, and the emperor Romanos paid him off on the Danube before he arrived. The treaty of that year, which the chronicle copies, renewed the trade terms of 911 on less favourable conditions, bound the Rus to help the empire against the Bulgars and in the Crimea, and was sworn by the pagans on their weapons and by the Christians among the Rus in the church of St Elijah at Kyiv, the first sign there were any. His retinue complained that they were poorer than the men of his commander Sveneld, so in the autumn of 945 he went to the Drevlians for tribute, took it, sent most of his men home, and went back for more with a few. The Drevlians under their prince Mal killed him at Iskorosten, the Byzantine Leo the Deacon says by bending two trees and tying him between them. Olga ruled for their son Sviatoslav and buried the Drevlian envoys alive.
- Lived: 878 CE – 945 CE
- Nationality: Rus
- Roles: prince, ruler
