John and Jenny Fulton

Real International Princesses: Ukrainian Princess Olha

By Jenny Fulton

Introduction

My book, An International Princess Alphabet Primer, features princesses from countries and cultures around the world. Each character is named after a real person. These are their stories.

Because the alphabet book was written for young kids, the biographies I’m sharing are short, child-friendly, often rose-tinted summaries.

Ukrainian Princess Olha

Ukrainian Princess Olha is named for Saint Olga, the Catholic and Orthodox saint of converts and widow.

Historians don’t know exactly when this princess was born, but many think it was in 925 A.D. She is known by several different names. In Ukrainian, her name is Olha, but she is also known as Saint Olga, Saint Helga, Elena, or Helen. (I know. That’s a lot of names!)

At that time, the people in Ukraine were Scandinavian Vikings. They were called “the Rus.” The land in the Kyivan Rus Empire included Ukraine, Belarus, and some areas of Russia.

Princess Olha was born in the city of Pskov. People think her parents were important Viking nobles, but they don’t know much else about her childhood.

When Olha was only 15 years old, she married Viking Prince Igor I of Kiev. A couple years later, they had a son named Sviatoslav. Igor became king but didn’t rule for very long.

In 945, Igor traveled to their empire’s tribes and demanded they pay taxes in exchange for protecting them against the Byzantine Empire. A tribe called the Drevlians rebelled and killed him.

Olha, who was only 20, became the empire’s first ruling queen. She would lead the empire for nineteen years until her son was old enough to become king.

Queen Olha’s first important act as ruler was to punish the Drevlians. The Drevlian Prince Mal thought Olha would be weak and scared. He thought he could force her to marry him so he could be king. Instead, Olha pretended to agree, but secretly set a trap to capture Prince Mal and his men. No other tribe rebelled against her Kyivan Rus Empire.

Olha didn’t really want to hurt her people. She wanted to help them. The queen made sure crimes were punished and innocent people were helped, no matter if they were rich or poor. Under Olha’s guidance, the empire grew in power and riches.

The young queen worked hard to make peace between her empire and the Byzantine Empire. She made several trips to meet with the ruler, Constantine VII. On one of these visits, he asked her to marry him because she was “fair of countenance and wise as well.” This time, Olha didn’t pretend to say “yes.” She just said “no.”

Even though Olha rejected him, Constantine didn’t get angry. Instead, he told her all about Christianity and became her spiritual mentor. Olha accepted Christ as her Savior, was baptized into the Christian faith, and changed her name to Elena. She was the first of her empire’s rulers to become a Christian.

Accepting Christ changed Olha’s life. She grew to have a strong and honest love for Jesus and other people. She longed to introduce Christianity to her son and the rest of her empire. However, her son thought Olha’s new belief was foolish. He was afraid of what others would think if he believed in Christ. But Sviatoslav did promise that when he became king, he wouldn’t hurt anyone who became a Christian.

Olha increased her work to help the people in the Kyivan Rus Empire, especially the poor. She had churches built and asked other countries to send them priests and missionaries. Her love for Christ and her desire for others to know Him made such an impact on her grandchildren, that one of them, Volodymyr the Great (also called the grand prince St. Vladimir), became a Christian as well.

This incredible woman died on July 11, 969. When Olha’s grandson Volodymyr become king, he carried on her work to spread Christianity throughout the empire.

The Primary Chronicle of Kyivan Rus, where most of the information about Olha comes from, describe her as,

“the precursor of the Christian land, even as the day-spring precedes the sun and as the dawn precedes the day. For she shone like the moon by night…. She was the first from Rus’ to enter the kingdom of God, and the sons of Rus’ thus praise her as their leader, for since her death she has interceded with God in their behalf.”

Today, St. Olga is considered one of Eastern Orthodoxy’s greatest saints.      

Understandably, she is especially loved and respected in Ukraine.

Other Princess Bios

Works Cited

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