On the names of Ruthenia in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania

• Academia: straipsnio tekstas

ENThe article deals with the philological and historiographical vicissitudes of the names of Ruthenia in early modern Poland-Lithuania. Critically assessing his predecessors’ work, the author distinguishes between the Greek- and Latin-based derivatives as determined by diferent reflexes of the root vowel in the underlying East Slavic *Rous'; Arabic and Latin German evidence is provided to substantiate this hypothesis. In the Latin nomenclature, the corresponding terms, Russiya (Russia) and Rossiya (Rossia), both relecting derivations from the underlying East Slavic form, are viewed as complimentary in historically representing the cultural matrices of Slavia Latina (Roman Matrix) and Slavia Orthodoxa (Byzantine Matrix). A special emphasis is placed on the Byzantine coloring of the term Rossia/Rossija which was a result of the philological tradition long cultured in Poland-Lithuania, encompassing Ruthenia. Its confessional (Orthodox) affinity of all the Slavs spread northeast toward Muscovy much later, after the establishment of the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1589. Promoted initially by Orthodox clerical circles in Poland-Lithuania, who built the first intellectual bridges between Ruthenia and Muscovy, the Byzantine matrix included Muscovy by the early 17th century. Deviating compound designations like Λιτβορωσία (1397), Ῥωσοβλαχία (Wallachia), and Moskvorossija (1593) are discussed in the context of a historical shift in the referential meaning of the term Rosia/Rossia in the cultural delineation of Ruthenian lands in the early 17th century when “Kyivan Rωssia” became conceived as part of the Polish Crown rather than of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The study is provided with a table containing forms, which represent two naming paradigm based on a short- and long-vowel relexes, as found in East and South Slavic, Byzantine, (East) Arabic, Old High German, Latin German, and (Latin) Polish.

• Kalbotyra / Linguistics
• Istorija / History