trawling that Olga's ambassadors asked the bishop "ysiye, іі ro L sIyagoiS* ■ "reg oshpia teiiSh zipi", scientists ega dwell on the tone of the opinion that the ambassadors beat the mines, self-appointed, were Varangian travelers, who contacted the ambassadors for some of their own benefits, so that they would receive non-profits and etc. *). It is impossible not to give justice to the opinion that it wants to recognize the historical truth of Western events, and together eliminate the seeming incongruity of Olga’s appeal to the German emperor about sending ambassadors. We cannot fail to notice, however, that the idea of the falseness of the message is just an assumption and is not at all given the meaning of Western news. In the news of the chroniclers there is not a word about the forgery of the ambassadors recruited by the ambassadors of Elena or the Russian people; The expressions: “Гіззе, иі рузі сиагжіі” and “рфг ьшпя тепііі вні” do not refer to the forgery of the ambassadors, but respect only the fact that they deceptively asked the bishop and the preachers of the faith that the Russians had ultimately deceived the emperor’s expectations aroused by this embassy. Thoughts about the fraud of the ambassadors were not read by the heroic debtor Reganon, nor were those Western chroniclers who completely repeated the same news. So, it remains to either completely reject or completely admit all the testimony of Western chroniclers, i.e., admit that the embassy from Olga to the German Emperor Otto I really took place. History provides very little indirect evidence for the recognition of such an embassy; however, there are some indications that allow for the possibility and probability of this fact, which Schletser had already recognized. In the history of the conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria, partly of Moravia, and even in the history of the baptism of Vladimir, we see that the acceptance of faith from a certain people in the minds of the pagans was combined - and for the most part rightly - with the idea of a kind of dependence on it, more or less painful, as a result of which it was necessary, if not to conquer the faith, then to choose enlighteners who were less dangerous politically. Could there not have been a phenomenon in Rus' similar to the action of the Bulgarian prince Boris, who after Byzantium turned to Rome and - let us add for complete analogy - from the papacy again and already irrevocably attached himself to Eastern Orthodoxy? In favor of this assumption
') Soloviev, vol. I, p. 150, etc., temporary. 217.
N KYIVAN RUS.
Some indications from our and the Vyavatian chronicles about the cooling between the Grand Duchess Olga and the Byzantine court after her baptism in Constantinople can serve as a guide. So, according to the testimony of the summer Nestor, when some time after Olga’s baptism, ambassadors from Emperor Constantine the Porphyrogenitus came to her with a request for gifts and troops, then Olga said: “Say to the emperor: if you stand with me in the same way as you do in court (in the Constantinople pier), then I will give pbe * (dery I army) '). The recipient of the gift, it seems, also paid with disfavour to his spiritual daughter and her people. Emperor Constantine the Porphyrogenitus in his dealings speaks unfavorably about the Russians, compares them with the Turks, speaks of their “insatiable greed” for his heir. rules on how to make an excuse in advance if the Russians ask for anything from Vyvantibian jewelry *). Such a cooling between Olga and Emperor Constantine, could it have caused her to turn as a bishop and priests to the West? Other historical features of our Grand Duchess—the first zemstvo builder, a zealous Christian who cared about the spread of Christianity, but not alien to striving in the world, who felt and punished insults—do not contradict this rich assumption. As for the differences between the Eastern Church
') Nestor around 855