Forgetting history
Me: …like Olga of Kyiv.
Her: (laughing) You know about her? Why?
Me: (shrugging) I’m always drawn to stories about people that go to extreme lengths for the people they love.
Don’t think I ever told you, but Lviv had yellow green eyes – they were green in the edges but yellow in the middle.
Was always fascinated by that. Recently met another woman from her hometown with the same coloured eyes.
Must be something in the water.
If you’ve never heard of Olga of Kyiv, you should know that she’s one of the baddest-assed women people that ever lived.
She was married to Prince Igor I of Kyiv who was the leader of a tribe called the Kievan Rus’, which ultimately became modern day Ukraine.
In any case, Igor teamed up with another, neighboring, tribe called the Drevlians against the Byzantine Empire. Or, at least, Igor’s dad did.
But once Igor’s dad died, the Drevlians figured it’d be cheaper to kill Igor and take over the Kievan Rus’ than pay them a tribute. So, they did (there’s a lot more to this but you get the point). They figured that Igor’s son was only three so he wouldn’t be much trouble.
It’s doubtful they gave even a moment’s thought about Olga, Igor’s now widowed wife.
Big mistake.
The Drevlians wanted to make their treachery legit and proposed that Olga marry her husband’s murderer, Prince Mal.
Holy disrespect, amIrite?
Olga thought so too.
So, she told them that, not only was she down, she was flattered. Flattered to the point that she told them that she’d honor them by having her men carry the ambassadors’ boat with the ambassadors in them.
Well, they thought this was grand and agreed. Sure enough, when they arrived, alla these men were there to greet them and carried them all – the entire ship – into the kingdom.
There, Olga had them dropped – the boat with alla the men on it – into a ditch and had them buried alive.
Reportedly, she watched alla this and said, “I hope you find this honor to your tastes.”
Because the Drevlians back home didn’t know about this, she sent word to them that they should send “their distinguished men to her in Kiev, so that she might go to their Prince with due honor.”
So, the Drevlians gathered up their very best and sent them to Kiev.
When they arrived, she asked that they all bathe before them met up with her, which they agreed to do.
While they did so, she locked all the doors and set the entire bathhouse on fire, essentially turning them into soup.
But she saved the best for last; since this was before Twitter, she sent a third message to the unsuspecting Drevlians, asking them to “prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him.”
And they did that, and she went and cried at where her lover died. After she was done crying, and the Drevlians were sufficiently drunk, she had her men slaughter all five thousand of them.
Then she went back to Kyiv and raised her army to attack what was left of the Drevlians. By then, the Drevlians were so terrified that they sealed themselves up in their cities. So, Olga told them she would spare them if they sent her “three pigeons…and three sparrows from each house.”
The Drevlians were like, Shit, done and did exactly that, sending her the birds they kept as pets.
But Olga told her men to attach a small piece of burning sulfur cloth to every bird, each of which flew back to their respective homes in terror, setting every single house in the city on fire.
As the people fled, Olga and her men waited for them and killed some and enslaved others, wiping out the Drevlians from history, save for this blog entry that no one but my mom reads.
Why this story?
Well, when Putin announced that he would essentially raise a new army to try and complete a takeover or Ukraine now, I thought of it and wonder if he fully realizes who and what he’s fucking with.
That’s the problem with history, no one learns.
Putin didn’t win the first time around with his professional army; don’t see how a hastily thrown-together military of conscripts is gonna do any better.
And now there’s an entire nation of pissed off Olgas that lost the people that they love most.
Like I said, I don’t think they’re prepared for what these people can, and will, do.
A Ukrainian official tweeted on Wednesday, “Putin have [sic] not yet understood who he is dealing with.”
Agreed.
Her: And you? Have you ever been in love?
Me: Just once.
Her: What happened?
Me: Nothing I want to talk about right this moment. (changing subject) So, do people mention your eyes a lot? I’m a sucker for pretty eyes.
Location: Japanese restaurant, telling him we’re not friends, but this is a good thing
Mood: good
Music: being alone is the, is the best way to be (Spotify)
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