The Cult of Boris and Gleb: Remnant of a Varangian Tradition?

Edward S. Reisman

Russian Review, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1978), pp. 141-157.

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The Cult of Boris and Gleb:

Eemnant of a Varangian Tradition?*

The cult of princes in Kievan Christianity was centered in the belief that the prince was a "passion-sufferer" (strastoterpets) and an earthly replica of Christ in that he died willingly for Russia as Christ died for mankind. This motif in Russian hagiography continued with variations through the Mongol period. The concept of princely strastoterpenie be- came part of Russian Orthodoxy starting with Boris and Gleb, the youngest sons of Vladimir, who were murdered in the process of a fratricidal struggle for the Kievan throne and became the first canonized saints of the infant Russian church.1

The hagiographers of Boris and Gleb regarded them as "heavenly intercessors for the new Christian people," who "took away the sins of the sons of Russia." As the first Christian saints in Russia, they were recognized as "patrons of the Russian land," and in the century follow- ing their deaths, they were viewed by the princes of Kiev as "holy representatives of their cla~s."~

The interpretations of their cult offered by G. P. Fedotov and Michael Cherniavsky rely only on Christian thought and canonical procedure. Fedotov places Boris and Gleb in the tradition of Russian "kenoticism" and attributes the emphasis placed on the "kenotid' (suf- fering) Christ of early Russian Christianity (and the saintly princes who shared in his humility and passion) to the impression made by the meek and humble suffering Christ of the New Testament: the "shock of the Gospel" which "determined for all time the main Russian ap-

* I am extremely grateful to Dean A. Miller of the University of Rochester for his assistance in the formulation and preparation of this paper, which was originally written for the History Honors Program at Rochester. I would also like to thank Ronald V. Harrington and Brenda Meehan-Waters, who have been very generous in their assistance and support of this project.

1 Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People (New York, 1969), p. 7; G . P. Fedotov, Sviatye drevnei Rusi (henceforth Fedotov, Sviatye) (New York, 1960), p. 18; E . E. Golubinskii, Istoriia kanonizatsii sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi (Moscow, 1903), pp. 43-44.

2 Fedotov, Sviatye, p. 18; Golubinskii, p. 49; V. I. Lesiuchevskii, "Vyshgorod- skii kul't Borisa i Gleba v pamiatnikakh iskusstva," Sovetskaia arkheologiia 8 ( 1946): 238-40; Cf. Chemiavsky, p. 9.

142 The Russian Review

proach to Chri~tianity."~ Cherniavsky see the portrayal of the Russian prince in his vita as involving the "translation of Christ and his passion into the prince and his ~uffering."~

Norman Ingham has pointed out, however, that the uniqueness at- tributed to "kenoticism" and to the sacral nature of the princely family by Fedotov and Cherniavsky, respectively, is unjustified. Ingham un- derstands the hagiography of Boris and Gleb to be organically con- nected with that of the Czech saints Ludmilla and Wenceslaus. Ac- cording to his interpretation, the hagiographic pattern present in these four "Slavic martyrs," whereby the prince is betrayed by secret coun- cils and then proceeds willingly to his death (rather than oppose his murderers), derives from a single tradition which originated in tenth century Bohemia and moved from there to Rus', where it came to evolve along its own lines."

I propose that the cult of Boris and Gleb, the prototypical "saintly- princes" (and passion-sufferers ), be examined in the context of Slavic and Varangian paganism, and that both of these traditions be viewed within the larger framework of the Indo-European religions. It is my hypothesis that the veneration of Boris and Gleb is a remnant of the cult of Odinn (the sovereign god of the Scandinavian peoples), which entered Russian Christianity through the Varangian presence in Kiev and flourished in the atmosphere of Dvovsrie ("dual-faith) which followed the conversion of the Russian state in 988.

The veneration of Boris and Gleb is emphasized here to distinguish it from the hagiographic style in which their vitae were composed. The latter may well have been influenced by exposure to motifs and styles of Western hagiography (particularly the vitae of the Czech saints); the origins, however, of the cult of Boris and Gleb can be examined in a different context, in which an "intermediary role" of Bohemia is not a f a c t ~ r . ~

In view of the fact that the two 'inartyr-princes" became such central figures in Russian Orthodoxy so soon after the conversion of the state, there is a probability of religious continuity from a pre-Christian ruler- cult to this cult of saintly princes. When examined from the perspec-

3 Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, vol. 1, Kieuan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries (henceforth Fedotov, R.R.M. 1) (New York, 1946), pp. 94-131.

4 Cherniavsky,p. 17. 5 Norman W. Ingham, "The Sovereign as Martyr, East and West," Slavic and

East European Journal 17 (1973): 1-17; idem, "Czech Hagiography in Kiev: The Prisoner Miracles of Boris and Gleb," Welt der Slaven 10 (1965): 166-182.

6Cf. Ingham, "The Litany of Saints in 'h4olitva sv.Troick" in Charles W. Gribble, ed., Studies Presented to Professor Roman Jakobson by his Students (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 129-30.

143 The Cult of Boris and Gleb

tive of the tripartite schema formulated by Georges Dumkzil for the Indo-European religions, Boris and Gleb belong to the first-function as "priest-kings" of Russian Christianity. Although the figure of the "priest- king" was absent from the pagan Russian tradition, it was prominent in the religion of Scandinavia in the worship of Odinn and in the sacral kingship of the Northern peoples.

The "New Comparative Mythology," the term used for Georges DumBzil's theory of comparative religion, emphasizes the common themes and structures among the Indo-European religions rather than common nomenclature. The crux of this system is his theory that the hierarchies of the Indo-European religious systems are divided into three groups of deities: sovereign-priestly deities, deities of defense, and those providing for material well-being. Each god or group of gods is classified according to its function; hence, the system is called "tri- functional" or "tripa~tite."~

From his studies, Dumdzil has concluded that 1) the proto-Indo- European society, before disbanding or dispersing (2500-2000 B.c.),

had a tripartite ideology which reflected the society's division into the priestly, warrior, and "nourishment" classes; 2) the elements of this ideology were preserved by the different Indo-European families dur- ing their migrations; and 3 ) these elements can be found in most (al- though not all) of the Indo-European mythical and epic literature, from the Indic Vedas to the pre-Christian literature of Scandinavia.8 Primary to DumBzil's system is Durkheim's concept that the sacred essentially represents the society personified, in that persons, places, and events in myths are representations of important social and cultural realities, and that these ongoing realities of a people are inevitably pro- jected into the realm of its sacred cosmos and mythsg

Since literacy came to the Slavic peoples as an instrument of Byzan-

7 C. Scott Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges DumSzil (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 2-6; idem, Introduction to Georges DumBzil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen (Chicago, 1970).

8Littleton, p. 6. The most clearly defined tripartition is in the religion of pre- Capitoline Rome: Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, along with the "shadowy figures" of Dius Fidius and Ops. Jupiter, as god presiding over the cosmic order, is the representative of the priestly function; in the aspect of Dius Fidius, he presides over the maintenance of the moral/juridical order and represents an administrator/ magistrate figure. Mars, presiding over the exercise of physical prowess and the force of arms, represents Milites, the soldiery. Quirinus/Ops presides over the daily activities of the people (crafts, agriculture, etc.), representing the Quirites. Jupiter/Dius Fidius, Mars, and Quirinus/Ops correspond in function to Mithra/ Varuna, Indra, and the Asvins, respectively, of the Vedic tradition. Ibid., pp. 68-69.

9 Ibid., pp. 2, 4, 39, 101, 123. Others, following DumBzil, have demonstrated that the tripartite ideology was so deeply rooted among the Indo-European 'sacred systems' that it could pass from myth to epic without serious alteration and could even enter into the interpretation of historical events. Ibid., pp. 157-58, 162-63.

144 The Russian Review

tine and Western (Roman) missionary efforts, there was no opportunity for the development in Russia of a Slavic pagan literature: the legends and tales are the closest equivalents to a written recording of pagan religious beliefs such as is found in the Norse epic literature.1° The pantheon that is associated with Prince Vladimir of Kiev is the only written enumeration of deities among the Eastern Slavs, and the paucity of sources makes it difficult to establish any definite boundaries between Russian paganism and the religion(s) of the other Slavic nations.ll

The most prominent deity of Russian (and Slavic) paganism is Perun, the thunder-god, whose name means "maker of lightning." It is recorded in the Russian Chronicles that the Kievans wept as his statue was thrown into the Dnepr. Perun was associated with trees (partic- ularly the oak) and with hills, i.e., where lightening was likely to strike; these places, upon being struck, were considered areas of communion between heaven and earth. The axe and/or hammer was identified with Perun's thunderbolt and became a symbol of his personal power as well as an attribute of the anthropomorphic god.12 In the Dumkzilian system, Perun represents the second function, the warrior deity of the Russian pantheon.

Following Perun as the most important deity in pagan Russia is Volos (or Veles), whose name is often followed by the epithet skotii bog, "the god of cattle." In his role as protector of cattle and commerce, he represents a third-function deity.13

The pagan pantheon of Russia fits well into the Dumkzilian tripartite schema in that there are deities of warfare and fecundity, the second and third functions. There is, however, no deity in its visible remnants who would correspond to Jupiter, Odinn/Wotan/Woden (of the Ger- manic tradition), or Esus (of Celtic mythology). From the testimony of Procopius of Caesarea, it can be presumed that this lack of a celestial sovereign-priest (corresponding to a lack of a single political-tribal

10 Marija Gimbutas, "Ancient Slavic Religion: A Synopsis" in T O Honor Roman Jakobson 3 vols. (The Hague, 1967), 1: 738. Cf. Roman Jakobson, "The Slavic God Veles and his Indo-European Cognates" in Studi Linguistici in Onore di Vittore Pisani (Brescia, 1969), 2: 599.

1lGeorge Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1948), p. 48; Gimbutas, p. 741.

12 Gimbutas, pp. 74244; Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 54; Roman Jakobson, "Slavic Mythology" in Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionay of Folklore (New York, 1970), p. 1026. The Slavic Perunu has the same root as the word for "oak," and the Old Russian peregynia means "oak-wooded hill." N. F. Lavrov, "Religiia i tserkov'," in N. N. Voronin and M. K. Karger, eds., Istoriia kul'turg drevnei Rusi- domongolikii period (Moscow, 1951), 2: 61.

13 See Jakobson, "The Slavic God Veles"; idem, "Slavic Mythology," p. 1027.

The Cult of Boris and Gleb

ruler) was characteristic of the proto-Slavic religion by the beginning of the sixth century A.D.

In his History of the Wars, Procopius describes the governing system and religion of the Slavs, who are called Sclaueni: they were ruled by a tribal democracy, lacking (it was specifically noted) a single ruler, and they worshipped one god, who was alone ruler of all things and who was the maker of lightning.l4 This figure is understood to be Perun-but we are still left without a priest-king.

Robert Fisher, commenting on the lack of an entrenched priestly class among the Slavs, remarks that with the stress placed on warrior activity on the part of the supreme god in the Slavic epic tales, the first function seems to have assumed the characteristics of the second. Girnbutas notes that although the Slavic religion had priests, its myth- ology is so incompletely known that it has not left any deity who could be clearly identified with the first-function priest-king.16

The deities in the Scandinavian religion who correspond to the priest- king, warrior, and fecundity functions are Odinn, Thor and Freyr, re- spectively. In descriptions of Norse sacrifices to the gods, Thor, rather than Odinn, was generally mentioned first.l6 Thor was distinguished for his might and, like Perun, was worshipped as a thunder-god; both correspond to the second-function warrior-deities of other Indo- European traditions.

Before the Varangians in Russia made any movement towards Chris- tianization, they maintained the cult of Thor, with whom they very easily identified Perun. The latter became the patron god of Kiev and was worshipped in public by the Varangians. By the year 944, there were many Christians in Kiev, and the Laurentian Chronicle, describing the treaty with Byzantium made in that year by Igor', notes that "the oath of the Christian Russes was received in the church of St. Elias . . .

14Procopius of Caeserea, History of the Wars, translated by H . B. Dewing (London, 1914-1940) 7 vols. 1-5 trans., ch. 22-23. Cf . S . H. Cross, Slavic Civiliza- tion Through the Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1948),pp. 24-25.

16Robert L. Fisher, Jr., "Indo-European Elements in the Baltic and Slavic Chronicles" in Jaan Puhvel, ed., Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 157-58; Gimbutas, p. 755. Cross finds a priestly class among the Slavs in the Baltic region only: Slavic Civilization, pp. 24-25. Cf. B. Grekov, Kievan Rus'. (Moscow, 1959), p. 514. For a discussion of Stribog as the original priest-king in the Slavic pantheon, see V . N . Toporov, "Fragment slavianskoi mifologii," Akademiia Nauk, SSSR. Institut Slavianovedeniia, Kratkie soobshcheniia 30 (1981). Note, however, the comments of Gimputas, p. 775 and Fisher, p. 148.

16E.O.G. Turville-Petre, The Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (New York, 1984), p. 90; Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, translated by Francis J . Tschan (New York, 1959), 4: 26; Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla, or The History of the Norse Kings, translated by Erling Monsen (Cambridge, 1932): The History of Olav Trygvason ch. 69.

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for there were many Varangian Christians."l7 This church (in Russian Sv. Z2'ia) had been built in Kiev by the middle of the tenth century, and those Varangians in Kiev who had converted worshipped there.ls

For those Varangians (and native Slavs) who converted to Chris- tianity, the role of Perun was taken over by St. Elias; Perun and St. Elias were functionally identical figures and became, for the Varangians in their new country, media of religious continuity from Scandinavian to Slavic to Christian divinities.

Freyr's Russian counterpart as patron of fertility was Volos, and the attributes of both were taken over by St. Blasius (Sv. Vlas) in Kievan Christianity. Blasius was a Cappadocian bishop who died a martyr's death in the beginning of the fourth century and thereafter was ex- tensively venerated as a patron of flocks and herds.19 That a Greek saint was designated the new protector of material abundance can per- haps be explained by the fact that many Varangian merchants (i.e., third-function members of society) had accepted Christianity in Con- stantinople itself. These converts came back to Kiev, eventually in- fluencing Olga's conver~ion.~~

Because the Russians lacked the priest-king deity, the Varangians in Russia could not find in the native religious sphere a figure suggestive of, analogous to, or able to take the place of Odinn. In their native religion, Odinn was a dominant figure with an established ritual sacri- fice dedicated to him, and his figure as supreme god would necessarily have been dominant in the ideology of the Varangians, even in Russia.

Odinn is described in the Havantul (The High One's Lay), a key Eddic poem, as hanging on a wind-swept tree for nine days and nights, wounded with a spear, "given to Odinn, myself to myself."21 This sacri- fice of Odinn to himself is, in the words of Turville-Petre, "not of king

17 Quoted in S. H. Cross, "The Earliest Medieval Churches in Kiev," Speculum 14 (1936): 477f.

1sV. A. Moshin, "Christianstvo v Rossii do sv. Vladimira" in Vladimirsky Sbor- nik: v pamiat' 950 letiia kreshcheniia Rusi, 988-1938 (Belgrade, 1938): pp. 11-14.

19 Lavrov, p. 68; Turville-Petre, p. 96; Cross, Slavic Civilization, p. 25. V h s is the South Slavic form of Volos.

20 Cross, "The Earliest Medieval Churches in Kiev," p. 477f. 21 Saemund Sigfusson, Elder Edda: The High One's Lay, p. 140 in The Elder

Edda of Saemund Sigfusson and The Younger Ed& of Snorre Sturleson, trans-lated by Benjamin Thorpe and I. A. Blackwell (London, 1911); this tree is the Yggdrasill, the world-tree (axis mundi), which also figures in the human sacrifices in Vedic mythology. See also Elder Ed&: The Deluding of Gelfni p. 16, The Lay of Grimnir, p. 31; James L. Sauvk, "The Divine Victim: Aspects of Sacrifice in Viking Scandinavia and Vedic India," in Myth and Law Among the Indo-Euro- peans, p. 186; Odinn was referred to as Hangatyr, "the hanging g o d or "Lord of the Hanged." Heimskringh: Ynglingasaga, p. 7; cf. Donald J. Ward, "The Three- Fold Death: An Indo-European Trifunctional Sacrifice?" in Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans, p. 124.

147 The Cult of Boris and Gleb

to god, but of god to god, of such a kind as is related in Scripture of the sacrifice of C h r i ~ t . " ~ ~ But although there are strong similarities be- tween Odinn's hanging on the Yggdrasill and Christ's crucifixion, the sacrifice of Odinn does not have as its source any Christian legends or Scriptures about Calvary.23

The worship of Odinn was highlighted by the offering of a human sacrifice to him. The typical (and favored) method of dedicating a victim to Odinn was by hanging him on a tree and stabbing him with a spear. As Odinn was both Lord of the Spear and the "hanging god," either the hanging or stabbing alone could suffice although the ritual was considered complete if both were done simultaneously. Dum6zil remarks that when Odinn ordered a victim to be "dispatched" to him, those who carried out the sacrifice had no doubt that hanging was the procedure to be used.24

The Norse hanging-sacrifice to Odinn was a ritual repetition of the self-willed immolation of the god: Odinn was not merely the god of the hanged man, for by hanging himself he gave the type for this form of death, and the victims dedicated to him suffered the same death as he did.2Vs a ritual offering to Odinn, the hanging sacrifice served to project the participants from the present time of the rite into the myth- ical epoch of the god himself, in ill0 tempore, when for the first time Odinn sacrificed "himself to himself."26

The legendary King Vikar is a sacrificial victim offered to Odinn and so occupies the role of Odinn-surrogate: to obtain a fair wind, lots were cast to select the person to be sacrificed to Odinn, and he was chosen. The god demanded and himself arranged the complicated ex- ecution of the sacrifice, and Vikar is the prototype of the human sacri-

22 Turville-Petre, p. 48. 23 A, G. Van Hamel, "Odinn Hanging on a Tree," Acta Philologica Scandinavica

7 (1932-3): 260. Turville-Petre, pp. 42-43; cf. Sauvk, p. 178. On the crucifix as an expression of the world-tree, see Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, translated by Willard R. Trask (New York, 1965), p. 119.

24Georges Dumkzil, From Myth to Fiction (Chicago, 1973), p. 129f. Sauvk, p. 178. The "sacral hanging" dedicated to the supreme god was a long-established tradition in all the Germanic religions and in the Celtic faith. The sacrifice to the Celtic (first-function) god Esus was homo in arbore suspenditur. Ward, Myth and Law, pp. 124, 127, 134f, 142; Dumkzil, 150 n. 49; cf. van Hamel, p. 262.

25 Sauvk, p. 180; Dumkzil, From Myth to Fiction, p. 129f. 26 See Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History, trans-

lated by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1971), especially pp. 21, 3235, 44f; idem, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, pp. 112-13, 129, 131; Sauvk, pp. 180-81; note Adam of Bremen, 4: 18, 26, 27; Tacitus, Germania, translated by &I. Mattingly (London, 1971), p. 39. As Odinn hung on the Yggdrasill for nine days, so the festival at Uppsala (where the hanging sacrifices were made) was held every nine years and lasted for nine days. Uppsala had also been the seat of Odinn's reign. Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, p. 36.

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ficial offering who fulfilled the role of the "supreme god in the capital ~acrifice."~7

The Swedish kings were regarded as having close association with the nation's fertility, and there are both historical and mythological- poetic kings who were sacrificed to Odinn in order to alleviate crop failure and farnine.28 The king appears as the most obvious propitiatory victim, and, in fact, one of the most important aspects of both legendary and historic sacrifices to Odinn is that the majority of victims were either kings or princes.29

Throughout ancient Scandinavia, kingship had a sacral character: the responsibility of the king to make sacrifice (blot) for the tribe showed him as the "creator of a new year, and as a link between time and eternity." The blot provided for "good seasons and peace" for a year to come; without blot, there would be no future at

The Scandinavian king, with his responsibility to mediate for his people between the earthly and the divine, was a priest-king: he had to assume the "luck" of the people, purifying them if necessary, changing any imbalance of nature, and even delivering the people from danger. As the favor of Odinn (or, among the continental German tribes, Woden/Wotan) was the responsibility of the king, ritual king-slaying was often the solution to calamities which were attributed to the king's "luck" having deserted him.31 Dumkzil has pointed out that the kings who were specifically sacrificed to Odinn are distinguished in the Ynglingasaga from those who merely died a violent death through accident or murder.

After the conversion of the Norse tribes to Christianity, the dead king served as mediator for his people in the figure of the Christian saint. St. Olav is an example of the translation into Christian nomenclature of the priest-king whose priestly powers are used for the benefit of his people after his death. Immediately after the death of St. Olav, the blood from his corpse had healing powers, and at the church built over his tomb,

27 William A. Chaney, T h e Cult o f Kingship i n Anglo-Saxon England: T h e Transition from Paganism to Christianity (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 113-14; Sauvk, p. 180. Like Odinn, King Vikar was stabbed and left hanging in a tree. Cf. the surreptitious hanging death in Heim~kr ingk : Ynglingasaga, p. 19.

2~Turville-Petre, pp. 191-92; Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, p. 15, 43; cf. T h e History of Halvdan the Black, p. 9.

39 Margaret Murray, "The Divine King" in T h e Sacral Kingship: Contributions t o the Central Theme o f the V I I I th International Congress o f Religions (Rome, April 1955), pp. 596-97; Turville-Petre, pp. 46-48; cf. Chaney, p. 80.

30A. V. Strom, "The King God and His Connection with Sacrifice in Old Norse Religion" in T h e Sacral King-hip, pp. 702, 713f; Heimskringla: Ynglinga- saga, p. 43; History o f Hacon the Good, pp. 14,16.

31 Chaney, pp. 11-15, 83, 64-65, 71-72, 77f, 87, 115. See Heim kringla: Ynglin- gasaga, p. 43; cf. Strom, pp. 709-10.

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thaumaturgic miracles became commonplace. In addition, the saint was invoked to free people from prison, punish wrongdoers (which he did by blinding them), and to settle disputes.32

The attribution to Olav of these priestly-magical powers of worldly intercession-characteristics of Odinn described in the Elder Edda-- demonstrates the continuity of the Odinnic priest-king almost 150 years after the Viking conversion to Christianity, We note the following from the History of St. Olav:

Pray thou, to Olav, The man of God, That he may grant thee His Holy Spirit: With God himseIf He seeks Success and Peace For all men, Where thou dost bear Thy own boons Before the altar Of the holy Scripture.33

The equation of a slain prince with Christ was a standard motif in Old Russian habiography: Cherniavsky notes that the princely status of the passion-suffering princes was expressed most clearly by their dying for political (i.e., princely) reasons, and that they "thereby came closest to being an image of Christ."3* Fedotov's interpretation is that Boris and Gleb, in their sacrificial deaths, followed Christ, and that this is an in- dication of the "great discovery" made by the first Christian generation in Russia of the "kenotic" Christ, upon which the pattern of hagiography established by Boris and Gleb was based.35

Fedotov admits, however, that Christianity in Kievan Russia was the religion of the upper classes,36 and since the upper classes also com- prised strong Varangian elements in the tenth-eleventh centuries, it should not be assumed that within twenty-seven years after the official conversion of the state, Russian Christianity was dominated by this

32Heimskringla: The History of St. Olau: 230, 241, 245, 246, 247; The Histoy of Magnus the Good, pp. 10, 14, 55; The History of Sigurd the Crusader: 37; The History of Sigurd, Inge, Eystein: 25. Cf. Adam of Bremen, 4: 32.

33 Heimskringla: The History of St. Olao, p. 246. Odinn himself appears at the court of the Christian king Olav Trygvason. Heimskringla: The History of Olav Trygvmon, p. 64.

34 Cherniavsky, p. 17. 36Fedotov, R.R.M.l: 131. See Ingham's criticism of Fedotov, "Sovereign as

Martyr," pp. 1, 12. 88 Cf. Grekov, p. 524.

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"shock of the At the same time, the presence in Kiev of Czech vitae of Wenceslaus, (which Ingham uses in his argument against Fedotov) does not in itself indicate a transmission of a Western Slavic or Catholic tradition of kingship.

Although Nestor (whose Chtenie contains one of the principal vitae of Boris and Gleb) may attempt to approach the Greek hagiographic style with which he was familiar and make a place for the Russian people within the framework of the universal church, and granting the presence of the Czech vitae in the prisoner-miracles of Boris and Gleb,38 this does not rule out the possibility that manifestations of the Varan- gian religion, specifically the Odinn-cult and the sacral kingship, may be seen in the literature on Boris and Gleb.

A feature common to all hagiogra~hic accounts of the deaths of Boris and Gleb is that after Gleb is killed, his (pierced) corpse is thrown mezhiu dvema k~lodama.~" suggest that the position of his body "be- tween two (tree-)trunks," does not represent an incidental statement of fact but rather can be identified with a sacrificial hanging such as that of the royal victims in the Odinnic sacrifice and, as such, could be a remnant of the Varangian pagan tradition. If this phrase is examined in connection with the tree cults prevalent in Russia, we would be in a better position to determine the significance of the prince's body hang- ing on a tree.

An opportunity is found in the phrase na brezd, which in the Povest' vremennykh let immediately proceeds mexhiu dvemu kolodama and poses an interesting problem: the orthodox translation (and the one offered by S. H. Cross) is "on the shore."40 An alternative reading, how- ever, would be "on a birch." Although the normal locative singular of a noun with stem ending in -2 (such as brez-, berez-, or brkz-) should take the desinence in -i and not i?, we find in the surrounding paragraphs (of all the vitae except the Chtenie) instances in which this grammatical norm is not adhered to in the words v borzd (or v'b'rzz) and nu k ~ n d . ~ l

37 This is even assuming that the Gospels were the "most accessible to the Russian mind." Fedotov, R.R.M.l: 56-57; cf. D. S. Likhachev, "The Type and Character of Byzantine Influence on Old Russian Literature," Oxford Slavonic Papers 13 (1967): 23. On the Biblical works available in Russia at the time, see V. Peretts, "Slovo o Polku Igoreve i drevnerusskii perevod bibleiskikh knig," Akademiia Nauk, SSSR lzvestiia po russkomu iazyku i slovesnosti, 3 (1930): 289-90.

3s Fedotov, Sviatye, p. 20; Ingham, "Czech Hagiography in Kiev," passim. 3Whtenie o sviatykh muchenikakh Borise i Glebe (henceforth Chtenie) in D. I.

Abramovich, Zhitiia sviatykh muchenikov Borisa i Gleba i sluzhby im (Petrograd, 1916), p. 13; Skazanie o sviatykh muchenikakh Borise i Glebe (henceforth Skaz-anie) in Abramovich, p. 43; Prolozhnyia skazaniia I, in Abramovich, p. 97; A. A, Shakhmatov, Povest' vremennykh let (Petrograd, 1916),p. 174.

40 The Russian Primary Ch~onicle, p. 129. 4 1 Skazanie, pp. 39, 40; Povestbremennykh let, pp. 170, 172, 173; Prolozhnyia

151The Cult of Boris and Gleb

Given this ambiguity in the orthography, the translation of nu bred as "on the birch" is justifiable.

We read in a prologue vita of Boris and Gleb that the body of Gleb is placed v dubravd, mexhiu dvema kolodamu, "in an oak grove, be-tween two trunks."42 The oak, as has been noted, was sacred to Perun in the pagan Russian tradition. This instance of the prince's body being placed on a tree which is believed endowed with sacral qualities would support the interpretation of na bread as "on a birch" as the birch also had sacrificial importance.

In the pagan Russian worship of trees, animal sacrifices were brought to the birch (as, for example, in Beloozersk), and even during the spread of Christianity throughout Russia, the birch retained the image of a "pure tree" (chistym derevom) whereas the oak was dis~redi ted.~~ The location of Gleb's body "on a birch, between two trunks" would indicate the sacral role of the tree in the prince's sacrificial death, and the phrase would reflect aspects of both the Varangian and native Rus- sian ritual sacrifice.

The idea of self-sacrifice, the archetypal model for the Odinnic-king sacrifice, appears in the princely vitae with unusual strength. Nestor em- phasizes the obedience of the two brothers who died willingly rather than oppose their older brother.44 While it may be very easy to get carried away with the idea of fraternal obedience as a moral-political duty (comparable to the obedience of Christ), Fedotov points out that the voluntary death of each prince was not a political duty: how es- tablished was the idea of obedience to seniority in Russia if Vladimir himself had violated it? Fedotov correctly assumes that the voluntary character of the princely deaths is the essential characteristic in the uitae of Boris and Gleb; it is quite possible that the theme of seniority (and, by extension, obedience to the older brother unto death) is mere- ly a rhetorical device used by Nestor. We can see that it is directed against fratricidal struggles occurring as he was writing the Chtenie.45

skazaniia, I in Abramovich, p. 96. I owe this reference to Professor Ronald Harring- ton.

42 Or, "on an oak," Abramovich, p. 97. See Sreznevskii, Materialy dlia slovaria dreunerusskago iazyka (St. Petersburg, 1892) 1: 739. On the prologue uitae, note N . Serebrianskii, Dreunerusskie kndazheskie zlzitiia (Moscow, 1915).

43 Lavrov, p. 62; Vernadsky, The Origins of Russia (Oxford, 1959), pp. 34, 115-16.

44 Chtenie, p. 25. 45 Fedotov, Suiatye, pp. 19, 22, 23-24. Abramovich dates the Chtenie to the end

of the 1070s or the beginning of the 1080s during which time there occurred in the struggle for the Kievan throne the murders of Princes Boris Viacheslavich, Gleb Sviatoslavich, and Roman Sviatoslavich. Abramovich suggests that the names of these princes reminded Nestor of the "sacred martyrs" Boris and Gleb, which influenced the admonition to his countrymen at the end of the Chtenie. Abram-ovich, 1; Chtenie, p. 25.

152 The Russian Review

Fedotov concludes that a willing martyrdom, such as the princes', is an imitation of Christ and a complete fulfillment of the Gospels.46 In the Skazanie, as Boris is waiting for his murderers to arrive, he prays:

Lord Jesus Christ who in this form came down to Earth deigning to be nailed down to the cross and accept passion for our sins: Enable me also to accept the passion.47

Nestor puts similar words into his mouth as he is being killed:

I thank you, Lord My God, who enabled me to be a worthy participant in the passion of your son, our Lord Jesus Christ.48

Such participation in and repetition of the voluntary death of Christ can be compared with the sacrifice of the Odinnic kings who repeat and take part in Odinn's death on the Yggdrasill and join him in his heaven- ly abode.49

As opposed to the "kenotic" argument of Fedotov and Ingham's em- phasis on Czech hagiographic influence, the sacralization of the deaths of Boris and Gleb can be considered in terms of the influence and con- tinuity of pre-Christian traditions of kingship to which Kiev was ex- posed.

Dvoverie ("dual-faith"), which characterized Russian religious life in the eleventh century, identified pagan prototypes with Christian figures who (by chance resemblance in name or function) resembled or suggested them.50 In view of the fact that neither the first-function deity nor the priest-king who replicates the former's deeds in il2o tem-pore was characteristic of the Russian pagan ethos, the sacralization of the voluntary deaths of Boris and Gleb should not be attributed to a pagan Russian tradition clothed in Christian attire as, for example, St. Il'ia. I would suggest that it is a remnant of the Varangian sacral king- ship centered in the Odinn-cult.51

As Boris and Gleb "took away the sins of the sons of Russia" with their sacrificial deaths,52 they had a priestly-mediative role identical to

46 Fedotov, Suiatye, p. 24. 47 Skazanie, p. 34. 48 Chtenie, p. 11. 49 The epithet strastoterpets implies this participation in the passion of the god. 50 Gimbutas, p. 739. 51 That the princely cult is not a result of Byzantine influence has been well-

attested. Cf. Likhachev, pp. 17, 20, 29. As opposed to Wenceslaus, who is a "silent intercessor" before God, Boris and Gleb are active executors of their miracles. Ingham attributes this to a "local conception of the saint's role." This conception as expressed in the vitae of Boris and Gleb shows a pattern of saint- hood which differs from the Czech model to a greater extent than Ingham indi- cates. See "Czech Hagiography in Kiev," pp. 170-75.

52 Chtenie, p. 6; Fedotov, Suiatye, p. 18.

153 The Cult of Boris and Gleb

that of the kings of Scandinavia. It remains to be shown, however, that the royal status of Boris and Gleb was the pivotal aspects of their saint- hood. If we examine Feodor and Ioann, the so-called "Varangian mar- tyrs" who died as martyrs in the traditional Christian sense, i.e., for the faith, we can see that although both the Varangians and the young princes were regarded as "martyrs," the circumstances of their vener- ation were markedly different.

Although many Varangians had accepted Christianity by 983, in that year Vladimir tried to revitalize the cult of Perun. When he returned from a campaign in Lithuania, Vladimir decided to dedicate a human sacrifice to the gods. The lot fell on Ioann, the son of the Varangian Feodor.

Feodor, however, had just returned from Constantinople (where Vladimir had sent him) and, like many of the Varangians, had accepted Christianity there; he refused to allow his son to be sacrificed to Perun, and, denouncing the pagan gods, he extolled the god of the Greeks. A mob attacked his house, and he and his son were killed as their house collapsed on them.53

The fledgling Russian church recognized the two Varangians as martyrs who died for the faith, and July 12 was recognized as a holiday in their honor. Yet, although they were worthy of canonization as martyrs, they were not officially recognized as saints.54 While reference to earlier Christian martyrs is made in the Chtenie and Skananie (and Feodor and Ioann were honored as martyrs in Nestor's time), dying for the faith was not an attribute of Boris and Gleb.66 Although he does not discuss Feodor and Ioann, Cherniavsky distinguishes between dying for Christ and dying in Christ: while he aptly notes that intercessorship was limited only to princes, he does not explore the possibility that Varangian concepts of kingship might have penetrated into Russian "'political theology."56

53 Cross, The Russian Primary Chronicle, p. 95; A. Stender-Petersen, "The Varangians & The Cave Monastery in Varangica (Aarhus, 1953), pp. 139f, 150. This manner of death is comparable to being burned alive in one's house. Dum6zi1, pp. 149-150; Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, pp. 14, 31, 36, 40, 43, plus many others. Al- though the presence of human sacrifices in Kiev is considered unlikely, Vernadsky and Turville-Petre are both of the opinion that there were such sacrifices offered to Perun in Kiev which were essentially Norse in their character. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 58; Turville-Petre, p, 96.

5Wedotov, Sviatye, p. 18; Stender-Petersen, p. 141; Nikolai Barsukov, Istoch-niki russkoi agiografii (St. Petersburg, 1882), pp. 583-84; Arkhimandrit Leonid, Sviataia Rus' Ili svedeniia o vsekh podvizhnikakh blagochestiia nu Rusi (do XVIII oeka) (St. Petersburg, 1891), pp. 2-3; Golubinskii, pp. 203-4, 211. By the sixteenth or seventeenth century, July 12 no longer signified a day in their honor. See the church calendars in Golubinskii, pp. 229-43,313-70, 422-23.

55 See Fedotov R.R.M.l: 103. 56 Cherniavsky, pp. 7, 14, 17, 32-33.

154 The Russian Review

In the ideology of the Varangians, only the sacrScial death of the king would have priestly significance, and, given the persistence of their tradition of kingship in Kiev, only the deaths of Boris and Gleb could be worthy of recognition (i.e., canonization). Their status as miracle workers also provided political advantage for the rulers of Kiev.

Towards the end of the Chtenie, Nestor admonishes his readers in a discussion of the obedience of Boris and Gleb towards their elder brother:

Do you see, brethren, how great was the obedience which the saints held towards their elder brother? For if they had resisted him, they hardly would have been worthy of such miraculous gifts from God. For there are many child-princes in our day who do not submit to their elders, and oppose them, and are killed. But they are not considered worthy of such grace, as were these saints.57

The "grace" which Nestor describes is the power of their relics to work miracles.68

The thaumaturgic properties of the relics of Boris and Gleb in Vysh- gorod were an important aspect of their veneration. Ingham has pointed out that one of the principal differences between the Czech vitae of Wenceslaus and Ludmilla and the Chtenie is that the miracle accounts in the latter result in a report to the prince (Iaroslav) and his immedi- ate building of a church on that spot.59 Lesiuchevskii attributes to Iaroslav the development and spread of the cult of Boris and Gleb among the populace (which started with rumors of miracles occurring at their graves) in order to enhance his position in the eyes of the

The political advantage afforded by the miracle-events accounts for why Sviatoslav, the brother of Boris and Gleb and also a victim of Sviatopolk, was not included in any ecclesiastic veneration. Because his body was not brought back from Hungary (where he was killed trying to escape Sviatopolk), he could not be a source of popular attention and did not therefore serve Iaroslav as a political asset.e1

57 Chtenie, p. 25; see note 45. 58 Chtenie, p. 16f; Golubinskii, p. 45 cf. Lesiuchevskii, p. 240. 59 Ingham, "Czech Hagiography in Kiev," p. 174f. 60Lesiuchevskii, pp. 234, 237-39. 61 Cross, The Russian Primary Chronicle, p. 130; Fedotov, Suiatye, p. 19. See

Golubinskii, p. 265. The bestowing of miracle-working powers by God upon Boris and Gleb and not upon Sviatoslav is understood by Golubinskii as the reason why the first two were canonized and not the third brother. He furthermore sees the canonization of Boris and Gleb as established in the first place not because of their role as passion-sufferers but because of the miracles at their grave sites. Cf. Grekov, pp. 524-25. The Indo-European motif of the Divine Twins cannot be

155 The Cult of Boris and Gleb

The veneration of the thaumaturgic relics in Vyshgorod and the princely protection accorded them point to a fundamental dualism in the worship of Boris and Gleb between their roles as miracle-workers and patrons of princely power. Vernadsky notes that Russia's conversion to Christianity "resulted not only in a religious dualism until the new faith was absorbed by the whole, but in a cultural dualism in general."62 Symptomatic of this dualism was the princes' thaumaturgic function as opposed to their protective/political role.

From iconographic remnants, Lesiuchevskii shows the portrayal of Boris and Gleb as military saints, pictured with swords in their belts as well as crosses in their hands. The relics of Boris and Gleb were venerated before any warlike undertaking, and for the princes of Kiev, Boris and Gleb were personal saints and guardians (particularly in war) and became "holy representatives of the princely class."63

In Dumkzilian terms, the princes of Kiev were venerating Boris and Gleb as deities who functionally represented them: Boris and Gleb assumed in heaven the role which the princes of Kiev occupied on earth. Cherniavsky notes about the saintly princes that they "performed the same function after death that they did in life-the protection and care of their subjects and lands . . . (and) they were able to remain princes after death for all time."@

In the worship of Boris and Gleb as military patrons, we can also see the religious continuity from Odinn to the martyr-princes of the first- function, non-combative bestower of aid in battle: the Kievan princes prayed to Boris and Gleb, their heavenly counterparts, as bearers of luck and patrons of victory. In military affairs, the role of the first- function is that of the orderer of battle rather than an actual warrior:66 in the Scandinavian tradition, Odinn directed the spears of soldiers and even manipulated the warriors themselves (giving them "furor," blunt- ing their weapons, making them blind, deaf, etc.), but he never par- ticipated in the actual fighting.66

applied to Boris and Gleb as there are too many essential features missing from the latter. See the works of Donald J. Ward.

62 Vernadsky, l<ievan Russia, p. 242. The manner in which the new faith was imposed by the nobility upon the masses must have contributed to this. Grekov, p. 524. Lesiuchevskii, p. 236.

63 Lesiuchevskii, pp. 237, 240, 244. Cf. Ingham, "The Litany of Saints," p. 132; Grekov, pp. 51&17. It was also this last aspect which caused more princes to build new churches constantly over their relics rather than let them lie in one built by their predecessor; this ensured that the advantage of their protection went to the new builder's posterity and not another's.

64 Cherniavsky, pp. 13-14. 66 This is opposed to the figure of the bogatyr' (such as Il'ia Mu~omets) who

represents the second function. Cf. Gimbutas, p. 746. 66 Einar IIaugen, "The Mythological Structure of the Ancient Scandinavians:

156 The Russian Review

The interpretation of Boris and Gleb as representatives of the Indo- European first-function calls for a re-examination of the pre-Christian princes described in the Russian Primary Chronicle to whom priest- king characteristics are attributed by Fisher. He sees in the Chronicle first-function traits ascribed to Oleg and interprets the descriptions of the first four kings of Kiev to mean that they were "viewed as a con- tinuation of the Indo-European tripartite myth (such as is found in the legends of the early Roman kings) or a tripartite ordering of the ancient Slavic lore."67

Although such an ordering might be present in the Chronicle, the question of its origin arises; in attempting to determine its source, the close interconnection between Russian and Scandinavian beliefs should be ~ons idered .~~ Keeping in mind Jakobson's warning that "epic studies require a comparative basis and are inseparable from both a historical and mythological examination,"69 the Russian Chronicle should perhaps be re-examined with an eye to determining which similarities between Russian literary-epic figures and their Norse counterparts are inherited from a common Indo-European heritage (such as Perun and Thor) and which could be attributed to foreign influence.

As the function of the priest-king had been lacking in the Russian pagan tradition for centuries before the Chronicle events occurred, I suggest that its appearance in Oleg and the pagan kings results from the transmission of a Norse mythological-religious theme through the Varangian presence in Kiev.

I would also suggest that Boris and Gleb, as Christian representatives of the first-function in the "dual-faith" of Kievan Russia, occupied the roles of Odinnic kings, and that their veneration as Russian Orthodox saints represents a remnant of the Varangian religion in Rus'. To what- ever extent this Scandinavian element in the Kievan elite had assim- ilated into the culture of Kiev by the early eleventh century, the sacral office of kingship and its execution by a priest-king were still part of its

Some Thoughts on Reading DumBzil" in T o Honor Roman jakobron, pp. 860-67. Elder Edda: The Lay o f Harbard, pp. 20, 24; The High One's Lay, p. 158; cf. T h e Second Lay o f Helgi Hundingcide, p. 27; Heimskringla: Ynglingasaga, pp. 2, 6; T h e History of Hacon the Good, p. 14; Adam of Bremen, 4: 26. Snorre tells us (Heimskringla: History o f Olav Trygvason, p. 27) that before a battle, Hacon the Jar1 made a great blot: "then came two ravens (companions of Odinn) and they screeched loudly. The jar1 seemed to know that Odinn had taken the offering well and that now he would have good luck in battle-can men doubt that the crushing of kings is by the gods ruled? Strong powers, I know, strengthen Hacon's rule."

67 Fisher, pp. 152-53, 15657. 68 So Jakobson has noted in regard to the Russian werewolf legends. See Jakob-

son, "The Vseslav Epos" in Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings (The Hague, 1971) 4: 315,325f, 345,348.

69 Jakobson, "Serbian Zmaj Ognjeni Vnuk" in Roman jakobson: Selected Writi- ings (The Hague, 1971) 4: 379.

157 The Cult of Boris and Gleb

ideology which (unlike Thor's assimilation into Perun and later St. Il'ia) could not be accommodated in the native Russian religion.

The manifestation of the Varangian sacral kingship in the cult of Boris and Gleb is naturally tied in with the question of Scandinavian influence in the development of early Russian culture. This essay has explored certain aspects of a religious phenomenon which has possible bearing on the "Varangian problem." Hopefully, further interdisciplin- ary studies of the kind urged by Jakobson can contribute to a greater understanding of the cultural relationships between Russia and Scan- dinavia.