About the Foundation of the City of Kyiv
During my research, I came across some facts directly related to Kyiv. Having collected them together and added a little imagination, I combined them in a meaningful connection in an essay of a historical nature as a basis for further research.
It should be noted that Kyiv is located in the center of the tectonic fault zone that formed the river network of the Dnieper basin. Tectonic plates are in constant slow motion, which is associated with energy processes that have different explanations. If energy is released, then the Chornobyl disaster immediately comes to mind, the causes of which are not fully understood. It is possible that one of them could be an energy surge associated with the movement of plates.
The network of tectonic cracks itself is unique. They converge in the Kyiv area, and over time, the Dnieper and its tributaries of Pripyat, Desna, and Teterev were formed along them. We cannot remain silent about the famous prophecy of the Apostle Andrew, who predicted the grace of God to Kyiv. Perhaps he was an extremely sensitive person and noticed a certain energy in the Kyiv mountains. All these facts provide food for further reflection.
After the settlement of the Dnieper basin by humans, more than ten ethno-forming or ethno-producing areas were formed on its territory (STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2000: 10). This is how I called the areas of the earth's surface, limited by natural boundaries, mainly large rivers, where ethnic units were repeatedly formed based on individual dialects, into which the once common mother languages split. The indicated territory was successively settled by The Indo-Europeans, Germans, Iranians, Balts, and Slavs settled the indicated space. The later peoples were formed on their basis (see the map in Fig. 1). The succession of the settlement of this area, not counting everything else, is confirmed by the linguistic substrate of the ethno-forming areas, when some words of the previous population are perceived by newcomers. In general, the existence of ethno-forming areas is a kind of empirical generalization, which, in the words of Vernadsky, “does not differ from an established scientific fact” (VERNADSKY V.I. 2004, § 15).
L.N. Gumilev claimed that ethnos is a paradox of the Earth's biosphere. Such an intuitive understanding of the essence of ethos did not find convincing proof in his work (GUMILEV L.N. 1979). The existence of ethno-forming areas well illustrates the opinion of the Russian scientist, although it fundamentally contradicts his idea of the nature of the influence of geographical conditions on the socio-economic and cultural development of peoples.
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Map of Ethno-producing areas in Eastern Europe illustrating alternation of substratum influences.
At different times, parent languages were separated into dialects, which later developed into individual languages in the same areas. Today names of people are given to their ancestors. The number of areas corresponds to such periods: 1. Uprising of Indo-European languages 2. The uprising of Germanic and Iranian languages. 3. Formation of Slavic languages. 4. East Slavic tribes at the time of Kiev Rus'.
For a better representation of the ethno-forming areas on the earth's surface, I submit them to Google My Maps (see below). .
The map does not show any of the Baltic languages due to the lack of necessary data on the history of their development. After the Germanic people, the right bank of the Dnieper was inhabited by the Balts, on whom the Slavs later overlapped and had to accept the Baltic substrate. There are many words similar to Baltic in the Slavic languages, but it is impossible to determine their origin precisely because these Baltic languages have not survived to this day. Although some features of Baltic borrowings in the Slavic languages may indicate that they were not borrowed from existing Baltic ones.
As can be seen from the map, opposite Kyiv, there was an area originally inhabited by the ancestors of modern Armenians. The Armenian chronicle of Zenob Glak, supposedly from the 10th or 11th century, contains a legend about the foundation of the city of Kuara, which is similar to the legend about the foundation of Kyiv, known to us from the "Tale of Bygone Years". This fact, discovered by M. Marr (MARR N.Ya. 1935: 44-66, etc.), is of great interest to scientists. It turns out that the oldest mention of the foundation of Kyiv is in an Armenian source. But why do Armenians have this legend? How did it come to them? Some historians answer this mysterious question as if this legend was brought to Armenia by Slavs captured by the Arab commander Merwan after his victory over the Khazars in 737.
The explanation is doubtful because although Mervan, who resettled 20 thousand families of captives, fought far from the places of Slavic settlements, and the definition of the settlers as the people of as-sakaliba used by Arab historians could concern both the Slavs and the Turks or Finno-Ugrians (KALININA T.M. 2005: 106–108). On the other hand, the legend itself could not have interested the Armenian chronicler more than the resettlement of a large number of foreigners who brought this legend. He does not write anything about this resettlement, and the resettlement itself took place not in Armenia, but in Kakheti, from where these people fled and were killed on the way. Moreover, there is evidence and logical conclusions in favor of the fact that Zenob Glak, a Syrian by origin, lived in the 4th century, being the first abbot of the monastery of Surb Karapet, founded by Gregory the Illuminator, the founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He wrote the history of the spread of Christianity in the Armenian province of Taron in Arabic, apparently because the Armenian alphabet, which came into use only in the 5th century, had not yet been invented. It follows from this that he lived until then, that is, long before Mervan, and wrote about the spread of Christianity in Armenia while it was still fresh, while in the 10th or 11th century, such a work would have been much more difficult to do. Also, in general, it is difficult to believe that the history of Christianity was written in Arabic after Islam became the dominant religion in Western Asia. Glak's chronicle dates back to the 10th or 11th century only because it contains a legend about the founding of Kyiv, which is supposedly borrowed from the ancient Russian chronicle of those times.
Thus, nothing seriously prevents us from accepting another assumption. We know that the Fore-Armenian language, as the basis of the Armenian ethnic group, began forming in the area between the rivers Dnieper, Desna, and Sula in the third millennium BC [STETSYUK VALENTYN. 1998: 42-44]. This is just the opposite of Kyiv, on the left bank of the Dnieper (see the map below).
The Common Indo-European Space in Eastern Europe.
The legend about the construction of the city of Kuara could have originated among the Armenians in those ancient times. The ferry across the Dnieper, which is reluctantly mentioned in the chronicle, but which could have been, allowed the inhabitants of both banks to communicate with each other, so the ancient Armenians knew about the legend of their neighbors. Somewhat contradicting this assumption are the data of the Armenian chronicle that the city of Kuara was built in the country of Poluni, that is, "Polyans" (the name of one Slavic tribe), and they settled in the territory near Kyiv much later than the time when the ancestors of the Armenians lived in those places. However, the name of the country of Polun does not necessarily have to be of Slavic origin; it can only be Slavicized because there were no "poles" (fields) near Kyiv in those days. The connection of the Polyans with a field is, according to Marr, "clearly a folk etymology", because even the chronicler writes that there was a "large pine forest" there. On the other hand, the ethnonyms Polyany and Poles undoubtedly have a common proto-form, even the Polish state was originally called the Polyan Principality. However, the location of the ancestral home of the Poles in the marshy area north of the Upper Pripyat does not give any reason for calling their inhabitants Poles. The basis of the self-name of the Polyans could be a word similar to the Greek φυλον "family, tribe" because there are many examples of self-names such as "people", "nation", "tribe" in ethnology. Over time, the original name of the country Polun was reinterpreted by the Slavs as a "field area", and its inhabitants began to be called Polyans. But why is it the Greek word that is taken into account? Because the ancestral home of the Ukrainians was in the same area as the Greeks. From here, the latter began their long migration at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, which lasted for several centuries.
The Migration ways of Greeks were fixed by their settlements, whose original names have survived till now and can be decrypted with the help of the Greek language. According to them, first, the Greeks crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper and reached the Desna River. This is evidenced by the names, at least, of the two settlements in Chernihiv Region: the village of Stas in Chernihiv district (from στάσις "stand, site") and the village of Olbyn in Kozelets district of Chernihiv Region (from Gr. ὄλβος "happiness, prosperity"). Hence they, using the summer waterway, moved down the Desna River and further along the Dnieper, stopping for the winter in convenient places, and finding suitable conditions, stayed there for a long time. So settlements were established on the banks of the Dnieper, some of which have preserved original Greek names till now. One of these settlements was Kyiv, which name can be decoded using Gr. κίω "to set in moving". If the original name of the city was Kuara, as stated in the Armenian chronicle, the second part of the name can be Gr. ῥοή "stream" from ῥέω "to flow".
Over time, some of the Greeks, obviously larger, left the place and then embarked on a journey that eventually led them to the Peloponnese. The remaining people, too, did not sit on the ground and with a growing population occupied a large space on the banks of the Sula, Psel, and Vorskla Rivers onto the headwaters of the Seversky Donets River. Evidence of the presence of the Greeks in these places is a decipherment of the local place names such as:
Abazivka, a village of Zachepylivka district of Kharkiv Region – Gr. ἄππας "priest". There is the village of Abazsvka in the Poltava Region, but its name supposedly comes from the surname Abaza.
Khalepie, a village in Obukhiv district of Kyiv Region – гр. χαλεπός "heavy, hard, dangerous".
Kovray, a village in Zolotonosha district of Cherkasy Region – Gr. κουρά "cutting hair, wool, branches".
Olbyn, a village in Kozelets district of Chernihiv Region – Gr. ὄλβος "prosperity, happiness", ὄλβιος "blessed, happy".
Poltava, a city and villages in Kharkiv, Lugansk, and Rostov Regions – the name can have a different interpretation using Greek but the best Gr πόλις "a fortress, city" and ταΰς "great".
Saguny, a town in Podgorevsk district of Voronezh Region, the village of Sahunivka in Cherkasy Region – Gr. σαγήνη "great fish net".
Stasy, a village in Dykanka district of Poltava Region and the village of Stasy in Chernihiv district – Gr. στάσις "a site".
Tarandyntsi, a village in Lubny district of Poltava Region – Gr. τάρανδος "elk, deer".
Takhtaulove, a village in Poltava district – Gr. ταχύς "swift, rapid, prompt", Θαύλιος – epithet of Zeus.
Trakhtemyriv, a village in Kaniv district of Cherkasy Region – Gr. τραχύς, "raw, rocky, rough", θέμερος "solid, sturdy, hard".
Ancient Greek place names in Ukraine.
Reliability of the decryption of names is confirmed by their good phonetic correspondence to Greek words, as well as by their concentration in a relatively small space. Additionally, the probability is increased by the location of the Greek settlements in the form of a chain along the Dnieper and Desna, indicating the path of movement of migrants (more about this in the article "Ancient Greeks and Italics in Ukraine and Russia".)
But a little earlier than the Greeks, the ancient Turkic tribes began to migrate as carriers of Corded Ware pottery cultures. One of them, namely, the ancestors of modern Chuvash, rose from the Black Sea steppes to Kyiv, as evidenced by the following toponyms:
Boyarka, a town in Kyiv Region, a locality in the city of Rivne, two villages in Cherkasy and Odesa Region – Chuv. payăr "proper, own"; pay "a part" ăru "tribe, kin, progeny".
Kaharlyk, a town in Kyiv Region and two villages in Kirovohrad and Odesa Regions – Chuv. kăkar "to join", and the formant -lyk refers to one of two Chuvash suffixes –lăk or –lăkh, which can form adjectives or give an abstract value or result of the action.
Kodaky, a village in Kyiv Region (previously Kaydaky) – Chuv. kay "to grow, develop", tăkă "rich, abundant".
Tarashcha, a village in Korsun-Shevchenko district of Cherkasy Region, a town in Kyiv Region – Chuv. tărăsh worry about".
Ulashivka, a village in Bila Tserkva district of Kyiv Region – Cguv. ulăsh "change, alteration".
Uzyn, two villages in Kiev and Ivano-Frankivsk Regions – Chuv. uççăn "open, free, light".
Ulashivka, a village in Kiev Region – Chuv ulăsh "change", "to change".
Yurkove, a settlement in Zvenyhorod district of Cherkasy Region – Chuv. yürĕk "brisk".
Zhurzhyntsi, a village of Lysianski district of Cherkasy Region – Chuv. shărshă "fragrance".
In Kyiv itself, there are or were proper names that can be interpreted using the Chuvash language:
Karachun, a lake in the Pushcha-Vodytskyi forest – Chuv. khura "black", chun "spul".
Lybid, a river – Chuv. lĕpĕte "head, bump".
Khoryv, one of the founders of Kyiv – Chuv. khărav "fear, fright".
Yurkovytsia, "highland", "tract" – Chuv. yürĕk "brisk".
So, obviously, the Proto-Chuvashes stopped in Kyiv and crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper, then they went up the Desna, and further in the upper Volga, they became the creators of the Fatyanovo culture, one of the variants of the Corded Ware culture. The crossing had to exist for a long time so that a city could be built on the right bank, and the ferry should become permanent, which was serviced by a certain team. It became known over long distances, so it is not surprising that the Armenians could hear the legend about the construction of Kyiv. The Armenian name Kuara speaks of a waterway.
Kyiv is located in the area inhabited by the Polyans. It is bounded by the Dnieper, Ros', and Teterev Rivers. It is impossible to determine which people dwelled there before the Polyans. To the west is the area bounded by the Pripyat, Teterev, and Sluch Rivers. Long before the Proto-Chuvashes arrived in Kyiv, the Italic language had formed there, which developed into the Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Falisc languages. When the Italics migrated to the Mediterranean, this area was settled by the Germanic people. Based on the Old Germanic language, the original dialect of the Anglo-Saxons was formed here. Some Italic words passed into the languages of the next population as a substrate. The English language has many borrowings from Latin, and among these borrowings, there must be substrate ones, although it is quite difficult to separate them, some examples can be found. For example, Porzig specifically connects the Latin sulcus "furrow" with the Old English. sulh “the same”. Although similar words exist in other Indo-European languages, only Latin and Old English have these words the same meaning (PORZIG V., 1964: 167). Another similar pair is Lat. collis and OE hyll, both “hill”. The Latin and Old English words, according to Porzig, “have the same degree of ablaut and the same form of the suffix, whereas the words of other Indo-European languages related to these two have the highest degree of ablaut and other types of derivative formations” (Ibid: 163). V. Machek also believes that the Words kurit “to drive” and prikurit “to come running” are related to Lat. currare “to run”. If it is an Italic substrate, it must be present in Old English, through which the word could have entered Slovak. The Latin word is related to MHG hurren "to move quickly"; Old English hrōr "mobile" maybe this word.
In the Pripyat basin, the Germans became the creators of the Eastern Trzciniec culture (15th-10th centuries BC). Its separate variant was the Sosnitskaya culture, widespread in the Anglo-Saxon homeland and also in the Desna and Seim basins. That is, at the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxons began to move to the left bank of the Dnieper. Their further history is discussed in the article Anglo-Saxons in Eastern Europe. However, some of them remained in their homeland and the surrounding area for a long time. Their presence around Kyiv testifies to toponymy. The Anglo-Saxon roots of the name of the Irpin (Old Ukrainian Irpen) River are especially transparent.
The Irpin River.
The photo of the site Foto.ua
This river has a wide boggy valley that should have been boggier in ancient times. Therefore OE *earfenn, compiled by OE ear, meaning 1. "lake" or 2. “ground”, and OE. fenn “bog, silt”, could have a sense of “sludgy lake” or “boggy ground”. The name of the city Fastiw (Fastov) has obviously arisen from OE fǽst “strong, fast". OE swiera “neck”, “ravine, valley” suits for decoding the name of the village of Skwyra on the Skwyrka River, if k after s is epenthesis, ie inserted sound to give greater expression to the word. In favor of the proposed etymology says the name of the village of Krivosheino is formed from Ukrainian words meaning “curved neck” which can be a linguistic calque of an older name. The village is located on the river bend.
Other place names of Anglo-Saxon origin in the country west of the Dnieper can be mentioned above Awratyn, Dyrdany, and as follows:
Fenevychi, a village at the bank of the upper Teteriv River – OE fenn "swamp", wīc “house, village”.
Korsun’ of Shevchenko, a town in Cherkasy Region, two villages in Belorus, one in Donetsk Region (Ukraine), one in Orel Region (Russia) and near-by rivers having the name Korsun', the village of Korsyni in Volyn' Region and the village of Korsiv in Lviv Region – In his dictionary, F. Holthausen cites OE cors "cane, rush" present in place names but believes that it is borrowed from Celtic (HOLTHAUSEN F. 1974:58) what else needs to be proved.
Myrcha, villages, one west of the town Dymer in Kyiv Region, another south of the town of Malin in Zhitomyr Region and one else in Transcarpathia on the border with Slovakia – OE mirce "murky, dark, black".
Smela, a town, Cherkasy Region – the name of the town can have as Slavic as an Anglo-Saxon origin. (Eng smile or smell) but OE smiellan "to strike, hit, burst" suits best of all taking in consideration the diphthong in the old variant of the city's name.
Tal, a river, rt the Teteriw, lt of the Dnieper – OE dǽl “valley”.
Tetiew, a town, Kiev Region – OE tætan “to gladden, coddle”.
Vorzel, an urban-type settlement in Kyiv Region – OE. orgel "proud", "haughty".
The Anglo-Saxons, both in their ancestral homeland and around Kyiv, remained until the arrival of the Slavs. As old-timers, they headed local communities. Kyiv served as the local capital. In the middle of the 9th century. Anglo-Saxon princes ruled there:
Askold – OE āscian "to ask, demand", "to call, choose" and eald "old", ealdor "prince, lord".
Dir – OE dieren "to appreciate, praise", diere "dear, valuable, noble".
According to the chronicle, these princes paid tribute to the Khazars, who were also Anglo-Saxons (see Khazars), and went on a campaign against Constantinople. But in the chronicle, they are retrospectively called Rus. The Rus appeared somewhat later in the person of the Varangian ruler of Novgorod, who insidiously killed Oleg and became the prince of Kyiv. But the Anglo-Saxons did not disappear, they took revenge on the Varangians by killing his son Igor. The chronicle interprets this event with unknown accuracy. Of interest to us may be the letter of Emperor John Tzimiskes to the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav (964-972), which contained the following words:
I think you have not forgotten the defeat of your father Ingor, who, disregarding his oath, sailed to our capital with a huge army on 10 thousand ships, and arrived in the Cimmerian Bosporus with only ten boats, himself becoming the messenger of his misfortune. I will not even mention his [further] miserable fate, when, having set out on a campaign against the Germans, he was taken prisoner by them, tied to tree trunks, and torn in two (LEO the DEACON. 1988, VI, 10).
It is clear that we are talking about Prince Igor, who died a martyr's death, as indicated in the chronicles, at the hands of the Drevlians, but for some reason, the emperor calls them Germans, distinguishing them from the Varangians (Russians) and the Slavs. He had a reason for this, knowing that the language of the Drevlians was Germanic. By that time, it was difficult to distinguish between different Germanic languages, so he chose a generalized name. The name of the Drevlian tribe seems to come from the fact that they lived in forests among trees. But then all the Slavs lived among trees, and such a sign could not identify any tribe accurately. The possible origin of the ethnonym "wooden" derives from the name of the well-known Germanic tribe of the Tervineev (YAYLENKO V.P. 1990: 116). I think that the tribe got its name after the murder of Igor from d.-eng. dreawian “punish”. The derivative from it dreawl "punisher" could exist, since there was an OE dræwel as a component of the word meaning "hot iron".
The Drevlyan tribe was not part of the ancient Russian state for a long time. At least in the 10th century. wooden ones were not included in it, as A.M. repeatedly emphasized in his work. Nasonov (NASONOV A.N. 1951: 29, 41, 55-56). The fact that the Varangians could not include the neighboring glades of the Drevlians in the composition of the "Russian land" may indicate that these were the remnants of relatives of the Anglo-Saxons who mixed with the Slavic population. In the chronicles, it is noted that the people of the glades were usually "meek and quiet", while the people of the trees were "animals in an animal way", that is, they were warlike or rebellious.
The hypothetical history of Kyiv presented here raises many questions, even if the arguments for the presence of the Anglo-Saxons are convincing. However, it is doubtful that they were in their homeland or near it for about two and a half millennia. During this time, their lands were invaded by the Kurds who crossed from the left bank of the Dnieper and the Balts from the left bank of the Pripyat. At the turn of the old and new eras, the Slavs appeared here, forming a separate ethnic group of Slovaks. They all left traces of their presence in toponymy, but eventually had to go in search of new places of settlement (see the articles Cimmerians, Ancient Balts outside the Homeland, Ethnogenesis of the Slavs). It can be assumed that their coexistence with the Anglo-Saxons was not peaceful. This is precisely the topic that should be of interest to linguists and archaeologists, if, of course, they are interested in the truth and not their scientific careers. The matter is complicated because the restoration of history is possible only with the close cooperation of linguists and archaeologists, but it is not easy to organize. In my unsuccessful communications with archaeologists, they unanimously refused to recognize obvious phonetic correspondences in interpreting onomastics, as if this required special knowledge. With such excuses, archaeology as a science turns into a perfect speech study, which gives archaeologists confidence in making bold conclusions. In particular, they do not doubt the absence of a significant settlement on the site of the future Kyiv until the end of the 9th century:
The traditional Soviet concept of the history of Kyiv is being revised in the works of Ukrainian archaeologists. Thus, summarizing the experience of many years of research in Podil, M. Sagaidak recognizes the modest beginnings of urban life, which have been observed in this part of ancient Kyiv since the end of the 880s, as the first evidence of the existence of Kyiv as a city (ZUCKERMAN СONSTANTINE. 2007: 348).
The future is determined by the past, so knowledge of it is important, but the present is guided by its own ideas about it and forms a historical process devoid of sober logic.
ZUCKERMAN СONSTANTINE. 2007. Perestroyka drevneyshey russkoyy istorii – (Rus)- (Re-)Structuring Early Russian History//At the Origins of Russian Statehood. Historical and Archaeological Collection. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, October 4-7, 2005, Veliky Novgorod. Russia. St. Petersburg.
