Re: Rut(h)eni

Trying to find an authority which I could oppose to Saxo's commentators mentioned by Torsten, I found a short article by Max Vasmer, a brief of which folows:

1. Ruteni (Latin), hoi Rhoute:no'i (Greek, by Strabo) first mentioned as residents of Gallia. (It would be extremely interesting to hear a Celtist's opinion here).

2. Saxo's Ruteni (sg.), New High German Rutene (pl.) is, as I supposed, a bookish adaptation of East Slavic RusinU 'an inhabitant of RusI' (< RusI 'ethnonym of some germanic people' > ' toponym, territory of East Slavs'), an old self-designation of this part of East Slavs, outdated now, as this name is adopted by descendants of only a part of East Slavs, proper Russians, while other descendants call themselves Byelorussians and Ukrainians. Descendants of Rusini (pl.), having been an independent branch of East Slavs for centuries, eventually have merged to Ukrainians, now forming a part of West Ukrainian ethnos. A medieval writer, as is generally known, preferred to adapt an old Latin/Greek ethnonym rather than to invent a new one.

3. Saxo's Ruteni could well designate 'an inhabitant of the territory known as RusI *at Saxo's time*', which of course doesn't imply East Slavs or proper (Celtic) Ruteni inhabited all the territory of former RusI at the time the events from books 2 and 5 took place.
New High German Rutene means 'a RusinU, a representative of the most western part of East Slavs' .


From that we can see, at last, that the Torsten and I argued beside the point: he stated that Saxo mentions Danes' activities in Dnieper basin, which seemes to be right (it doesn't mean Saxo mentions real things yet), I stated that proper Rutenians were 100% not Slavs (and therefore not Ukrainians) at the time events which Saxo describes took place (the first half of the 1st millenium), and this seems to be right as well.

At last, after a profound reflexion on all that :)) I would like to propose the following theory:
The mentioned part of today's West Ukraine was called VelynI in Old Russian and Wol/yn' in Polish. One of the most prominent cities of VolynI was Galic^I (Old Russian), Ga'litza (Medieval Greek), hence Ukr. Galic^ina', Medieval Latin Galicia as a second and later name of this country. There are no plausible etymologies for these two toponyms, but both of them strongly associate with some Celtic ethonyms (Wel-, Gal- etc.). What if the remnants of the former *Celtic* (not Germanic or Slavic) substratum existed in this part of Carpathian mountains up to the arrival of Slavs? What if these Celtic people were relatives of those Gallican Ruthenians and even designated themselves with the same name? What if this name (as is often the case) was mechanically transfered to local branch of (future) East Slavs (as High German did), which gave medieval chronists occasion to extend it to the East Slavs in general, even those, who lived in the basin of Dnieper far away from the Carpathian mountains (as Saxo did)?

Sergei.