Russian Classics Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ red buskins which were the Bulgarian marks of royalty. The Greeks now repented their folly in having established in their immediate neighbourhood, within a few short marches of Constantinople, a prince who was far more dangerous to them than ever the Bulgarian Tzars had been. John Zimisces, who had succeeded the ill-fated Nicephorus on the precarious throne of the Eastern Empire, called upon Sviatoslav to fulfil the engagement made with his predecessor and evacuate the Imperial dependency. The Prince in possession contemptuously refused to comply with this demand, and threatened instead to march against Constantinople and drive the Greeks into Asia. Fortunately for the Empire at this crisis her new ruler was a soldier of proved ability, and knew also who were the right men to rely on for active support and co-operation. On the other hand Sviatoslav prepared for the coming struggle by enlisting the aid of the Bulgarians themselves, the Magyars, and even roving bodies of Petchenigs. With this mixed force he burst into Thrace, ravaging the country up to the walls of Adrianople, where the Imperial general Bardas-Scleras, brother-in-law of Zimisces, had entrenched himself. Here in the autumn of 970 the fierce bravery of the Russians and their allies was matched against the Greek generalship, with the result that Sviatoslav was forced to retire into Bulgaria. The recall of Bardas to suppress an insurrection in Capadocia prevented him from following up his advantage, and gave the Russians an opportunity for retiring from a position which was no longer safe. Sviatoslav, however, either did not see his danger, or chose to disregard it rather than return home baffled and empty-handed. Accordingly he spent the year 971 in aimless raids into Macedonia, while his wily enemy made the most elaborate preparations for his destruction. In the spring of 972 Zimisces advanced with a large army into Bulgaria, while a Greek fleet blocked the mouths of the Danube, cutting off the Russian line of retreat. Sviatoslav with the bulk of his army was encamped at Dristr, and here tidings came that the Emperor had crossed the Balkans and, after a stubborn resistance, taken Péréyaslavetz—“the Town of Victory”—and possessed himself of the person of Prince Boris. Nothing daunted, Sviatoslav led his army against that of Zimisces, and a battle ensued which, from the heroic valour with which it was contested and the important issues involved, deserves to be recognised as one of the decisive battles of history. Both leaders showed the utmost personal courage, and victory for a long while hung doubtful, but at length the Greek forces prevailed and Sviatoslav was driven back upon Dristr, his last stronghold in Bulgaria. This time the Imperial success was followed up, and the town was attacked with a vigour and determination which was only equalled by the stubbornness of the defence. The Russians made sorties by day, retreating when outnumbered, under the protection of their huge bucklers, to within the walls of the town, from whence they issued at night, to burn by the light of the moon the bodies of their fallen comrades, and sacrifice over their ashes the prisoners they had taken. By way of propitiating their gods, or possibly the Danube, which was covered with the boats of their enemies, they drowned in its waters cocks and little children.14 The Magister John, a relation of the Emperor, having fallen into their hands in a skirmish, was torn in pieces and his head exposed on the battlements. The besieged, however, were daily reduced in numbers and weakened by want, and Sviatoslav resolved on a last bid for victory. Swarming forth from behind their battered ramparts, the men of the North met their foes in open field, and the wager of battle was staunchly and obstinately contested. Sviatoslav was struck off his horse and nearly killed, but the Russians did not give way until mid-day, when a dust-storm blew into their faces and forced them to yield the fight, leaving outside the walls of Dristr, according to the Byzantine annalists, 15,000 slain. The monkish chroniclers, as usual, attributed the hard-won victory to supernatural intervention, and while the Imperial soldiers were resting from their exertions a story was circulated throughout the camp giving the credit of the day to an apparition of S. Theodore of Stratilat, who had appeared in the thick of the battle mounted on a white horse. The Russian defeat, whether due to saint, army, or dust-storm, was sufficiently decisive to bring the Prince to sue for terms, which were readily granted by the Emperor. The Russians engaged to withdraw from Bulgaria and to live at peace with the Eastern Empire; the Greeks on their part engaged to permit Russian merchants free commercial intercourse at Constantinople. More than this, the Emperor requested the Petchenigs to allow Sviatoslav and his thinned host unmolested passage to his own territories. Whether this was done in good faith, or whether secret instructions were given to the contrary, is a matter of opinion, or at most of induction; it is pleasanter to set against the general treachery of Byzantine statecraft the fact that Zimisces was a brave man, and to give him credit for the honour which is the usual accompaniment of courage.

      The importance of this defeat cannot be over-estimated, and it is interesting to speculate as to the possible results of a victory for Sviatoslav—a victory which might well have changed the whole course of European history. A powerful Slavonic principality with its headquarters in the basin of the Danube would have attracted to itself, by the magnetism of blood, the kindred races of Serbs, Kroats, Dalmatians, Slavonians, and Moravians, all of which, with the exception of the first-named, were eventually absorbed into the Germanic Empire; while Bohemia, instead of gravitating towards the house of Habsburg, would more naturally have entered the Russian State-organism. From Péréyaslavetz to Constantinople is a short cry, and it is reasonable to conjecture that under these circumstances the Slav and not the Turk would in due course have stepped into the shoes of the Paleologi. The palace intrigues, treason, and assassination which placed John Zimisces on the throne of the Cæsars at this critical juncture in the affairs of the Empire had an effect on the destinies of Europe which can only be likened in importance to the Moorish defeat on the plain of Tours at the hands of Charles Martel.

      After a meeting between the leaders of the two armies, during which the Emperor sat his horse on the river bank while the vanquished Prince stood, simply clad, in a boat which he himself helped to work, the latter made his way towards Kiev with the remnant of his following. But the enemy which his short-sighted policy had neglected to crush was waiting for him now in the hour of his extremity; the Petchenigs held the cataracts of the Dniepr, where the returning boats must be dragged ashore, and notwithstanding their agreement with Zimisces, blocked the passage of the Russian army. Sviatoslav waited at the mouth of the river till the coming of spring, when he risked a battle with his savage enemies, and lost. Warrior to the last, he died fighting, and tradition has it that his skull became a drinking-cup for the chief of the Petchenigs; of the mighty host which had started out for the conquest of Bulgaria but few made their way back to Kiev. Thus perished Sviatoslav, in spite of his Slavonic name a thorough type of the Varangian chieftain. Brave, active, and enduring, his chivalry was in advance of his age, and it is told of him that he always gave his enemies fair warning of attack, sending a messenger before him with the tidings, “I go against you.” He was, however, more a fighter than a general, and did not display the statesmanlike qualities of Rurik, Oleg, and Olga, while the unhappy results of his partition of the realm between his three sons were immediately apparent at his death. Yaropalk did not enjoy any authority over the districts ruled by his brothers, who lived as independent princes. The inevitable quarrels were not long in breaking out. Consequent on a hunting fray in the wooded Drevlian country between the retainers of Oleg and Yaropalk, in which one of the latter’s men was killed, an armed feud sprang up between the brothers, which came to a tragic end in a fight around the town of Oubrovtch. 977Oleg, worsted in the battle, was thrown down by the press of his own soldiers as he was seeking to enter the town, and trampled to death in the general stampede. Yaropalk is said to have been plunged in remorse at this untoward event, but the news was otherwise interpreted at Novgorod and caused the hasty flight of the young Vladimir to Skandinavian lands, beyond the reach of his half-brother’s malevolence. Yaropalk sent his underlings to hold the vacant principality, and thus became for the time sole ruler of Russia. The outcast, however, after two years of wandering in viking lands, reappeared suddenly at Novgorod with a useful following of Norse adventurers, and drove out his brother’s lieutenants, following up this act of defiance by moving at the head of his men towards Kiev. On the way he turned aside to Polotzk, then held as a dependent fief by a Varangian named Rogvolod. This chief had a daughter, Rogneda, trothed in marriage to Yaropalk, and Vladimir, by way of ousting his half-brother from all his possessions, sent and demanded her hand for himself. The maiden haughtily refused to wed the “son of a slave,” and added that she was already pledged to Yaropalk; whereupon the headstrong lover stormed the town, slew her father and two brothers, and СКАЧАТЬ