Princess Olga. The Blazing Myth

The image of Princess Olga is surrounded by countless mysteries. Is it true that she was a simple girl who accidentally met the prince? Is it true that she married as a ten-year-old girl, but gave birth to her only child only forty years later, and another fifteen years later captivated the Byzantine emperor with her beauty? Is it true that her husband was a deep old man – or did the nickname Old Igor have another reason? And most importantly, how, in what way, did such a cruel woman, who committed mass murders with particular cruelty, become a saint? Elizaveta Dvoretskaya, who dedicated about thirty years to studying the early medieval period in Rus, has done a unique job of finding literary and folkloric parallels to the plots that make up the "Olga myth", as well as comparing them with the context of the era, using the latest historical and archaeological materials unknown to the general public.