Igor Svyatoslavich - His Campaign and Its Aftermath

His Campaign and Its Aftermath

Later, on April 13, 1185, Igor, with some other junior princes, undertook a daring raid against the nomads with the object of reaching the Lower Don area. After the princes joined forces at the Oskol River, a band of Cumans spotted them and sent horsemen to warn the neighboring camps. When Igor arrived at the river Salnitsa, his scouts informed him that they had spotted the enemy in battle array. They advised him either to attack quickly before the Cuman band received reinforcements or to withdraw. Igor and his relatives refused to return home, because, they argued, their peers would mock them for fearing to face death and heap shame upon them.

As Igor’s forces came to the river Syuurliy, the enemy archers shot a volley of arrows at them and withdrew. Igor and his brother prince Vsevolod Svyatoslavich of Trubetsk advanced in formation at a steady pace, but his nephew Svyatoslav Olgovich of Rylsk and his son Vladimir Igorevich set off in pursuit and defeated the nomads. After all the contingents had reassembled, Igor advised that they withdraw under the cover of darkness because they had seen how great a force the Cumans had already mustered. But Svyatoslav Olgovich pointed out that he had pursued the Cumans over a great distance and that his horses were too exhausted to set off immediately; therefore Igor ordered his troops to rest for the night.

Alarmed at the audacity of the princes to come to their very lairs, the Donets Cumans sounded a general alarm; for three days enemy archers shot arrows at them without engaging them in battle. The princes’ only hope lay in reaching the river Donets; if they fled, however, it meant deserting the common soldiers, and therefore they rode against the enemy. The raid ended in catastrophe: the Cumans surrounded Igor’s forces like an unyielding wall so that only fifteen of the Rus’ men escaped. Igor was seized by a Cuman called Chilbuk but later Khan Konchak assumed responsibility for his svat (his son-in-law’s father) Igor who had been wounded.

After learning of Igor’s defeat Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich sent his two sons Vladimir and Oleg Svyatoslavich to the Poseme region (along the Seym River) to serve as interim defenders of the Seversk towns. According to the chronicler, the Cumans assembled their entire nation to march against Rus’. But the khans argued: Koza suggested that they should raid the towns of the defeated princes along the river Seym; Konchak proposed attacking the princes on the Kievan side. Because the khans obstinately stuck to their views, they split their horde into two. Koza attacked Putivl but failed to take it; nevertheless, he set fire to its outer town, pillaged the district, and razed surrounding villages.

Meanwhile, Igor was spending his captivity in Konchak’s camp. Although twenty Cumans were appointed to guard him, he was free to ride wherever he chose and to hunt with hawks. We are told that a Cuman offered to help him to escape; one day at dusk, he raised the tent flap and crawled out while the guards were entertaining themselves with games.

The glow of the sunset had faded.

Igor sleeps.
Igor keeps his vigil.
Igor’s thoughts cross the prairie,
from the great river Don
to the small river Donets.
Beyond the river, Ovlur whistles,
having caught a horse.
He warns the prince.
Prince Igor will not remain a prisoner.
The earth rumbled,
the grass rustled,

and the Kuman tents began to stir. —The Lay of Igor’s Campaign - Prince Igor flees from Kuman captivity

After crossing over to the other side of the river Tor, Igor rode away. He traveled eleven days to the town Donets; from there he went to Novgorod Severskiy. We are not told when Igor escaped, but he could not have been in captivity for more than a few months; he probably fled in the late summer at the latest.

After arriving in Novgorod Severskiy, Igor visited Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich (his cousin) in Chernihiv and asked for military aid. Next, he went to Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich in Kiev, and he undoubtedly asked him to assist in collecting the ransoms for the three captive princes. After leaving Svyatoslav, he visited Ryurik Rostislavich. Archaeological evidence suggests that after returning to Novgorod Severskiy, Igor reinforced the fortifications and founded new ones in the vicinity of Vyr.