The paper discusses the general principle of the dynastic onomasticon of the pre-Mongol Rurikids, which was closedness: the pagan names of the princes were not supposed to be used by anyone outside of the ruling house. The present work covers the whole range of actual and phantom deviations from this principle, presenting an analysis of what might make these deviations acceptable. The right to a certain name, the functioning of the names and their transfer to non-dynastic strata are very closely linked with the power structure and the interaction between the princely family and their elite milieu. The subject of the ruler’s kinship (either consanguinity, affinity or fictive kinship) as a tool of construction of power relationships, the subject of the political mobility of the nobles and their role in conflicts between princes, the role of kinship in government - all these and many other controversial issues of pre-Mongol Russian history can be quite fruitfully studied from the onomastic perspective. The answer to the question of how, when and why such personal names as Sudislav, Viacheslav, Rogvolod or Iaropolk could suddenly become available for non-princely children, is often crucial for studies dealing with the various alliances, conflicts and long-term strategies of pre-Mongol Old Rus’.

The Russian chronicle tradition is characterized by considerable rigor in using the terminology of matrilineal kinship and affinity. Whereas in the case of male kinship a “recount” is possible which admits that an uncle or father-in-law could be called “father” in relation to a younger prince, the situation with the word “mother”, for example, is different, and this term was usually used in its direct meaning. This fact makes exceptions to this rule even more interesting. Thus, N. Dmitrоvna, the second wife of Mstislav the Great, is the only princess known to us who was named mother in relation to her stepson. Another unique situation is associated with the name of this woman: her own son, Prince Vladimir Mstislavich, received the nickname “macheshich” (son of a stepmother), equally exceptional for Old Russian chronicles. In this article I will try to show how these phenomena are related; how the unexpected “motherhood” of the Russian princess can explain her departure to Chernigov, the fiefdom of her late husband’s political opponents, and how complex and, at the same time, long-term were the family and political ties of the Mstislav clan.

The full text of the Teaching on Numbers by Kirik the Novgorodian is found in two 16th century manuscripts. One of them, which until the 1980s was known only in a 19th century copy, lacks a fragment about so called fractional hours that is present in the other manuscript. This circumstance gave rise to doubts concerning the authenticity of this fragment. In the 1980s, E. K. Piotrovskaia rediscovered this manuscript and showed that the place where the fragment about “fractional hours” was supposed to be was cut out of the sheet, thus, most likely, it was originally there. Thus, the content of the two main recensions was identical and therefore very weighty arguments would be required in order to question any part of the text. However, uncertainty about the authenticity of this part of the text for some reason is still found in studies devoted to the Teaching on Numbers. This is prompted both by the composition of the text (V. V. Mil’kov and R. A. Simonov) and by its grammar (V. V. Ivanov). The present paper discusses all the arguments against the authenticity of the “fractional hour” fragment and concludes that it belongs to the original text.

The social term shestnik, known from Novgorod-Pskov sources of the 13th-16th centuries, despite repeated attempts to interpret it, has not yet received a convincing explanation either in terms of its content or in terms of etymology. The article shows that the widespread understanding of this term as a designation of various kinds of newcomers, connected to shestvie and shestvovati, is untenable linguistically and cannot account for the whole relevant data. The newest interpretation of the term as designating members of the nomadic population of Finno-Ugric origin is also rejected as historically unacceptable. The analysis carried out by the author showed that the word is used in two meanings, narrow and wide. Shestniki are, firstly, the prince's armed men who perform not only military, but also administrative functions; secondly, in Novgorod and Pskov, any newcomers from Moscow, Tver and, in general, the “lower lands” (Nizovskie zemli) of the Rostov-Suzdal region could be called so. The supposed transfer of the designation of a military contingent to an ethnic group finds a parallel in the history of the word Rus'. A hypothetical explanation of the origin of the term is also proposed, linking it with the numeral ‘six' and interpreting it as a parallel to the term os'mnikъ, which originally denoted the leader of a military unit of eight people.

In etymological literature, the Russian verb стараться ‘to strive, to do one’s best’ along with equivalents in other Slavic languages (Belarusian старацца, Ukrainian старатися, Czech starat se, Slovak starať sa, Polish starać się, Upper Sorbian starać so, Lower Sorbian starаś se, Bulgarian старая се, Serbian стÄрати се, Croatian stÄrati se etc.), is usually considered a continuant of the form *starati sę, which allegedly already existed in Proto-Slavic. At the same time, it is overlooked that this verb is completely absent in Old Church Slavonic, it is absent in Middle Bulgarian and Old Serbian; the verb старая се is atypical for Bulgarian popular dialects. Moreover, стараться in the Russian language itself has been noted only since the second half of the 17th century in translated documents from the Foreign Chancellery. The Russian verb seems to be borrowed from Old Ukrainian or/and Old Belarusian, where старати ся was used from the middle of the 16th century and it certainly comes from the Polish. It is possible that the Polish word, in turn, was borrowed from Czech. The article suggests that at present this verb has a common Slavic distribution not due to its Proto-Slavic antiquity, but as a result of its migration from one Slavic language to another much later than the disintegration of the Proto-Slavic language. See the preliminary publication of this paper in Hungarian [Zoltán 2020].

Based on the material of Old Russian and Old Georgian chronicles, the article examines the key characteristics of the image of a ruler that interacts with the Cumans. On the one hand, the work traces how the perception of the Cumans by the medieval chronicler influences the image of a ruler connected with the Cuman milieu. Here the most diverse types of relations with the Cumans are taken into account, in particular, Cuman origin of the ruler, his matrimonial ties with these nomads, participation in temporary military alliances or, on the contrary, entry into armed confrontations with these steppe dwellers. On the other hand, the article pays attention to the way a complex construct “ideal ruler”, partially or fully embodied on the pages of the scrutinized medieval texts, is reflected in the system of views on the Cumans. The study considers to what extent the Cumans, as representatives of a world mostly alien for a medieval Christian author, fall under the influence of the image of an ideal ruler. The article argues that the pragmatics of a medieval chronicle, either focused on the figure of a perfect ruler or concentrated on the history of a particular dynasty, immobilizes the image of the Cumans in a positive, neutral or negative evaluation system.

The scepticism found in recent publications with regard to the Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan by Batu is due, on the one hand, to the unsubstantiated opinion about the late origin of the tale, and, on the other hand, to its treatment exclusively as a literary work created by the artistic imagination of the author. Key episodes of the tale, concerning peace negotiations with the leader of the Mongols and the marriage proposals received from him, find direct and indirect correspondence with the historical realities present in the times of the Mongol conquest and the establishment of the global Mongol empire. The demands concerning the wife of the Ryazan prince and the murder of the latter for refusing to comply with them could have been a deliberate provocation undertaken by Batu in order to create a pretext for changing the direction of the main attack of the Mongols to the advantage of the Jochids. The attack of the Ryazan princes on Batu's headquarters in response to the murder of Prince Fedor, described in the tale, does not contradict, but rather, quite the opposite, conforms to the general picture of the Mongol conquest of the Ryazan land, supported by the cumulative evidence from all currently known sources. In response to this attack, the leaders of the Mongols had to abandon their original plan for peaceful subjugation of Northeast Rus' and substantially change the strategy of the Western Campaign as a whole.

During the winter of 1293-1294 the lands of North-Eastern Rus' survived the “Diudenev host”, the raid of Tatar detachments led by Tudan (Diuden' in the Russian chronicles), sent by Khan Tokhta with the aim of expelling Grand Duke Dmitry Alexandrovich and establishing his brother, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, a Golden Horde protégé, on the grand duke's seat in Vladimir. In the course of an unprecedented sweep of territory by the Diuden' troops, fourteen Russian cities, including Vladimir, were captured and plundered. Among the material losses incurred during the hostilities, the chronicles especially emphasize the fact that the attackers took out to the Horde the copper slabs of the floor of the main church of Russia, the Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir (usually Tatar robbery of churches included only items made of precious metals and expensive fabrics). Obviously, during the same raid, another church of the Vladimir region, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in the city of Bogolyubovo, lost its copper floors. The total cost of copper exported to the Horde was equal to a third of the annual tribute paid by the grand dukes to the Horde. Apparently the Gorodets prince, for lack of funds, included the copper floors of the churches of the Vladimir region as part of his payment to Khan Tokhta for the yarlyk for the title of Grand Duke.

The paper is an attempt to answer the question: when could prince Švitrigaila, son of Algirdas (Świdrygiełło Olgierdowicz, Svidrigailo Olgerdovich), possess Halych, situated in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, along with the adjacent territory? Until recently this fact was known only from a short mention in a document from the beginning of the 15th century, and it remained unclear, how to date this page in his riotous biography. Documents found in the archives of Warsaw and Lviv and published in the appendix allow us to date his Halych tenure to the period between October, 1405 and June, 1408, when Švitrigaila deserted to Moscow for Vasily I’s service, where he was granted the town of Vladimir and other possessions. It is shown that his short tenure in Halych allowed Švitrigaila to establish and strengthen his ties with the Ruthenian nobility under the rule of the Polish king. Even in May, 1408 (if the date of the document surviving in a 16th-century copy is correct), i. e., on the eve of his departure for Moscow, Švitrigaila was granting land near Halych to local nobles. Later he would use these ties to reconcile with his brother, king Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, and to return to the dominions of the Gediminids, as he certainly did later.

The article dwells on the terms otchich i dedich (отчичь и дѣдичь) in the royal style and titles of Muscovite grand princes and tsars. This collocation of West Russian origin was adopted in the administrative language of Muscovy in the mid-14th century. In West Rus’ the phrase otchich i dedich had the same meaning as a whole as each of its components separately. Both otchich and dedich meant a hereditary lord or ruler: these words complemented, rather than сontrasted with, each other. The pleonastic collocation otchich i dedich had the same meaning; two words of the same meaning created an amplification effect. In Muscovy, within the context of infighting for the grand-princely throne, this collocation has proven to be related to the hereditary transfer of power according to the principle of primogeniture. In these circumstances the phrase otchich i dedich means a legitimate linear heir that inherited the power from his father who, in turn, had inherited the power from his grandfather, etc.; a collateral heir is a dedich but not an otchich. After the power of the tsars was established and infighting became obsolete, the phrase otchich i dedich became connected to the struggle for recognizing the Muscovite grand prince in his capacity as the tsar and thus was not longer a factor in internal politics, but became a factor in foreign policy. By using this phrase, Russian tsars assert that they have inherited their title of tsar from their ancestors. This, in turn, opens a wide field for genealogical mythology.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the political role of Saburovs and Godunovs at the Sovereign's court in the 15th-16th centuries. The path to power of the Saburov and Godunov clans is analyzed through various official appointments, representation in the Boyar Duma and in the Court administration, by examining the marriage and family ties of persons belonging to these clans. The author focuses his main attention on the reign of Ivan the Terrible, when the Godunov clan was significantly strengthened and outstripped the Saburovs. The author proposes an explanation for the suddenly increasing influence of the Godunovs, which involves such factors as cohesion and corporatism of the clan, a skillful use of the current political situation and the unexpected chance for promotion in the Oprichny Court, the marriage of Boris Fedorovich Godunov to the daughter of the favorite of the Tsar, Malyuta Skuratov, which was followed by the wedding of Tsarevich Fyodor to Boris's sister Irina Fyodorovna. Plots related to the service of the Saburovs and the Godunovs are complemented by excurses into the field of anthroponymy, the study of secular and monastic names of female representatives of these clans.

The article analyses the program of the plaques placed on the icon case of St. Nicholas found in the Moscow Kremlin collection. The icon belonged to Evdokia Saburova (nun Alexandra after 1572), the first wife of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. The decorated icon was kept in the convent of the Intercession in Suzdal. Presumably the toreutic icon case was supplemented with plaques with carved images after 1598. On the narrow margins of the icon case are placed the plaques with the image of the Deisis, of ecumenical and Russian saints, as well as of the holy patrons of the customer and the Rurikid and Godunov dynasties. The article focuses on the analysis of images of saints of the two dynasties. On the icon case there are the holy patrons of the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich (John Climacus and Mark of Arethusa), the nun Alexandra (St. Alexandra), Tsar Fedor Ivanovich (St. Theodore Stratelates and St. Martyr Hermias), Tsarina Irina (Great Martyr Irene) and Boris Godunov’s family (St. Boris, Mary Magdalene, Theodotus of Ancyra, Xenia of Rome). The decorated icon is not only a vivid example of the history of Russian medieval piety, the program also emphasizes the high status of the customer, who is related by kinship with both tsars’ dynasties.

The article is devoted to an unknown document of Stephen Báthory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, from the collection of historian Konstantin Vasil’evich Bazilevich (1892-1950). The Bazilevich collection contains a little more than 300 items, among which there are rare European and Russian printed books that fell into the hands of the historian in a variety of ways between the First and Second World Wars and after the end of the latter. The collection also contains a number of parchment documents, almost unknown until recently. They mainly come from Leipzig and date back to the 15th-16th centuries. The only document not written in Latin and not in German is the decision of the royal court in Vilnius on March 24, 1584 on the land dispute between a nobleman, named Ivan Sholukha, or Ivan Puzyna, and the Polotsk Jesuit Collegium over the village of Mezhdchichi in the Polotsk Voivodeship. Part of the lands of the Polotsk Spaso-Evfrosinievsky monastery, which were transferred to the Collegium after its formation, turned out to be privately owned. The royal decree confirms the incomplete legitimacy of land ownership by Ivan Sholukha. However, taking into account the fact that the nobleman took part in the hostilities near Polotsk, and the lands were granted to him by the predecessor of Stephen Báthory, King Sigismund Augustus II, a decision is made on a special procedure for transferring land to the Polotsk Jesuit Collegium. The text of the document is published with commentaries, conclusions are drawn that the document came into the collection of the historian from the archives of the Commission for National Education of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

A review of: Nicolaus Bergius (2019). A historico-theological exercise on the status of the Muscovite church and religion. U. Birgegård, M. Hedlund (Eds.). Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. 327 p. (Slavica Suecana. Ser. A: Publications; Vol. 3).