March 4, 2019 • 31 mins
Most of what we know about Olga comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle, also known as the Chronicle of Nestor or the Tale of Bygone Years. Some elements of the story may borrow more from legend than from history – it involves an elaborate, gruesome, very thorough revenge … and then a religious conversion.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy view Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
are going to go all the way back to the
Middle Ages, specifically to Kevin Ruce and Olga of Kiev.
(00:23):
Olga was married to Igor, who was Prince of Kevin,
russ and she gets just the teeniest tiniest mention in
an episode that we did a long time ago on
her grandson, Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, that was from
right after Holly and I joined this podcast, and that
very very brief mentioned. I mean, her name just comes
(00:44):
up and a couple of sentences that's not nearly enough
to do her justice. Most of what we know about
Olga comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle, which is also
known as the Chronicle of Nestor or the Tale of
Bygone Years. We're gonna talk more about that later, but
some elements of this story might borrow a little bit
more from legend than from history. This involves a very elaborate,
(01:09):
gruesome and incredibly thorough revenge and then a religious conversion,
and just the note that that revenge story is also
going to include the kind of gruesome killing of some animals.
So everyone brace, I will be bracing with you. We
have a bit of background before we get to Olga
and Igor so Kievan Russ is a term that was
(01:32):
coined in the nineteenth century to describe a loosely organized
federation of Eastern Slavic and Finnish tribes with a capital
in Kiev. It's named for Kiev and for the Rush
people who probably came from Scandinavia and invaded the area
around Kiev more than a thousand years ago. According to
the Primary Chronicle, the Viking Ruric invaded Kiev in the
(01:54):
middle of the ninth century, and then another Viking, a Leg,
started consolidating the tribes the area. A Leg and Rick
might have been related, but that's not a d clear
and some historians suspect that elements of Rick's invasion story
might be apocryphal, and there is also ongoing debate about
exactly where these invaders were from and whether they were
(02:18):
Scandinavian at all. Regardless though, Rouss is the origin of
the word Russian, and that's why all of this is
frequently rolled up under the umbrella of Russian history. Today,
even though the territory involved also includes parts of Ukraine
and Belarus today. There were also lots of other tribes
in this part of Eastern Europe that were not part
(02:39):
of this federation. These tribes were variously at war or
allied with the Roust, depending on the time and the circumstance.
All of the tribes were ruled by princes, and the
Prince of Kievan Russ considered himself to be the most
important of all of them. Yeah. Whether he actually called
himself the Grand Prince kind of varied over time, but
(03:00):
he considered himself to be the most important, best prince. Yes.
The economy of Kevin Russ rested on the collection of
tribute and then trade, primarily with Constantinople, which is now
Istanbul across the Black Sea. The Kevin Prince would collect
tribute from all the other princes over the winter, and
then in the warmer months they would take that tribute
(03:22):
by boat to trade with Constantinople. Sometimes the tribes paid
the tribute at least partly in money, but the tribute
also included goods like furs, honey, and wax. Enslaved people
were also a major part of the tribute. And a
huge part of the trading economy of Kevin Ruce. The
people enslaved included prisoners of war, criminals, people who couldn't
(03:44):
pay their debts, and in some cases, people who sold
themselves into slavery. And one of the many subjects of
ongoing debate in this episode is whether the word slave
is actually derived from slav and grew out of the
Russ's enslavement of Slavic people's. This trading relationship with Constantinople
came about during Aleg's reign as prince. At about nine
(04:06):
oh seven, he had gone to war with the Byzantine
Empire through the Roosts, usually described as Greeks. This war
ended in a treaty between Aleg and the Byzantine emperors
Leo the sixth and Alexander and that established terms for
their trading relationship. Under this treaty, the Greeks would provide food, baths,
(04:26):
and supplies when the roost came as merchants, but would
provide nothing to roost who came to the area without
goods to sell. A few years later, the Roosts and
the Greeks negotiated another treaty, one that covered a lot
more terms beyond just trade, including what would happen if
various crimes were committed against a Greek by a roost
and vice versa. This treaty also established things like ground
(04:49):
rules for what to do if ships from one had
to go into the territory of the other because of
bad weather, and how prisoners and slaves were to be treated.
Aleg died in nine twelve, and while his death itself
isn't strictly related to today's episode, it's account in the
primary chronicle is just too good to leave it out
because I like it. According to the Primary Chronicle, a
(05:12):
prophecy had foretold that a Leg's favorite horse would be
the cause of his death. Hoping to keep that from happening,
a Leg ordered the horse to be sent out to
pasture and to be taken care of very well, but
never brought into his presence again. Some years passed, and
he started to wonder whatever had happened to that horse.
When he asked, he was told that it had died,
(05:35):
so he asked to be taken to see its bones,
and once he was there, he laughed at the idea
that this horse was supposed to have caused his death,
and he stepped on its skull. But the problem was
there was a stake hiding in there and the snake
bit him and he died. Well yeah, um, I don't
(05:55):
want to vilify snakes that he he was just in
his snake apartment he was doing. After a Leg's death,
Olga's husband, Igor assumed the throne. It's possible that Igor
may have also been related to Ruric, but it is
not completely clear. Igor was born around eight seventy seven
and Olga was born in an estimated eight ninet. Olga
(06:19):
may have been the daughter of a prince, but some
sources specifically note that she was of common birth. The
primary chronicle places her birth at the city of Skov
in what's now Russia. Igor and Olga married in nine
oh three, so they had been married for about nine
years when a Leg died and Igor assumed the throne.
Igor did not have a reputation for being a particularly
(06:41):
wise or skilled leader. He did conquer one of those
neighboring tribes, the Drevelyans, and he imposed a much higher
tribute on them than his predecessor had demanded. But he
also waged war on the Greeks in an unsuccessful campaign
that led to most of his fleet being destroyed by
what was described as Greek fire. Egor responded to this
(07:02):
defeat by raising an army, rebuilding some of his ships,
and trying again, which led to a new treaty with
the Byzantine Empire negotiated in ninety four. But this treaty's
terms weren't as favorable to the Rous as a Leg's
earlier treaty had been, so this was an overall loss.
The treaty did, though, illustrate how Christianity had started to
(07:23):
become established in Kevin, Russ. Christians were still in the minority,
but they were a large enough minority to be specifically
addressed in this treaty. Their inclusion also suggests that Igor
was at least tolerant of them per the treaty. The
baptized Roots or the Christians, acknowledged the treaty by taking
an oath in a cathedral, while the unbaptized russ or
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the Pagans swore on their swords. Igor was pagan, so
he swore on his sword. Kevin Russ also had a
significant Jewish population, which wasn't referenced in the signing of
the treaty, and there may have been at least some
people of other religion as well. A year later, when
Igor was out collecting tribute, he demanded even more from
the Drevelans than he had previously, which was already more
(08:09):
than a leg had required, and when they resisted, he
attacked them. Once he had defeated them and collected their tribute,
he sent most of his retinue on ahead, but he
turned back with a few of his men, apparently to
try to collect still more tribute. At that point, the
Devilians killed him, along with his escort. Then the Drevelans
(08:30):
tried to press their advantage. They sent an envoy to
Olga in Kiev to inform her of Igor's death and
to seek her hand in marriage for their own prince,
who the Primary chronicle names as Mao. It wasn't all
that uncommon for a ruler's widow to marry the man
who had defeated him, But the Drevelans goal wasn't so
(08:52):
much to cement some kind of alliance between Olga and Mao.
It was to take custody of Igor and Olga's son,
sav Yatsla, of it was just a toddler and groom
him to rule in a way that would be the
most favorable to them, And just to acknowledge that this
chronology is a little odd. Olga and Igor were married
in nine oh three, but Savyatslav's birth is recorded as
(09:16):
two and the primary chronicle doesn't record any other children
from their marriage. This would mean that they had been
married for about thirty nine years before Sevatslav was born,
and the Olga was in her fifties at the youngest,
and that Igor was about sixty five. So that's not impossible,
but it does seem kind of improbable. The odds are
(09:38):
a little long, right, There are cases on record of
people having children at those ages, yes, and having surprised
babies later in their life. But still you have to
do the ven diagram of calendar math gets awkward the
farther and farther back you go in history. Yes, So
regardless of that sort of uh interesting chronology, Olga's response
(10:01):
to her husband's assassination, according to this account, was dramatic,
and we will get to it after a sponsor break.
According to the primary chronicle, when the Drevelyan delegation arrived
in Kiev, they were in a small boat carrying about
(10:22):
twenty men. Olga welcomed them. She offered them hospitality, and
she told them that she wanted to meet with them
in the morning. She said that they should go back
to their boat that they had come on, and that
she would send men to act as an escort the
next day. She advised them that to make a good impression,
they should carry themselves very proudly. They should basically be arrogant,
(10:45):
and then when her retinue came to collect them in
the morning, they should refuse to go with them by
foot or on horseback, and instead demand that they be
carried to her still in the boat. I mean, I'm
I'm a wary person by nature, so I'm like, if
I heard this, adec, you're punking me. During the night, though,
(11:05):
Olga ordered a deep trench to be dug alongside the castle.
When her porters carried the Drevelan men to the castle,
they dropped them still in the boat, down in the trench,
where Olga had them buried alive. Then Olga sent a
message to the Drevelans saying that she would consider that
offer of marriage if they sent a delegation of distinguished
(11:26):
men to act as her escort. Prince mal agreed to
this and sent what was described as the best men
of the Drevelans. When they arrived, Olga said she would
receive them after they'd had baths, So they were led
into the bath house and locked inside, at which point
Olga's men set the building on fire. This is maybe
when you stopped trusting Olga. I'm just saying. She did
(11:49):
make sure that she acted quickly before a word could
go back to mal separately of what had been going on.
But she wrote again saying that she was on her
way to marry Prince mau All, but the first she
needed to have a proper morning and funeral for her
late husband. She asked that the dreve Leans prepare large
quantities of mead for that purpose, and then she traveled
(12:10):
to the site of Egor's death, where the Drevelans had
buried him. Once she had mourned for her late husband
at his tomb. There, Olga set up a funeral feast
with her retinue serving the Drevelans who had attended. According
to the primary chronicle, the Drevelance had sent a retinue
of about five thousand men, and then Olga's men were
(12:30):
very generous in serving the mead that the Drevelans had
brewed for this purpose. Once the Drevelans were all drunk,
Olga's retinue massacred them again. Don't don't trust Olga. I'm
not I'm not judging her actions. I'm just saying, don't
trust this person. But she was still not done. She
returned to Kiev and raised an army before returning to
(12:52):
the Drevelan capital of Escoston to lay siege to it.
That siege went on for a year. Finally, the drevel
Is offered to surrender, saying they would pay tribute of
honey and furs if only Olga would just leave them
in peace. She finally made what seemed like a generous offer.
If they brought her three pigeons and three sparrows from
(13:13):
each house, she would indeed leave them in peace. But
then when they brought her those pigeons and sparrows, she
had her men turned them into living incendiary devices. The
primary chronicle describes this as tying small pieces of sulfur
wrapped in cloth to each bird. It's probably not straight
up sulfur. It was probably some kind of highly flammable
(13:34):
substance that was just described with that term, maybe something
that would have been relatively stable until it was somewhere
very warm, like a dovecoat or a chimney. Regardless, all
these birds flew back to their nests and caught fire,
burning most of the city to the ground as Olga's
army rounded up and killed survivors who tried to flee.
A few Drevelans were left alive after all of this,
(13:57):
and Olga enslaved some of them demanded huge tributes from others.
Talking a little bit more about that whole revenge campaign
later on when we get into some of the details
about the Russian Primary Chronicle and how accurate all this
may be. But once that massive revenge campaign was over,
Olga really seems to have had an efficient and effective
(14:20):
time leading Kievan Ruce. She served as her son's regent
for nearly nineteen years. She reportedly did a lot of
basically establishing an administrative state to run Kievan Rus efficiently,
and this made her the first woman to rule Kievan
Rus and the only woman ruler described in the Primary Chronicle.
The Primary chronicles next check in with Olga is during
(14:42):
a trip to Constantinople, which Slavic people is referred to
as Sargrod, she met with Byzantine Emperor Constantine the seventh,
son of Emperor Leo the sixth. This was not Constantine
the Great, who lived about six hundred years earlier than
the events were describing. This happened sometime around the nine fifties.
According to the primary chronicle, Constantine was really as impressed
(15:04):
with Olga. He noted her intellect and her wisdom, and
said that she was quote very fair of countenance. He
also said that she was worthy of ruling at his side,
at which point she told him that she was pagan
and that if he wanted her to be baptized, he
would have to do it himself. He did this, according
to the chronicle, with the help of the patriarch of Constantinople,
(15:28):
and at her baptism she was christened Helena, reportedly after
the mother of Constantine the Great. To quote the primary
chronicle quote, when Olga was enlightened, she rejoiced in soul
and body. The patriarch, who instructed her in the faith,
said to her, blessed art thou among the women of Ruth,
For thou hast loved the light and quit the darkness.
(15:49):
The sons of Ruth shall bless thee to the last
generation of thy descendants. From there, Olga began studying with
the patriarch, learning all the traditions and value and modes
of worship of the Orthodox Church. After the baptism, Constantine
proposed to Olga something that seemed like he might have
been thinking about earlier in the story when he said
(16:11):
that she was worthy of ruling at his side. But
she said, quote, how can you marry me after baptizing
me and calling me your daughter? For among Christians that
is unlawful, as you yourself must know. In other words,
you were my godfather at my baptism. Just now, what
are you even thinking? Constantine answered, Olga, you have outwitted me.
(16:32):
He gave her lavish gifts like gold and silks before
she went back home to Kiev, promising to send gifts
of her own in return when she got there. Olga
was pretty savvy, though, as she has been this entire time.
Once she got back to Kiev and Constantine wrote to
her about his promised gifts, she said that she would
send them along once he spent as much time with
(16:52):
her in her country as she had spent with him
in his. According to accounts from the time. Once Olga
got back to Kiev, she began destroying pagan idols, but
it's not clear whether this was part of an attempt
to outlaw pagan worship. She had apparently tolerated Christians while
she herself was pagan, and it's possible that she continued
(17:13):
to tolerate pagan's once she had become Christian, meaning that
she was destroying idols to conform with Christian law, not
as part of an attempt to drive out all paganism.
After her conversion to Christianity, Olga did try to persuade
savyats Love to do the same. He was old enough
at that point to make this decision, but not really
(17:33):
old enough to rule. He didn't want to be baptized,
though Christians were still really in the minority in Kevin,
russ and he worried that he would lose the respect
of his pagan subjects if he converted. Olga's regency ended
in nine sixty four, when Savantslav turned twenty one. He
followed in his father's footsteps and embarked on a series
(17:54):
of military conquests, although these were much more successful than
his father's had been. Although Olga was no longer regent,
she continued to run Kiev's administrative state while her son
was away at war. Savyatslav was really ambitious. He wanted
to unite the Roosts and the neighboring Bulgars into one
Russo Bulgarian empire. He conquered an assortment of neighboring people's
(18:18):
along with a series of cities along the Danube River,
earning the nickname Sevyatslav the Brave In He captured the
city of Paria Slavits, on the mouth of the Danube River,
and he made his home there. Sevyatslav's moved to Parislavits,
left Kiev relatively vulnerable, though while he was living in Parislavits,
a semi nomadic Turkic speaking people called Pechenegs attack Kiev.
(18:43):
As they lay siege to the city, Olga tried to
protect her grandchildren, who included both of the next princes
of Kievan russ The Pechenegs force was large enough that
nobody was able to get into or out of Kiev
while it was under siege, or even really to send
any kind of message to sevyats of the besieged city
was finally able to send for help when a young
(19:04):
man who knew the Turkic language had an idea for
a little subterfuge. He sneaked out of the city with
a bridle and started asking around if anybody had seen
his horse. So the Pechen Eggs thought he was one
of their own force. He was able to kind of
work his way through the crowd searching for his make
belief horse before being noticed. He was able to get
(19:24):
away carrying word of what was happening to Sevyatslav's nerest general.
This general was able to relieve the siege of Kiev
pretty quickly, and once Sevyatslav heard what had happened, he
raised an army to drive the Pechen Eggs out of
the area. Once that was done, Though Sevyatslav really wanted
to return to the Danube River region, he thought Paris
(19:45):
Labitz was a lot more strategically located city. It was
more central in his newly expanded territory that had better
access to trade and luxury goods. His mother got him
to promise that he would wait until after her death
to because she didn't want to be separated from him again.
She died on July eleven, sixty nine. In the words
(20:07):
of the chronicle quote Olga was the precursor of the
Christian Land, even as the day spring precedes the sun,
and as the dawn precedes the day. For she's shone
like the moon by night. And she was radiant among
the infidels, like a pearl in the mayre. Since the
people were soiled and not yet purified of their sin
by holy baptism, but she herself was cleansed by this
(20:30):
sacred purification. She put off the sinful garments of the
old atom and was clad in the new atom, which
is Christ. Thus we say to her, rejoice in the
Russ's knowledge of God, for we were the first fruits
of their reconciliation with Him. She was the first from
Rus to enter the Kingdom of God. And the sons
of Russ thus praise her as their leader, for since
(20:53):
her death she has interceded with God in their behalf.
To close the loop on her story and two of
Yatslav was on the way back to Kiev with a
small retinue when he was ambushed by the Petchen eggs
and killed. He was succeeded by his oldest son, Yarra Polk,
who was then succeeded by his brother, Vladimir or the Great.
(21:13):
He's the one that we've talked about in that previous episode,
and he was the one who converted Kiev and Roots
to Christianity. Like we said at the top of the show,
it is possible that some elements of Olga's life are
a little bit closer to legend than actual fact, and
we're gonna get into that after we first paused for
a little sponsor break. If you read a bunch of
(21:40):
articles about Oliga of Kiev from different sources today, you
can find dramatically different takes on her, depending on he
was writing. Some of them focus only on her revenge
against the Drevelands, while others focus only on her conversion
to Christianity, describing her as equal to the Apostles and
completely leaving out all of that earlier revenge arc. Some
(22:04):
focus both on the revenge and the conversion, crediting the
conversion to Christianity with transforming Olga from a bloodthirsty pagan
into a pieceful Christian And there are also a few
that try to build the case that this revenge was
just a total fabrication that has nothing to do with
Olga as a Christian figure at all, it's true that
(22:24):
there is not a lot of documentation of the revenge
campaign outside of the Primary Chronicle. The Russian Primary Chronicle
is typically attributed to the Monk Nestor, although it was
probably the compilation of work by multiple people. It's usually
cited as having been completed in eleven thirteen, so about
a hundred and fifty years or more after all of
(22:45):
these events happened. The oldest surviving copy of it is
from about thirteen hundred, and it's considered to be the
most important source of information about the early history of
the Eastern Slavs. Olga mike I said earlier is the
old the woman ruler described in the Primary Chronicle, which
is also the only ruler presented as having this degree
(23:06):
of cunning, But that disparity isn't necessarily evidence that this
revenge story is a fabrication. Most of the male leaders
who are described in the Primary Chronicle are mentioned in
terms of their military skill, sort of their value and
aptitude as a as a leader is tied into their
military campaigns Olga didn't directly participate in military campaigns the
(23:30):
way the roots princes did, so this difference in tone
might just be because Olga's leadership took a very different
form than the men's leadership did. But even though there
isn't a lot of corroboration of the revenge story itself,
there is information to suggest that something like it could
have happened, although perhaps not on such a massive and
prolonged scale. There are plenty of other revenge stories from
(23:54):
medieval Europe and Asia, both in factual chronicles and in
stories and legends, so this one didn't just come out
of nowhere. Also, the primary deity among pagans at the
time was Parin, god of thunder and lightning, and he's
associated with order and right and purification, so some historians
argue that Olga's medieval pagan background is right in line
(24:15):
with this revenge story and an attempt to put things
right to purify the region of Drevellans. The Russ's relationship
with the Greeks, on the other hand, is much more documented.
Igor and allegs treaties with the Greeks are both recorded
from the Byzantine Empire's perspective. Olga's visit to Constantinople also appears,
(24:37):
and Constantine's Book of Ceremonies, which is an extremely detailed
Book of all the ceremonial protocol at Court. When I
say extremely detailed, I'm talking eleven page long descriptions of
all the decorations at an event, and who was there
and what they were wearing, and where they were all
positioned in the room. If you have ever read the
book The Princess Bride, it's basically an entire book of
(25:01):
the things that are cut out of it. I was
gonna say it sounded like, uh. Some of the writing
of Gustaf lobert Um Constantine doesn't specifically mention Olga's baptism
in the Book of Ceremonies, though which he wouldn't have
if it took place somewhere other than at court. He
(25:22):
also calls her by the name Helga, which is the
Scandinavian version of Olga. But there are plenty of other
references to this baptism and the historical record, including Slavic,
Byzantine and Latin accounts, but they all contradict each other
in terms of exactly when and where the baptism happened.
Some accounts placed the conversion is happening in nine fifty
(25:43):
four or nine fifty five, but if you line up
the dates with the days of the week that appear
in Constantine's writing, it was really nine fifties seven. Some
accounts that suggest an earlier date also suggest that it
was a local priest named Gregory and not the Patriot
arc of Constantinople, who actually performed the baptism. On top
of these differing accounts, there are also modern scholars who
(26:06):
have tried to piece together a timeline based on other
bits of information, like whether Constantine's wife, Helen would have
been Olga's godmother since her husband was Olga's godfather, and
if she was, whether that was why Olga was given
the baptismal name of Helen, and if the answer to
both of those questions is yes, if that's evidence for
an earlier baptism because Empress Helen was in very poor
(26:29):
health for several years before she died in two Some
of this analysis suggests that Olga's baptism wasn't connected to
her trip at constant to Constantinople at all, that she
had been baptized in Kiev years before going there. Some
of these accounts speculate that the primary chronicle suggestion that
Olga headed off an unwanted marriage proposal by getting the
(26:53):
Emperor to be her godfather is just a fanciful edition
made by the chronicler, and that no such marriage pro
Zel ever really happened. Uh, there is no exaggeration, a
ton of scholarship on this question of when and where
Olga was baptized. Tracy looked at four different papers exclusively
on that subject, one of which references that there had
(27:15):
been eleven major studies connected to it, and that particular
paper was written thirty years ago, so there are surely
even more by now. Yeah, there has been just so much,
so much research and too exactly when and where was
Olga baptized? So basically we have enough evidence to know
that Olga was a real person, that she really was
married to Igor, and that she governed the roots of
(27:38):
Kiev as her son's regent, that she traveled to Constantinople
at least once, and that she converted to Christianity. Some
of the other details are a little fuzzier, and some
are There are some arguments that Olga's revenge, or at
least some elements of it, might be apocryphal, even though
they are kind of fun to read about, especially if
(27:58):
you're a fan of things like Game of Three owns.
It is a very game game of thrones e life. Yes,
Olga was canonized in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches,
and her feast day is celebrated on July eleven, or
depending on where you are, as Olga of Kiev. Olga
(28:18):
you seem fun. It is always fun. Um when the
primary document that we have on somebody is like a
thing that you can find and read for yourself on
the internet. Uh, that's easily accessible, rather rather than having
(28:39):
to rely, like exclusively on papers referring back to a
thing that's buried in an archive somewhere. I'm not knocking
archives at all. They do valuable and important work helping
people weed through all of this information. But um, I
always like it when when the primary source is a
thing that I can go and read all the way
through for myself before getting into the article or before
(29:01):
getting into the podcast. Yeah, do you have a little
bit of listener rail I do I have something from Caitlin.
Caitlin says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I'm listening to your
latest episode on mary Winston Jackson and had to stop
to write this note before I even got through the intro.
You mentioned the Harvard Observatory and their star plates, along
(29:22):
with the women tasked with cataloging those self same stars.
In addition to Annie jump Cannon, a fantastic deaf astronomer,
Henrietta Swan Levitt was also a notable employee. Her work
built on the foundation for measuring objects outside of the
Solar System, which helped prove that there were indeed objects
outside the Solar system ed when Hubble's seminal work used
(29:45):
Henrietta's as part of its basis. Had she not died
of pancreatic cancer, she would have won the Nobel and
in fact, three years after her death of mathematician tried
to nominate her thinking she was still living. I write
to say this because, apart from being the most a
subcess person I know, I worked on a play about
Henry and Annie and their stars. It's called Silent Sky
(30:06):
by Lauren Gunderson, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
It's a beautiful script that I've been fortunate enough to
work on a beautiful production as well. Anyway, I know
you have a billion miles suggestion list and that you've
literally just done a Lady Astratober, but maybe Annie or
Henry can go on that list, Caitlin. Uh. And then
she also goes on to say that she particularly likes
(30:28):
episodes like The Ghost Army because of her work as
a sound designer, which is pretty cool. Thank you so much, Caitlin.
That is not a name that I came across when
I was working on that episode, so I am glad
to hear about her. I don't know if she will
become an episode because our list is very long, but
she will definitely go on there. Yeah. If you would
(30:50):
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(31:11):
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(31:36):
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dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy view Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
are going to go all the way back to the
Middle Ages, specifically to Kevin Ruce and Olga of Kiev.
(00:23):
Olga was married to Igor, who was Prince of Kevin,
russ and she gets just the teeniest tiniest mention in
an episode that we did a long time ago on
her grandson, Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, that was from
right after Holly and I joined this podcast, and that
very very brief mentioned. I mean, her name just comes
(00:44):
up and a couple of sentences that's not nearly enough
to do her justice. Most of what we know about
Olga comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle, which is also
known as the Chronicle of Nestor or the Tale of
Bygone Years. We're gonna talk more about that later, but
some elements of this story might borrow a little bit
more from legend than from history. This involves a very elaborate,
(01:09):
gruesome and incredibly thorough revenge and then a religious conversion,
and just the note that that revenge story is also
going to include the kind of gruesome killing of some animals.
So everyone brace, I will be bracing with you. We
have a bit of background before we get to Olga
and Igor so Kievan Russ is a term that was
(01:32):
coined in the nineteenth century to describe a loosely organized
federation of Eastern Slavic and Finnish tribes with a capital
in Kiev. It's named for Kiev and for the Rush
people who probably came from Scandinavia and invaded the area
around Kiev more than a thousand years ago. According to
the Primary Chronicle, the Viking Ruric invaded Kiev in the
(01:54):
middle of the ninth century, and then another Viking, a Leg,
started consolidating the tribes the area. A Leg and Rick
might have been related, but that's not a d clear
and some historians suspect that elements of Rick's invasion story
might be apocryphal, and there is also ongoing debate about
exactly where these invaders were from and whether they were
(02:18):
Scandinavian at all. Regardless though, Rouss is the origin of
the word Russian, and that's why all of this is
frequently rolled up under the umbrella of Russian history. Today,
even though the territory involved also includes parts of Ukraine
and Belarus today. There were also lots of other tribes
in this part of Eastern Europe that were not part
(02:39):
of this federation. These tribes were variously at war or
allied with the Roust, depending on the time and the circumstance.
All of the tribes were ruled by princes, and the
Prince of Kievan Russ considered himself to be the most
important of all of them. Yeah. Whether he actually called
himself the Grand Prince kind of varied over time, but
(03:00):
he considered himself to be the most important, best prince. Yes.
The economy of Kevin Russ rested on the collection of
tribute and then trade, primarily with Constantinople, which is now
Istanbul across the Black Sea. The Kevin Prince would collect
tribute from all the other princes over the winter, and
then in the warmer months they would take that tribute
(03:22):
by boat to trade with Constantinople. Sometimes the tribes paid
the tribute at least partly in money, but the tribute
also included goods like furs, honey, and wax. Enslaved people
were also a major part of the tribute. And a
huge part of the trading economy of Kevin Ruce. The
people enslaved included prisoners of war, criminals, people who couldn't
(03:44):
pay their debts, and in some cases, people who sold
themselves into slavery. And one of the many subjects of
ongoing debate in this episode is whether the word slave
is actually derived from slav and grew out of the
Russ's enslavement of Slavic people's. This trading relationship with Constantinople
came about during Aleg's reign as prince. At about nine
(04:06):
oh seven, he had gone to war with the Byzantine
Empire through the Roosts, usually described as Greeks. This war
ended in a treaty between Aleg and the Byzantine emperors
Leo the sixth and Alexander and that established terms for
their trading relationship. Under this treaty, the Greeks would provide food, baths,
(04:26):
and supplies when the roost came as merchants, but would
provide nothing to roost who came to the area without
goods to sell. A few years later, the Roosts and
the Greeks negotiated another treaty, one that covered a lot
more terms beyond just trade, including what would happen if
various crimes were committed against a Greek by a roost
and vice versa. This treaty also established things like ground
(04:49):
rules for what to do if ships from one had
to go into the territory of the other because of
bad weather, and how prisoners and slaves were to be treated.
Aleg died in nine twelve, and while his death itself
isn't strictly related to today's episode, it's account in the
primary chronicle is just too good to leave it out
because I like it. According to the Primary Chronicle, a
(05:12):
prophecy had foretold that a Leg's favorite horse would be
the cause of his death. Hoping to keep that from happening,
a Leg ordered the horse to be sent out to
pasture and to be taken care of very well, but
never brought into his presence again. Some years passed, and
he started to wonder whatever had happened to that horse.
When he asked, he was told that it had died,
(05:35):
so he asked to be taken to see its bones,
and once he was there, he laughed at the idea
that this horse was supposed to have caused his death,
and he stepped on its skull. But the problem was
there was a stake hiding in there and the snake
bit him and he died. Well yeah, um, I don't
(05:55):
want to vilify snakes that he he was just in
his snake apartment he was doing. After a Leg's death,
Olga's husband, Igor assumed the throne. It's possible that Igor
may have also been related to Ruric, but it is
not completely clear. Igor was born around eight seventy seven
and Olga was born in an estimated eight ninet. Olga
(06:19):
may have been the daughter of a prince, but some
sources specifically note that she was of common birth. The
primary chronicle places her birth at the city of Skov
in what's now Russia. Igor and Olga married in nine
oh three, so they had been married for about nine
years when a Leg died and Igor assumed the throne.
Igor did not have a reputation for being a particularly
(06:41):
wise or skilled leader. He did conquer one of those
neighboring tribes, the Drevelyans, and he imposed a much higher
tribute on them than his predecessor had demanded. But he
also waged war on the Greeks in an unsuccessful campaign
that led to most of his fleet being destroyed by
what was described as Greek fire. Egor responded to this
(07:02):
defeat by raising an army, rebuilding some of his ships,
and trying again, which led to a new treaty with
the Byzantine Empire negotiated in ninety four. But this treaty's
terms weren't as favorable to the Rous as a Leg's
earlier treaty had been, so this was an overall loss.
The treaty did, though, illustrate how Christianity had started to
(07:23):
become established in Kevin, Russ. Christians were still in the minority,
but they were a large enough minority to be specifically
addressed in this treaty. Their inclusion also suggests that Igor
was at least tolerant of them per the treaty. The
baptized Roots or the Christians, acknowledged the treaty by taking
an oath in a cathedral, while the unbaptized russ or
(07:46):
the Pagans swore on their swords. Igor was pagan, so
he swore on his sword. Kevin Russ also had a
significant Jewish population, which wasn't referenced in the signing of
the treaty, and there may have been at least some
people of other religion as well. A year later, when
Igor was out collecting tribute, he demanded even more from
the Drevelans than he had previously, which was already more
(08:09):
than a leg had required, and when they resisted, he
attacked them. Once he had defeated them and collected their tribute,
he sent most of his retinue on ahead, but he
turned back with a few of his men, apparently to
try to collect still more tribute. At that point, the
Devilians killed him, along with his escort. Then the Drevelans
(08:30):
tried to press their advantage. They sent an envoy to
Olga in Kiev to inform her of Igor's death and
to seek her hand in marriage for their own prince,
who the Primary chronicle names as Mao. It wasn't all
that uncommon for a ruler's widow to marry the man
who had defeated him, But the Drevelans goal wasn't so
(08:52):
much to cement some kind of alliance between Olga and Mao.
It was to take custody of Igor and Olga's son,
sav Yatsla, of it was just a toddler and groom
him to rule in a way that would be the
most favorable to them, And just to acknowledge that this
chronology is a little odd. Olga and Igor were married
in nine oh three, but Savyatslav's birth is recorded as
(09:16):
two and the primary chronicle doesn't record any other children
from their marriage. This would mean that they had been
married for about thirty nine years before Sevatslav was born,
and the Olga was in her fifties at the youngest,
and that Igor was about sixty five. So that's not impossible,
but it does seem kind of improbable. The odds are
(09:38):
a little long, right, There are cases on record of
people having children at those ages, yes, and having surprised
babies later in their life. But still you have to
do the ven diagram of calendar math gets awkward the
farther and farther back you go in history. Yes, So
regardless of that sort of uh interesting chronology, Olga's response
(10:01):
to her husband's assassination, according to this account, was dramatic,
and we will get to it after a sponsor break.
According to the primary chronicle, when the Drevelyan delegation arrived
in Kiev, they were in a small boat carrying about
(10:22):
twenty men. Olga welcomed them. She offered them hospitality, and
she told them that she wanted to meet with them
in the morning. She said that they should go back
to their boat that they had come on, and that
she would send men to act as an escort the
next day. She advised them that to make a good impression,
they should carry themselves very proudly. They should basically be arrogant,
(10:45):
and then when her retinue came to collect them in
the morning, they should refuse to go with them by
foot or on horseback, and instead demand that they be
carried to her still in the boat. I mean, I'm
I'm a wary person by nature, so I'm like, if
I heard this, adec, you're punking me. During the night, though,
(11:05):
Olga ordered a deep trench to be dug alongside the castle.
When her porters carried the Drevelan men to the castle,
they dropped them still in the boat, down in the trench,
where Olga had them buried alive. Then Olga sent a
message to the Drevelans saying that she would consider that
offer of marriage if they sent a delegation of distinguished
(11:26):
men to act as her escort. Prince mal agreed to
this and sent what was described as the best men
of the Drevelans. When they arrived, Olga said she would
receive them after they'd had baths, So they were led
into the bath house and locked inside, at which point
Olga's men set the building on fire. This is maybe
when you stopped trusting Olga. I'm just saying. She did
(11:49):
make sure that she acted quickly before a word could
go back to mal separately of what had been going on.
But she wrote again saying that she was on her
way to marry Prince mau All, but the first she
needed to have a proper morning and funeral for her
late husband. She asked that the dreve Leans prepare large
quantities of mead for that purpose, and then she traveled
(12:10):
to the site of Egor's death, where the Drevelans had
buried him. Once she had mourned for her late husband
at his tomb. There, Olga set up a funeral feast
with her retinue serving the Drevelans who had attended. According
to the primary chronicle, the Drevelance had sent a retinue
of about five thousand men, and then Olga's men were
(12:30):
very generous in serving the mead that the Drevelans had
brewed for this purpose. Once the Drevelans were all drunk,
Olga's retinue massacred them again. Don't don't trust Olga. I'm
not I'm not judging her actions. I'm just saying, don't
trust this person. But she was still not done. She
returned to Kiev and raised an army before returning to
(12:52):
the Drevelan capital of Escoston to lay siege to it.
That siege went on for a year. Finally, the drevel
Is offered to surrender, saying they would pay tribute of
honey and furs if only Olga would just leave them
in peace. She finally made what seemed like a generous offer.
If they brought her three pigeons and three sparrows from
(13:13):
each house, she would indeed leave them in peace. But
then when they brought her those pigeons and sparrows, she
had her men turned them into living incendiary devices. The
primary chronicle describes this as tying small pieces of sulfur
wrapped in cloth to each bird. It's probably not straight
up sulfur. It was probably some kind of highly flammable
(13:34):
substance that was just described with that term, maybe something
that would have been relatively stable until it was somewhere
very warm, like a dovecoat or a chimney. Regardless, all
these birds flew back to their nests and caught fire,
burning most of the city to the ground as Olga's
army rounded up and killed survivors who tried to flee.
A few Drevelans were left alive after all of this,
(13:57):
and Olga enslaved some of them demanded huge tributes from others.
Talking a little bit more about that whole revenge campaign
later on when we get into some of the details
about the Russian Primary Chronicle and how accurate all this
may be. But once that massive revenge campaign was over,
Olga really seems to have had an efficient and effective
(14:20):
time leading Kievan Ruce. She served as her son's regent
for nearly nineteen years. She reportedly did a lot of
basically establishing an administrative state to run Kievan Rus efficiently,
and this made her the first woman to rule Kievan
Rus and the only woman ruler described in the Primary Chronicle.
The Primary chronicles next check in with Olga is during
(14:42):
a trip to Constantinople, which Slavic people is referred to
as Sargrod, she met with Byzantine Emperor Constantine the seventh,
son of Emperor Leo the sixth. This was not Constantine
the Great, who lived about six hundred years earlier than
the events were describing. This happened sometime around the nine fifties.
According to the primary chronicle, Constantine was really as impressed
(15:04):
with Olga. He noted her intellect and her wisdom, and
said that she was quote very fair of countenance. He
also said that she was worthy of ruling at his side,
at which point she told him that she was pagan
and that if he wanted her to be baptized, he
would have to do it himself. He did this, according
to the chronicle, with the help of the patriarch of Constantinople,
(15:28):
and at her baptism she was christened Helena, reportedly after
the mother of Constantine the Great. To quote the primary
chronicle quote, when Olga was enlightened, she rejoiced in soul
and body. The patriarch, who instructed her in the faith,
said to her, blessed art thou among the women of Ruth,
For thou hast loved the light and quit the darkness.
(15:49):
The sons of Ruth shall bless thee to the last
generation of thy descendants. From there, Olga began studying with
the patriarch, learning all the traditions and value and modes
of worship of the Orthodox Church. After the baptism, Constantine
proposed to Olga something that seemed like he might have
been thinking about earlier in the story when he said
(16:11):
that she was worthy of ruling at his side. But
she said, quote, how can you marry me after baptizing
me and calling me your daughter? For among Christians that
is unlawful, as you yourself must know. In other words,
you were my godfather at my baptism. Just now, what
are you even thinking? Constantine answered, Olga, you have outwitted me.
(16:32):
He gave her lavish gifts like gold and silks before
she went back home to Kiev, promising to send gifts
of her own in return when she got there. Olga
was pretty savvy, though, as she has been this entire time.
Once she got back to Kiev and Constantine wrote to
her about his promised gifts, she said that she would
send them along once he spent as much time with
(16:52):
her in her country as she had spent with him
in his. According to accounts from the time. Once Olga
got back to Kiev, she began destroying pagan idols, but
it's not clear whether this was part of an attempt
to outlaw pagan worship. She had apparently tolerated Christians while
she herself was pagan, and it's possible that she continued
(17:13):
to tolerate pagan's once she had become Christian, meaning that
she was destroying idols to conform with Christian law, not
as part of an attempt to drive out all paganism.
After her conversion to Christianity, Olga did try to persuade
savyats Love to do the same. He was old enough
at that point to make this decision, but not really
(17:33):
old enough to rule. He didn't want to be baptized,
though Christians were still really in the minority in Kevin,
russ and he worried that he would lose the respect
of his pagan subjects if he converted. Olga's regency ended
in nine sixty four, when Savantslav turned twenty one. He
followed in his father's footsteps and embarked on a series
(17:54):
of military conquests, although these were much more successful than
his father's had been. Although Olga was no longer regent,
she continued to run Kiev's administrative state while her son
was away at war. Savyatslav was really ambitious. He wanted
to unite the Roosts and the neighboring Bulgars into one
Russo Bulgarian empire. He conquered an assortment of neighboring people's
(18:18):
along with a series of cities along the Danube River,
earning the nickname Sevyatslav the Brave In He captured the
city of Paria Slavits, on the mouth of the Danube River,
and he made his home there. Sevyatslav's moved to Parislavits,
left Kiev relatively vulnerable, though while he was living in Parislavits,
a semi nomadic Turkic speaking people called Pechenegs attack Kiev.
(18:43):
As they lay siege to the city, Olga tried to
protect her grandchildren, who included both of the next princes
of Kievan russ The Pechenegs force was large enough that
nobody was able to get into or out of Kiev
while it was under siege, or even really to send
any kind of message to sevyats of the besieged city
was finally able to send for help when a young
(19:04):
man who knew the Turkic language had an idea for
a little subterfuge. He sneaked out of the city with
a bridle and started asking around if anybody had seen
his horse. So the Pechen Eggs thought he was one
of their own force. He was able to kind of
work his way through the crowd searching for his make
belief horse before being noticed. He was able to get
(19:24):
away carrying word of what was happening to Sevyatslav's nerest general.
This general was able to relieve the siege of Kiev
pretty quickly, and once Sevyatslav heard what had happened, he
raised an army to drive the Pechen Eggs out of
the area. Once that was done, Though Sevyatslav really wanted
to return to the Danube River region, he thought Paris
(19:45):
Labitz was a lot more strategically located city. It was
more central in his newly expanded territory that had better
access to trade and luxury goods. His mother got him
to promise that he would wait until after her death
to because she didn't want to be separated from him again.
She died on July eleven, sixty nine. In the words
(20:07):
of the chronicle quote Olga was the precursor of the
Christian Land, even as the day spring precedes the sun,
and as the dawn precedes the day. For she's shone
like the moon by night. And she was radiant among
the infidels, like a pearl in the mayre. Since the
people were soiled and not yet purified of their sin
by holy baptism, but she herself was cleansed by this
(20:30):
sacred purification. She put off the sinful garments of the
old atom and was clad in the new atom, which
is Christ. Thus we say to her, rejoice in the
Russ's knowledge of God, for we were the first fruits
of their reconciliation with Him. She was the first from
Rus to enter the Kingdom of God. And the sons
of Russ thus praise her as their leader, for since
(20:53):
her death she has interceded with God in their behalf.
To close the loop on her story and two of
Yatslav was on the way back to Kiev with a
small retinue when he was ambushed by the Petchen eggs
and killed. He was succeeded by his oldest son, Yarra Polk,
who was then succeeded by his brother, Vladimir or the Great.
(21:13):
He's the one that we've talked about in that previous episode,
and he was the one who converted Kiev and Roots
to Christianity. Like we said at the top of the show,
it is possible that some elements of Olga's life are
a little bit closer to legend than actual fact, and
we're gonna get into that after we first paused for
a little sponsor break. If you read a bunch of
(21:40):
articles about Oliga of Kiev from different sources today, you
can find dramatically different takes on her, depending on he
was writing. Some of them focus only on her revenge
against the Drevelands, while others focus only on her conversion
to Christianity, describing her as equal to the Apostles and
completely leaving out all of that earlier revenge arc. Some
(22:04):
focus both on the revenge and the conversion, crediting the
conversion to Christianity with transforming Olga from a bloodthirsty pagan
into a pieceful Christian And there are also a few
that try to build the case that this revenge was
just a total fabrication that has nothing to do with
Olga as a Christian figure at all, it's true that
(22:24):
there is not a lot of documentation of the revenge
campaign outside of the Primary Chronicle. The Russian Primary Chronicle
is typically attributed to the Monk Nestor, although it was
probably the compilation of work by multiple people. It's usually
cited as having been completed in eleven thirteen, so about
a hundred and fifty years or more after all of
(22:45):
these events happened. The oldest surviving copy of it is
from about thirteen hundred, and it's considered to be the
most important source of information about the early history of
the Eastern Slavs. Olga mike I said earlier is the
old the woman ruler described in the Primary Chronicle, which
is also the only ruler presented as having this degree
(23:06):
of cunning, But that disparity isn't necessarily evidence that this
revenge story is a fabrication. Most of the male leaders
who are described in the Primary Chronicle are mentioned in
terms of their military skill, sort of their value and
aptitude as a as a leader is tied into their
military campaigns Olga didn't directly participate in military campaigns the
(23:30):
way the roots princes did, so this difference in tone
might just be because Olga's leadership took a very different
form than the men's leadership did. But even though there
isn't a lot of corroboration of the revenge story itself,
there is information to suggest that something like it could
have happened, although perhaps not on such a massive and
prolonged scale. There are plenty of other revenge stories from
(23:54):
medieval Europe and Asia, both in factual chronicles and in
stories and legends, so this one didn't just come out
of nowhere. Also, the primary deity among pagans at the
time was Parin, god of thunder and lightning, and he's
associated with order and right and purification, so some historians
argue that Olga's medieval pagan background is right in line
(24:15):
with this revenge story and an attempt to put things
right to purify the region of Drevellans. The Russ's relationship
with the Greeks, on the other hand, is much more documented.
Igor and allegs treaties with the Greeks are both recorded
from the Byzantine Empire's perspective. Olga's visit to Constantinople also appears,
(24:37):
and Constantine's Book of Ceremonies, which is an extremely detailed
Book of all the ceremonial protocol at Court. When I
say extremely detailed, I'm talking eleven page long descriptions of
all the decorations at an event, and who was there
and what they were wearing, and where they were all
positioned in the room. If you have ever read the
book The Princess Bride, it's basically an entire book of
(25:01):
the things that are cut out of it. I was
gonna say it sounded like, uh. Some of the writing
of Gustaf lobert Um Constantine doesn't specifically mention Olga's baptism
in the Book of Ceremonies, though which he wouldn't have
if it took place somewhere other than at court. He
(25:22):
also calls her by the name Helga, which is the
Scandinavian version of Olga. But there are plenty of other
references to this baptism and the historical record, including Slavic,
Byzantine and Latin accounts, but they all contradict each other
in terms of exactly when and where the baptism happened.
Some accounts placed the conversion is happening in nine fifty
(25:43):
four or nine fifty five, but if you line up
the dates with the days of the week that appear
in Constantine's writing, it was really nine fifties seven. Some
accounts that suggest an earlier date also suggest that it
was a local priest named Gregory and not the Patriot
arc of Constantinople, who actually performed the baptism. On top
of these differing accounts, there are also modern scholars who
(26:06):
have tried to piece together a timeline based on other
bits of information, like whether Constantine's wife, Helen would have
been Olga's godmother since her husband was Olga's godfather, and
if she was, whether that was why Olga was given
the baptismal name of Helen, and if the answer to
both of those questions is yes, if that's evidence for
an earlier baptism because Empress Helen was in very poor
(26:29):
health for several years before she died in two Some
of this analysis suggests that Olga's baptism wasn't connected to
her trip at constant to Constantinople at all, that she
had been baptized in Kiev years before going there. Some
of these accounts speculate that the primary chronicle suggestion that
Olga headed off an unwanted marriage proposal by getting the
(26:53):
Emperor to be her godfather is just a fanciful edition
made by the chronicler, and that no such marriage pro
Zel ever really happened. Uh, there is no exaggeration, a
ton of scholarship on this question of when and where
Olga was baptized. Tracy looked at four different papers exclusively
on that subject, one of which references that there had
(27:15):
been eleven major studies connected to it, and that particular
paper was written thirty years ago, so there are surely
even more by now. Yeah, there has been just so much,
so much research and too exactly when and where was
Olga baptized? So basically we have enough evidence to know
that Olga was a real person, that she really was
married to Igor, and that she governed the roots of
(27:38):
Kiev as her son's regent, that she traveled to Constantinople
at least once, and that she converted to Christianity. Some
of the other details are a little fuzzier, and some
are There are some arguments that Olga's revenge, or at
least some elements of it, might be apocryphal, even though
they are kind of fun to read about, especially if
(27:58):
you're a fan of things like Game of Three owns.
It is a very game game of thrones e life. Yes,
Olga was canonized in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches,
and her feast day is celebrated on July eleven, or
depending on where you are, as Olga of Kiev. Olga
(28:18):
you seem fun. It is always fun. Um when the
primary document that we have on somebody is like a
thing that you can find and read for yourself on
the internet. Uh, that's easily accessible, rather rather than having
(28:39):
to rely, like exclusively on papers referring back to a
thing that's buried in an archive somewhere. I'm not knocking
archives at all. They do valuable and important work helping
people weed through all of this information. But um, I
always like it when when the primary source is a
thing that I can go and read all the way
through for myself before getting into the article or before
(29:01):
getting into the podcast. Yeah, do you have a little
bit of listener rail I do I have something from Caitlin.
Caitlin says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I'm listening to your
latest episode on mary Winston Jackson and had to stop
to write this note before I even got through the intro.
You mentioned the Harvard Observatory and their star plates, along
(29:22):
with the women tasked with cataloging those self same stars.
In addition to Annie jump Cannon, a fantastic deaf astronomer,
Henrietta Swan Levitt was also a notable employee. Her work
built on the foundation for measuring objects outside of the
Solar System, which helped prove that there were indeed objects
outside the Solar system ed when Hubble's seminal work used
(29:45):
Henrietta's as part of its basis. Had she not died
of pancreatic cancer, she would have won the Nobel and
in fact, three years after her death of mathematician tried
to nominate her thinking she was still living. I write
to say this because, apart from being the most a
subcess person I know, I worked on a play about
Henry and Annie and their stars. It's called Silent Sky
(30:06):
by Lauren Gunderson, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
It's a beautiful script that I've been fortunate enough to
work on a beautiful production as well. Anyway, I know
you have a billion miles suggestion list and that you've
literally just done a Lady Astratober, but maybe Annie or
Henry can go on that list, Caitlin. Uh. And then
she also goes on to say that she particularly likes
(30:28):
episodes like The Ghost Army because of her work as
a sound designer, which is pretty cool. Thank you so much, Caitlin.
That is not a name that I came across when
I was working on that episode, so I am glad
to hear about her. I don't know if she will
become an episode because our list is very long, but
she will definitely go on there. Yeah. If you would
(30:50):
like to write to us about this or any other
podcast or a history podcast at how stuff Works dot com.
We're also all over social media at missed in History.
That's where you'll find our Facebook and our Twitter, and
our Instagram and our Pinterest. You can also come to
our website, which is missed in History dot com. You
can click on the link at the top of the
page that says Paris Trip to find out about the
(31:11):
trip that we are taking to Paris in June. You
can also find a searchable archive of all the episodes
we've ever done and the show notes for all the
episodes Holly and I have done together, which will include
a link to the Russian primary craticle if you want
to go read it for yourself. You can also subscribe
to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,
and wherever else you get your podcasts. For more on
(31:36):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works
dot com.
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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