Askold and Dir

Accounts of Askold and Dir

Primary Chronicle and Novgorod First Chronicle

The Laurentian Codex of the Primary Chronicle relates that Askold and Dir were sanctioned by Rurik to go to Constantinople (Norse Miklagård, Slavic Tsargrad). When travelling on the Dnieper, they settled in Kiev seizing power over the Polans who had been paying tribute to the Khazars.

Until the 19th century, the Primary Chronicle (the Nachal'naya Letopis') was habitually attributed to the monk Nestor. Modern investigators have not only placed his authorship in doubt, but have also sought to establish by internal evidence that the Primary Chronicle, instead of being a homogenous work, is a compilation from several chronicle texts of greater antiquity. Nestor the Chronicler is the undisputed author of the biographical work "The Narrative of the Life, Death and Miracles of the Holy and Blessed Martyrs Boris and Gleb" and a comparative study of two accounts presents no stylistic evidence that Nestor was in any way concerned with the composition or compilation of the Primary Chronicle, while the contradictions between the two narratives point rather in the opposite direction. A more likely candidate as author is Sylvester of Kiev, hegumen (abbot) of the St. Michael's Monastery in Vydubychi (a village near Kyiv), who may have compiled several sources in the year 1116. In any case, the Primary Chronicle was written approximately 250 years after the events involving Askold and Dir.

The beginning of the Synod Scroll or "Older Edition" of the Novgorod First Chronicle is missing. The surviving text starts in the middle of a sentence in the year 1016. The lost contents of the Synod Scroll before the year 1016 are unknown, and can only be speculated about.

The chronicle also states that they were killed by Varangian Novgorod prince Oleg the Wise in 882. Dating is tentative, as the annalistic legend was written in one and a half or two centuries after the event. Behind the annalistic story there is a real event, violent transition of authority in Kiev to new dynasty Rurikovich. The murder described in the Primary Chronicle (Tale of Bygone Years) and the Novgorod First Chronicle. According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Meryans, the Ves', the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and Dir reigned there. Oleg came to the foot of the Hungarian hill using trickery, he hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor’. Oleg sent messengers to Askold and Dir, representing himself as a guest (merchant) on his way to Greece on an errand for Oleg and for Igor', the prince's son, and requesting that they should come forth to greet them as members of their kinship. Askold and Dir straightway came forth. Then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, "You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth." Igor' was then brought forward, and Oleg announced him as a son of Rurik. They killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill known as Hungarian. After that, without resistance from the people of Kiev, Oleg settled to rule in Kiev, proclaiming it the "mother of Rus' cities" (the chronicler called Kiev "mother" rather than "father" through the prince's words, because "mother of cities" is a literal translation of the Greek word "metropolis," i.e., "capital").

Al-Masudi

The only foreign source to mention one of the co-rulers is the Arab historian Al-Masudi. According to him, "king al-Dir [Dayr] was the first among the kings of the Slavs." Although some scholars have tried to prove that "al-Dir" refers to a Slavic ruler and Dir's contemporary, this speculation is questionable and it is at least equally probable that "al-Dir" and Dir were the same person. Following his works, historians believe that Dir ruled after Askold, mainly in the 870—880s. In that case, on entering Kyiv, Oleg's soldiers killed just Dir while Askold had died earlier.

Facts and records

The Rus' attack on Constantinople in June 860 took the Greeks by surprise, "like a thunderbolt from heaven," as it was put by Patriarch Photios in his famous oration written for the occasion. Although the Slavonic chronicles tend to associate this expedition with the names of Askold and Dir (and to date it to 866), the connection remains tenuous. Despite Photius' own assertion that he sent a bishop to the land of Rus' which became Christianized and friendly to Byzantium, most historians discard the idea of Askold's subsequent conversion as apocryphal.

We may suppose that the names of Rurik and his kin, of Askold and Dir, and of Oleg and Igor' survived in popular legend at Kiev in somewhat the same fashion as the heroes of the later bÿlinÿ. The problem for the author of the Primary Chronicle was to extract from these fragmentary survivals the semblance of an historical account. While there may be some conceivable doubt whether Rurik and his relatives, and possibly Askold and Dir, were actual personages, Oleg and Igor are soundly attested, presumably with dates, by the treaties with the Greeks in which they are mentioned by name. So the existence of Askold and Dir should be taken with a pinch of salt, as these two rulers were semi-legendary personalities, and the existence of Rurik should be taken with an even bigger pinch of salt, as he was a legendary personality in history.

A Kievan legend identifies Askold's burial mound with Uhorska Hora (Hungarian hill), where Olga of Kiev later built two churches, devoted to Saint Nicholas and to Saint Irene. Today this place on the steep bank of the Dnieper is marked by a monument called Askold's Grave.

The name Askold

Askold

Also — Oskold, Oskol'd, Oskolod. (Осколд, Оскольд, Осколод)

There are several versions of the origin of the name Askold. The most likely version interprets it as the Norse name Haskuldr or Höskuldr. However, the spelling Askold may only be a change in the Scandinavian manner (similar to Vytautas – Vitold)." According to professor Igor Danilevsky, who is a specialist on the history of Kievan Rus, the Scandinavian origin of the name is certain and it has long been proved.

G. Magner defended the theory of the Slavic origin of the name, deriving it from the word "skoldyryt" – to accumulate. Other supporters of the theory of Slavic origin saw in the word the roots oskal (grin), sokol (falcon), kol (spike) and kolo (circle). It is also possible that the part -old is a contraction of -volod/-vlad (lord, ruler). This hypothesis does not contradict the data of modern historical grammar.

Boris Rybakov expressed a conjecture that the appearance of the names of Askold and Dir in the annals is a consequence of an error of one of the early chroniclers. Allegedly, in fact, in the original text it was about one Kievan prince Askoldyr or more precisely Oskoldyr. In this case, Dir did not exist at all. But such a reading of the annalistic text is the result of an assumption that has no textual basis according to Igor Danilevsky's assertion. It did, however, allow Rybakov to "establish" the Slavic etymology of the name Askold from the names of the rivers Oskil and Vorskla (in chronicle Voroskol). The name of the Oskil (Oskol) river, in turn, was associated by B. A. Rybakov with the Black Sea tribe of the "royal" Scythians, the Scolots, mentioned by Herodotus. Those were allegedly Slavs (contrary to Herodotus himself, who wrote that the Skolots called themselves Scythians), who later began to call themselves Rus'.

"Askolt" may be a borrowed word from Iranian-speaking nomads and mean "Border ruler."

Anti-Normanism

A direction in Russian pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet historiography, whose supporters deny the role of the Scandinavians in the creation of the Rus' state or deny at all any participation of the Scandinavians (Normans) in the socio-political life of Rus'; reject and seek to refute the "Norman theory" of the creation of the Kievan Rus'. Anti-Normanist historians denied the Scandinavian (Old Norse) origin of the name Askold. Anti-Normanism includes a wide range of concepts and hypotheses, the common features of which are the denial of the essentiality of the influence of the Scandinavians on the political and economic processes of the formation of ancient Rus' and the advancement of alternative Norman hypotheses.

A number of late medieval sources, among them the Kievan Synopsis (1674), report that Oskold was the last representative of the local dynasty of Prince Kyi. Referring to these annalistic evidences, Aleksey Shakhmatov considered the fact of the Slavic origin of Prince Oskold beyond doubt. Among the researchers of the 20th century this idea was shared by professor Mikhail Tikhomirov, and professor Rybakov, in confirmation of the Slavic origin of the prince, the name Oskold derived from the name of the river Oskil, and therefore in his opinion it would be correct to use not "Askold", but exactly "Oskold", as it is found in the Old Rus' chronicles (or "Oskolod" – as indicated in the Nikiforov Chronicle of the 15th century, Suprasl Chronicle of the 16th century or medieval Polish chronicle of Maciej Stryjkowski).

Historian F. Donald Logan wrote:

The controversies over the nature of the Rus and the origins of the Rus' state have bedevilled Viking studies, and indeed Russian history, for well over a century. It is historically certain that the Rus were Swedes. The evidence is incontrovertible, and that a debate still lingers at some levels of historical writing is clear evidence of the holding power of received notions. The debate over this issue – futile, embittered, tendentious, doctrinaire – served to obscure the most serious and genuine historical problem which remains: the assimilation of these Viking Rus into the Slavic people among whom they lived. The principal historical question is not whether the Rus were Scandinavians or Slavs, but, rather, how quickly these Scandinavian Rus became absorbed into Slavic life and culture… in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs.

According to the historian and archaeologist L. S. Klein, the "Norman theory" or "Normanism" never existed as a scientific concept, while Anti-Normanism exists, but is primarily an ideological platform based on an inferiority complex. Anti-Normanism is distinctive for Russia.

Origins of Askold and Dir

Some historians, based on late and unreliable sources, try to declare Askold and Dir to be direct heirs of the legendary Kyi, a representative of the dynasty of "Kievichi". The existence of this "princely dynasty" is based on the information of the Polish historian of the 15th century Jan Dlugosz, who wrote that the chronicle's Kievan princes Askold and Dir, killed by Igor (according to the Primary Chronicle killed by Oleg), were descendants of Kyi. This message of Dlugosz was used in the works of Dmitry Ilovaysky (who treated the facts quite arbitrarily) and Mykhailo Hrushevsky (who strove to prove the existence of a distinct Ukrainian ethnos already in the 4th century); Aleksey Shakhmatov also referred to them in his historical reconstructions. However, this point of view is rarely supported by specialists.

The mention by Jan Dlugosz of the family ties of Askold and Dir with the legendary Kyi raises serious doubts. According to Vladimir Petrukhin: "Jan Dlugosz was not so naive as some modern authors who uncritically accepted his conclusions. The fact is that the Polish chronicler sought to substantiate the claims of the Polish state on Kiev and therefore associated the Kiev Polans with Polish Polans, considered Kyi a "Polish pagan prince", etc." Therefore, we have no grounds to believe that Askold and Dir belonged to the "dynasty of Kievichi" (or even were Slavs).

Legacy

Russian screw frigate Askold (1854) (see List of Russian steam frigates)

Russian cruiser Askold (1900)

Askold's Grave (19th century Russian Opera by Alexey Verstovsky)

In 2013 prince Askold was canonized by the synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate as a protomartyr.