Легенда о княгине Ольге / The Legend of Princess Olga (1984)

Note: This is a preliminary version of the topic header, that I will edit later, to add wikipedia links, etc.



Historical Background leading to this film's events

In 476, Odoacer deposed the last emperor in Italy, and the Western Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Emperor. The Western Roman Empire had fallen, but the Byzantines or the Eastern Roman empire would live on for another 1000 years.



Later, the eastern romans fought Persia resulting in mutual destruction, with all major cities destroyed on both sides, with the exception of Constantinople/Byzantium (now Istanbul), this was the event that changed their roman way of life from classical (good) to medieval (bad), no more trade routes bringing in oil from the east to light the homes, which became dark, and other bad things.

In the late 7th century A.D. the Byzantine capital Constantinople was besieged by Muawiyah I, Caliph of the Arabs, and at the same time the bulgars (a tribe from the eastern steppes) invaded from the north to what is now Bulgaria.




a scene from a bulgarian film, that shows this exact event, that I shall review later

These arabs were the first muslims taking advantage of the mutual destruction of the apocalyptic Persia/Byzantium war, the roman emperor, while beeing attacked on two fronts had to decide where to defend... the emperor chose to defend the south against the arabs, and his choice had two historical consequences:

1) The country Bulgaria was created.
2) Spain and Portugal were invaded by Muslims in the year 711 A.D. after the muslim failure to attack christian europe in the East.




By the 10th century A.D. the eastern romans where in a bad military shape, even though they were the masters and guardians of the most advanced science and technology in the world, such as greek fire, a naval flame thrower that still eludes the current science of the 21th century, because we still don't know how to replicate that devastating military effect, using only the tools and materials that were available 1000 and more years ago.



Historical background contemporary with this film's events

The romans are still today famous for diplomatic scheming, hiring mercenaries, and using dirty political tricks to win their wars. One such major roman trick was getting the "russians" (Kieven Rus) to become christians, a master chess move by the roman emperor, using the russians as pawns against the Arabs and Eastern Steppes tribes, the dirty trick worked, and bought 500 more years of life to Byzantium!

The roman emperor sent christian bishops to Kievan Rus, and this was before the christian divide between Catholicism and Ortodoxism in 1054 A.D.

Princess Olga (the historical figure this film topic is about) converted herself (just her person) to christianity, but not her son or her country, it would be her grandson that would force all of Russia and Ukraine to become christian, in wikipedia there are historical accounts from greek and arab historians that lived around the 10th century, that explained that Olga's grandson wanted a state religion solely for control of the masses, he went around to other coutries learning other religions, he dismissed Islam and said that the Slavic people adore vodka, so Islam that prohibits alcohol, would be against slavic nature (I read this on Wikipedia, not making this stuff up!). He decided on christianity only after visiting Constantinople/Byzantium and seeing pretty architecture and wall paintings on a christian chatedral (Hagia Sophia), therefore Russia is today christian, just because Olga's grandson liked the pretty pictures in Istanbul (I'm not making this up!).

Finally, here is my trailer, that is very popular on my You Tube channel, because it's also a mini-documentary (I inserted centuries old "Iluminuras" or religious drawings, and quotes) and people are fascinated by the cruelty of Princess Olga, considered a Saint by the Catholic and Ortodox churches, even though everyone agrees she was so sadistic that makes the hungarian Countess Bathory, that bathed in blood, look like Mary Poppins in comparison.



This 1984 Soviet-Ukraine film is historically correct, and in accord with historical facts in Wikipedia, however there is a more recent russian film about Olga's grandson, that is pro-religious propaganda, filled with lies in violation of the historical facts, described in Wikipedia. That recent film might be visually nice and good old Hollywood-style entertainment, but it's not the truth... I might discuss it at a later time.

I will try to comment the film itself later, but for now, I will describe my initial reaction, many years ago, when I first watched it on You Tube, without reading historical information on Wikipedia.

I was immediately fascinated by the initial portion of the film, where you have a young boy (Olga's grandson or son, I don't remember) suffering a rite of passage ritual, the teenager (maybe 11 years old) is left alone in the woods for the period of one year, with a knive and a small pouch with salt. The boy must make a shelter with sticks, and traps to catch wild game.

In my initial viewing, I didn't grasp the quality of the rest of the film, because I was not familiar with the historical events.

But something made me re-watch it with the intent of reviewing it, and the more information I read on Wikipedia, the more I understood and liked this film.