Can Strong Women Love? The Saga of Olga of Kiev

Wondering why her strength intimidates men (source)

  As a romantic at heart, I get a little salty when I hear people say "true love doesn't exist". As a feminist, I get a tad grumpy when people say, "strong women can't love", or "a real relationship needs a woman to be feminine" (usually implying that for romance to be in effect, a woman's real place is 'in the kitchen'/subservient to the man/sewing by the fire or some such nonsense). Feminists are "known" for being 'man-hating', 'feminazi', or 'butch'. True to form, many feminists of the past were messes when it came to their romantic lives, and they are often cited to prove that "strong" women just hate men/want to be men/are completely incapable of love.
     True enough to those points, there are few examples recorded in history detailing the romantic love of strong women. "Strong" women in history are usually not known for their romantic relationships. If they achieved something, it's usually because they devoted their whole lives to it, leaving no time for love, or, they got their way through skanky means. It creates a tidy narrative; strong women are either prudes who hate men or seductresses who use them, probably because they hate them.

It's time to clutch the pearls! (source)

Prudes

1. Joan of Arc: a religious warrior who fought and led for France. Burnt at the stake by the English. As far as history knows, she was never in a romantic relationship.
2. Florence Nightingale: basically invented modern nursing, opened and ran a hospital from self-imposed bed-rest. She died single at the age of 90.
3. Mother Theresa: helped the ill and poor in India, awarded with a Nobel Peace Prize. As she was a nun, she died single and chaste.

"The only good man is a naked /rich one" (source)

Skanks

1. Elizabeth I of England: never married, never had kids, but history is pretty sure she slept around. She spent her time being the queen of England, improving the economy, killing Catholics, and fighting the Spanish. She gave England one of its most prosperous reigns, but her life contains no epic love story.
2. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt: Member of the Ptolemaic royalty of Egypt. She married her brother (who later died) and slept with both Mark Antony and Julius Caesar. She was brilliant (rather than beautiful), and she used her political schemes to keep Egypt in power. She killed herself when things started to go wrong. 
3. Ching Shih, also known as Madame Ching: one of the most powerful pirates in history, commanding a fleet of over 300 ships. She was a prostitute who married a pirate king. When he died, she took over and expanded the fleet, coming into conflict with the British, Portuguese, and Qing Empires. She eventually retired from piracy and used her money to open gambling houses.

Breaking the Stereotype

     When I was a young girl, my parents spoiled me with great books about great women. I started to notice there weren't many stories about romance. It actually took me until early adulthood to come across a story where a strong woman was motivated by romantic love (rather than a desire to seduce and manipulate). The first woman who fit those criteria was Boudica. She was the wife of a Celtic chieftain. After her husband died, the Romans stole Boudica's land, raped her daughters, and beat her in front of her people. Her resulting revenge set the country on fire; she led a force of 100,000 in an uprising against the Romans, ending in the deaths of 70,000-80,000 people. She died on the battlefield, possibly of suicide when she was defeated. She is described thusly, "In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of divers colours over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. This was her invariable attire."

Badass (source)

    Cool as her story is, Boudica is not who we're here to talk about today. Sure, she was married, and she fought the Romans after her husband's death, but there was a lot more to be revenged; the rape of her daughters, her own humiliation, and the theft of her lands. Nah, we have someone better today. Someone I didn't learn about until I was in my 20s.

Princess Olga of Kiev
     Once upon a time, around the year 890AD, a girl was born, and she was named Olga. Rather than the singing of birds, her birth was accompanied by the sound of an enormous thunderclap and a spontaneous wildfire [not-a-fact].She became a princess when she wed Igor, the leader of the Kievan Rus (a people in W. Russia descended from Vikings). She married Igor quite young, when she was 12 or 13. Later on, Igor and Olga had a son, Svyatoslav.
     When Svyatoslav was three years old, tragedy struck. Igor, Olga's husband, while collecting tribute, was murdered by the neighboring Drevlian Kingdom.The Drevlians then sent Olga an offer; she could marry their ruler, Mal, and consolidate the powers of the two kingdoms. This is where the story really takes off.
   Prince Mal had sent a coterie of 20 men to make his offer of marriage. Olga met the procession, "She told her noble suitors that her people would carry them in their boats to the castle, so they wouldn't have to walk. And they did. But when they got to the castle's courtyard, the carriers dumped the suitors, boat and all, into a giant trench. Olga, smiling, had them all buried alive" (source). Buried alive.

"Quit playing; marriage or no?" (Source)

     Olga sent word to Mal that she accepted his proposal, but she was worried; her people would not support her marriage to Mal unless it was shown he respected her. She requested he send the most distinguished men from his kingdom to travel with her to the wedding. Mal eagerly acquiesced. When they arrived at her home, Olga offered them refreshment and access to the bathhouse to clean up. While these high-class men were bathing, she locked them in the bathhouse and set it on fire.

(source)

    Surely, after taking out the Drevlian's diplomatic and ruling people, she was done, right? NOPE. Still pretending her marriage to Mal was going to happen, Olga invited the Drevlians to a funeral for her husband.They agreed. She met the Drevlians at her husband's grave, where a feast was held in remembrance. When the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed 5,000 of them. Olga returned to Kiev, not to rest or pat herself on the back for a job well done, but to continue plotting the demise of all Drevlians. 

     She assembled an army and advanced towards the Drevlian survivors. After a siege, the Drevlians begged for mercy, offering to pay Olga off with honey and furs. Not wanting to "burden the peasantry", Olga said she'd allow them to live in exchange for three pigeons and three sparrows from each household. The surviving Drevlians thought this more than reasonable and sent Olga her birds. Then, in her pièce de résistance:

     "Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each pigeon and sparrow a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave to others as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute." (source)

Pictured: Princess Olga, doing as one does (source)

     That's right. Olga wiped out an entire kingdom to avenge her husband's death. After this, she ruled the Kievan Rus until her son came of age, avoiding marriage proposals from other kingdoms. When her son grew up, she retired from her position of regent, but that was not the end for her. She converted to Christianity when she was 50-60ish years of age, and she was made a saint after her death. Though she was not the regent, she continued to be an important figure until her death. The year before she died at age 80, Olga led the city of Kiev through a Siege while her son was away. When the siege was broken, she sent Svyatoslav a scolding letter about duty, after which he returned home straight away. Rumor even has it she sassed the Emperor of Byzantium when he proposed to her. She told him they could not marry because she was a pagan, and requested he baptise her. After it was done and he continued to press his suit, she told him it was impossible for them to marry, as the baptism had made them family. In response, Emperor Constantine VII said she'd outwitted him and gave her presents (source).

#BattleAxeforLIFE (source)

Was She Strong?

     Undoubtedly. She was savvy, and she was strong. She didn't use her body or seductiveness to get her way, but her force of personality, savagery, and cunning. Even after her son took the throne, she spent much of her time ruling the city when he left on military campaigns, because he knew she was to be trusted. She never gave up or gave in. Unlike other female rulers in history (*cough* Cleopatra *cough*), she didn't take the easy path. She earned the respect of her people through her integrity and loyalty.

Was She in Love?

     This question is harder to prove. We don't have fragments of love letters shared between Igor and Olga, but I think her actions speak for themselves. Back in the day, it was not expected for women to take care of themselves. After the deaths of their husbands, they were basically the flag in "capture the flag". They were supposed to obey their late husband's advisors and marry for the sake of their kingdom. It was common for a woman to be passed around like a hacky sack if her husband/s died. Olga did not allow this to happen to her, and unlike Cleopatra and Elizabeth, who stayed single but used their wiles to keep themselves in power, there is not record of Olga having a lover or relations with any rivaling rulers. It seems there was only one man for Olga. It makes sense. She married when she was very young, and she and Igor were married for more than 40 years. Looking at that fact; they were married for forty years, but when Igor died, their only son was too young to take the throne. That means Igor and Olga were childless for nearly 35 years. In many such cases, (the most well-known probably being Henry VIII), this infertility was grounds for divorce. It was very important for kings to have heirs. But Igor did not divorce Olga. There is no mention of him even attempting it. Why? Perhaps he loved her, and she loved him.

     In any case, Olga's actions after Igor's death show a unique ferocity. It would be extremely unusual for the widow of a king to take control the way Olga did after Igor's death. Even if she were the regent, this was usually a title in name only. Male advisers would be the true rulers until the prince came of age. But Olga seized a reigns of her kingdom, a rare move. Her revenge against the Drevlians goes above and beyond just "keeping the kingdom safe". There is a touch of the personal about her commands. It doesn't make sense in the context of Olga being your typical arranged-marriage wife. But in the context of a loving wife of forty years who just lost her husband, the burying and burning alive makes perfect sense. She was furious because the Drevlians took her husband away from her and dared propose marriage afterward. She didn't just kill them; she made them suffer.

     I would argue Olga loved Igor, and her actions after his death were primarily to punish his murderers. She stayed single, even once her role of regent was done with, because she loved Igor and was devoted to protecting their kingdom and their child. 

Can she be cute AND slay your enemies? (source)

Can Strong Women Love?

     Heck yes they can! And in cases like Olga's I would say they love better than a 'weak' woman. A weak woman in Olga's shoes would have married Mal without a whimper to protect her kingdom and avoid trouble. Her son would perhaps have been murdered before he reached adulthood, and she would have dutifully popped out more kids for her new husband (this type of scenario is frighteningly common in the ruling classes of yesteryear). Olga was strong in her love and in her self. So ask yourself: what is better--a woman who "knows her place" and meekly does everything she is told, or a strong, capable woman who steps up when she's needed and fights for herself and her family? I know my answer.