110. St. Mikhail of Chernihiv is Assassinated by the Golden Horde, Batu Khan’s Camp, Kyivan Rus, 1246

St. Mikhail of Chernihiv and St. Theodore, his boyar, are commonly pictured together, on account of dying together on the same trip to see Batu Khan. Here, they are depicted in their saintly iconography. A bonus picture is below, being a different picture altogether.

Mikhail of Chernihiv, the Grand Prince of Kyiv and Prince of Chernihiv, went to several neighboring states to ask for help fighting the Golden Horde — he had the idea that there would be strength in alliance — but nobody would help, on account of they were too busy fighting each other, and also the Mongols had not actually gotten to their houses yet, so why should they care. Then the Golden Horde destroyed Kyiv, and told Mikhail he had to come give obeisance to Batu Khan, and he did that, but he wouldn’t worship idols, which was part of the deal, so the Golden Horde executed him. And then he pretty quickly became venerated, and then a saint as a martyr, and his relics were taken to Chernihiv but now they are in Moscow. Besides all that, Michelle is totally impressed by the number of his vitae surviving. Also that Batu Khan is connected to Russian Atlantis. Also there is a kangaroo. (Spoiler alert: the Golden Horde did in fact get to those other neighboring states, after they had finished looting Kyivan Rus.)

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Not so much iconography as hagiography, this painting by Vasily Smirnov, “St. Michael of Chernigov” (1883) is very dramatic and your hosts don’t believe a smidgen of it. It is dramatic, though. Please do not confuse Vasily Smirnov the Russian painter from the nobility, who painted, dramatically, historical scenes in Academic style, with Vasily Smirnov the psychopathic serial killer. Or any of the other Vasily Smirnovs. But especially not that one.