The Song of Igor's Campaign

The Song of Igor's Campaign Summary | Detailed Summary

"The Song of Igor's Campaign" begins with an introduction, calling to the audience to come, sit and listen to the tale of the latest Russian feud. This won't be a contrived story from someone of the noble class ("Boyan" or "boyer"), but a true story or how the brave and regal Igor led his troops against the Kumans for the sake of the Russian people.

The storyteller then addresses the boyer. The boyer enjoys exaggerating the ancient stories so that they praise the troops and princes more highly than anyone else does. The storyteller attempts to phrase the events as the boyer would: "Our princes didn't lose the battle and flee" or "The cities trumpet the victory of our sovereigns and raise banners in their honor."

The story finally begins. Igor is waiting for his brother Vsievolod. Vsievolod, who has a nickname of "Wild Bull," comes and praises his brother, telling him that he is his only brother and very bright. He urges Igor to saddle up, and then describes his own men as true warriors who live for battle and are always prepared and knowledgeable of their surroundings.

Then a solar eclipse occurs, a foreshadowing of events to come. However, Igor calls encouragement to his men, saying that it is better to be killed in battle than to become a prisoner of war. They should fight hard and not surrender. He calls to them to mount up and head toward the River Don. His greatest desire is to break a lance on (or fight) the Kumans and drink the water of the River Don or die in the attempt.

They mount up and set out onto the plains ("champaign") of Russia at night. The night seems to moan to Igor. Awakened by their passing, the birds and beasts join in the noise. They pass through lands they have never visited before: the seaboard, Sula, Surozh and Korsun. In the meantime, the Kumans are traveling up to the River Don; wagons creak and spread out like a flock of swans.

Igor and his warriors continue on, but the animals know that they will not be victorious in the upcoming battle. The red shields are just another portent of the misfortunes to come. The night seems to last forever. When dawn finally comes, a mist is covering the field. The whole world seems to be holding its breath, afraid to make a noise as the two armies line up for war in the name of honor and the glory of the homeland.

On Friday morning, Igor's men defeat the Kuman warriors in their first battle. They fan out on the field, overtaking them with numbers. They carry away Kuman women, beautifully woven fabrics, gold and jewels. The marshes are covered with equipment and the leftover clothing of the Kuman warriors. A red, white and silver banner is erected in Igor's honor to celebrate the day's victory. Each side sleeps through the night, but on the next day, the storm clouds have come in from the sea, and rain pelts the warriors like arrows.

The Kumans attack Igor's men in a great battle. Weapons seem to simply break against the Kuman helmets, and Igor's men can make no headway against them. As the weather worsens, it suddenly seems as though more Kumans have joined the battle, coming at Igor's troops from all sides. The Russians are forced to retreat, but there seems to be no escape for them. Vsevolod stays and fights valiantly, leaving headless corpses all around him. He pays no mind to wounds he receives, caring only for defeating the enemy.

The storyteller leaves the audience hanging to tell them of the battles of Oleg, another great warrior who made the people of Russian fear him through battle. However, none of those battles could compare to the one that Igor's mean fought against the Kuman tribes.

They fought from morning to evening for two more days, but the fields were covered with trampled men, blood and gore. Igor worried about the fate of his brother. The Russian banners finally fell on the third day of battle, signaling that Igor had lost the battle.

The brothers are defeated, and they and their men begin arguing amongst themselves in the middle of their sorrow. Nature laments with them. The Russians argue over what belongs to whom, too busy to fight the Kumans any more. The news of Igor's defeat spreads throughout the land, and the Russian people lament such an enormous loss. The Kumans collect a kind of tax, asking for one vair (probably a fur) from each homestead.

The storyteller then pauses to remember the great victories of their father, Svyatoslav, and the respect and fear he gained in Russia because of them. He had even defeated the Kuman, but now, all of the bordering countries will make fun of Igor, even though they still hold respect for his father. They will say that it was a useless battle that only used up Russian resources without gaining anything for Russia.

Svyatoslav has a dream after Igor's defeat. He dreams that he himself has been dressed in black and laid on a funeral pyre, ready for death. They give him blue wine mixed with a deadly poison and lay pearls from the pagan enemies on him, as if for burial. However, his burial chamber lacks the final additions. He could hear the ravens all night, and a logging sleigh was taken to the sea.

The boyars come to explain the dream to their sovereign. They tell him that his sons (the "falcons") have been defeated by their enemies and captured. The day of the defeat was dark and rainy, and the Kumans have spread across the land. The survivors have been made slaves and have been disgraced. The women mourn on the banks of the river and call for revenge. The boyars only wish to hear anything that might cheer them up.

Svyatoslav weeps, saying that the battle had no real honor. They thought only of themselves and their riches, and that is the reason they lost. They could have asked for help from his brother, whose warriors can cause their enemies to fear them with only their battle cries and boot daggers, but they wanted all of the glory for themselves. His sons have now become useless to him.

The storyteller pauses again to discuss how the current knights and leaders have been affected by Igor and Vsevolod's actions. Russia is in turmoil, with everyone fighting against everyone else. The economy is poor, and no one is interested in uniting to pull the country out of the mud, but the storyteller calls for peace, even though no one is likely to listen.

He begins returning to the story by telling the fate of Vseslav, Igor's grandfather. Vseslav apparently won a woman while gambling, but ran to Kiev to begin a fight with the leader of Kiev, and then escaped by sneaking away using the mist as a cover. He then defeated the people of Novgorod and Nemiga, as well as other areas. He was a stealthy fighter, coming and going at night, taunting Kiev several times. He had wins and losses throughout his career, but he could not escape God's eventual judgment.

Yaroslav's daughter, Igor's wife, appears in the story. She weeps for her husband and wants to fly to him to heal him. She rages at the storm, blaming it for her husband's defeat, asking it to return her husband to her.

Igor is taken on a boat, still in the middle of the storm. Igor rests, watches and waits for the right time to make his escape. In the Kuman camp one night, he sees a horse, and manages to sneak through the camp and steal the horse. He rides away across the Kuman lands. When he reaches the marsh, where it would be difficult for the horse, he dismounts and runs, continuing toward home, hunting birds for his food.

Finally, he reaches the meadowlands of the Donets, a smaller river in western Russia. He recognizes that he is getting close to home and rejoices. The people of the area greet him and praise him for surviving the journey this far. The tapping of the woodpeckers guides him home, and the nightingale sings once again. Gzak and Konchak speak to each other of killing Igor on his way home, since his father believes him dead anyway, but they leave him alone.

Igor finally arrives at his home. The storyteller quotes a Russian proverb that says that as difficult it is for a leader to be without his country, it is bad for a country to be without its leader. Russia celebrates the return of Igor. The storyteller closes by blessing Igor and all princes and knights who came after him to fight the pagan enemies and protect Russia.