Princess Anna Addresses Her Brothers,
Emperors Constantine and Basil II
My brothers, Emperors Constantine and Basil II, I stand before you for the last time, before I shall be wedded to Prince Vladimir of Rhus, as per your unprecedented arrangement to offer your own sister as a bride. Yet no longer shall I lament the decisions you have jointly made, surely dictated by necessity, for I need not remind you of the traitorous rebellions which prompted your call for Vladimir’s aid; the promise you made to grant him as payment your unwed sister; your hesitation to award a foreign prince with a purple-born princess; Vladimir’s harrying of Cherson in retribution for your reluctance; and, ultimately, the agreement which has brought me to this solemn day of departure from my family and my home (Gregory). I recount these events, rather, to remind myself of my newfound purpose, which is to serve my Empire and my God by not merely submitting to a destiny I only recently found dolorous, but by becoming as an apostle, sent forth from my native soil to spread the word of Christ.
And yet in spite of my recently acquired convictions of purpose, how severely did I bewail my lot! My initial perception was that "I'm being sent as nothing other than a hostage," and my complaint, you must acknowledge, was not without merit (Kimball). Because I foresaw that I “shall die in the place whither they have led [me] captive, and shall see this land no more” (Jeremiah 22:12), I decided that “better were it for me to die here,” (Kimball) yet “for thy sake I have borne reproach” (Psalm 69:7) and speak truthfully to you now that “shame hath covered my face” with the knowledge of my prior conduct (Psalm 69:7). My fear, you see, was that “I am” to “become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children” (Psalm 69:8), for once we part, I felt that it would be “as if I were setting out into captivity” (Kimball). Such is the reason why I first concluded that "it would be better to stay here and die” (Kimball) rather than spend my days as “an alien in a strange land” (Exodus 18:3) until I “shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat [me] up” (Leviticus 26:38).
Yet for all my reluctance, I scarce could not have outright denied the earnest protests of mine own brothers. You mentioned that I “will relieve Greece from the danger of grievous war” (Kimball), which, no matter the cost to my personal liberty, is doubtless an invaluable service to the Empire not to be dismissed lightly. When you asked me whether I “see how much evil the Russians have already brought upon the Greeks” and concluded that if I “do not set out, they may bring on us the same misfortunes," I was given to consider your claims both for their inherent reasoning and in regards to their source (Kimball). My brother Basil, truly have you earned your reputation of being protracted in settling upon any path, yet also in remaining unswerving from that path once you have decided to adhere to it (Rosenwein 230). Long have I observed that whatever judgment you have passed is as an immutable edict issued from heaven itself, and thus I should expect that, were I to persist in my defiance of your decision, my struggle would prove to be naught but a vain and futile enterprise when matched against the steadfastness of your own resolutions (Rosenwein 230). Indeed, I need only look to the example set by mine own brother to behold a paragon of discipline, who has hardened his body to withstand the trials of the elements and whose mind has been sharpened to control every natural desire (Rosenwein 229). “By long forbearing is a prince[ss] persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone” (Proverbs 25:15), for I soon found my fate not so onerous as once it seemed. The justness of your arguments was so palpable, and your model of discipline so visible, I soon convinced myself that I could resign myself to my lot and submit to this unhappy burden.
As I reflected over your persuasions, most notably when you told me that “Through [my] agency, God turns the Russian land to repentance” (Kimball), I recalled that “he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). Wisely did you proclaim unto Vladimir that “it is not meet for Christians to give in marriage to pagans,” for had you not been insistent on this crucial condition I would have been as surely damned as the heathen prince’s lowliest concubines (Kimball). For all my prior expressions of grief, I truly am grateful that my brothers, even when forced to consent to an irrevocable trade of one princess for six thousand mercenaries (Holmes), were adamantine in their own demands when they told Vladimir, “we cannot give you our sister in marriage” unless he agreed to be baptized (Kimball). With this assurance, that my husband is to “inherit the kingdom of God, and be our companion in the faith” (Kimball), “therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name” (Samuel 22:50), and soon you shall find that Vladimir and his people shall be “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). It was on this consideration that I began to see this agreement not as a sentence of imprisonment, as I had previously imagined it, but rather as an opportunity “to proclaim liberty to the captives” of paganism, and to perpetuate “the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1), for I believe that no matter where I reside I shall find that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
It is true that alliances forged by marriage have often tied together the households of our own aristocracy, and because this union in particular would establish a bond of kinship between our Empire and the princedom of the Rus, it is no wonder that Vladimir seeks familial association with so illustrious a house as the royal family (Neville). His baptism shall serve to connect himself to the Empire on another level still, and by linking himself with the Emperors of Rome he assures his own prosperity and authority (Neville). But I do not fear that he is merely “one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof” (Proverbs 1:19), and similarly I suspect that he will “neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another (Leviticus 19:11), and though this marriage is sure to award Vladimir with a greatly positive alliance (Gregory), I have reason to believe that his motives may be hold a genuinely commendable intention, as well. For the conversion of Vladimir’s grandmother, Olga, needs must have made an irrefutable impression on the prince’s convictions (Gregory), for thirty years ago this barbarian ruler arrived at the gates of Constantinople, personally seeking to convert to the true faith through a public baptism, and the Emperor himself served as godfather at her Christening (Kimball). Later, Vladimir’s own vassals proclaimed that “if the Greek faith were evil, it would not have been adopted by [his] grandmother Olga,” whom rightly they labeled as having been “wiser than all other men” (Kimball). With so admired a precedent, Vladimir now seems poised to extend the personal conversion experienced by his venerable grandmother unto his entire realm (Kimball), and through the guidance only a wife can provide, I shall ensure he remains steadfast to this cause and, ultimately, succeeds in this noble endeavor.
In addition to the example set by his grandmother, I am also pleased to remind you that Vladimir himself has for some time been considering conversion. For it is said that this prince sent emissaries across the world, to visit the homelands of the Bulgars, the Germans, and the Greeks (Gregory). After these officials witnessed the profane rituals of the Bulgars and the displeasing ceremonies of the Germans, undoubtedly, my brothers, you remember when they arrived at Hagia Sophia, and were so astonished by the beauty of the church and its fair services that, as it is said, these ten emissaries were at a loss for words (Gregory) until at last they reported to Vladimir that “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men” (Kimball). And so, for seeking “wisdom and knowledge” rather than pursuing only “riches, wealth, or honour,” like Solomon he shall accordingly receive from God “wisdom and knowledge” as well as the “riches, and wealth, and honour” (2 Chronicles 1:11-12) expected in such an agreement as the one which ties our Empire to his principality with the conjoined bonds of marriage and baptism.
And so, my beloved brothers and noble Emperors, I bid you farewell. Though earlier I had been wont to obscure my vision with darkened lamentations, “the Lord openeth the eyes of the blind,” and so did I see a newfound purpose (Psalm 146:8). And while I had asked rather to fall down and die than to carry myself to that distant shore, “the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down,” and now I walk upright to spread the message that “the Lord loveth the righteous (Psalm 146:8). Vladimir, too, is blind, lost in the teeming shadows of heathenism, but I shall encourage his baptism, and then at last “the eyes of the blind shall be opened” (35:5). The Rus shall be soon in following, “for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” through conversion (Act 28:27). “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known,” and by bringing the word of God to Vladimir and his people “I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them” (Isaiah 42:16). “And in that day” that Vladimir is baptized, “the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness” (Isaiah 29:18). Farewell again, my brothers; pray that the brilliance of my purpose divine is realized, that the dark princedom which awaits me shall be made agreeable through the light of the Lord.
Works Cited
Bible (King James Version). The Zondervan Corporation, 1995. Web. <http://www.biblegateway.com/>.
"Excerpts from "Tales of Times Gone By"" The Russian Primary Chronicles. Ed. Alan Kimball. University of Oregon. Web. <http://www.uoregon.edu/~kimball/chronicle.htm#987>.
Gregory, Timothy E. A History of Byzantium. Malden: Blackwell, 2005. Print.
Holmes, Catherine. "Basil II (A.D. 976-1025)." De Imperatoribus Romanis. University College, Oxford, 2003. Web. <http://www.roman-emperors.org/basilii.htm>.
Kimball, Alan. "Olga and Anna, and the Christianization of Rus'" Two Women. University of Oregon. Web. <http://www.uoregon.edu/~kimball/Xtxion.Olga.Anna.htm>.
Neville, Leonora. Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Rosenwein, Barbara H., ed. Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World. New York: Broadview, 2006. Print.