What this song renders
The Drevlians were a Slavic tribe living west of the Dnieper, formally subject to Kievan Rus’ tribute. In 945 Igor went to collect tribute, returned to demand more, and was killed when his retinue had grown small enough to attack. The Primary Chronicle describes the execution method as bending two birch trees, tying Igor between them, and letting the trees spring back.
The story is a stylised piece of folklore. Whether the actual method was this, or simpler, the substance is documented: Igor was killed by the Drevlians during a tribute mission. Byzantine sources confirm his death in the same year. The political fact is what matters — the Rus’ lost a prince in territory they claimed to rule, and Olga, regent for their three-year-old son Sviatoslav, had to answer.
The album opens here because everything in the next four tracks is the answer.
Igor’s death and the Drevlian role in it are documented across multiple sources. The specific birch-tree execution method is from the Primary Chronicle only and reads as folkloric rather than literal. The album takes the image at face value because the symbolic violence is what mattered to the Chronicle’s author and to the tradition that followed.