--- Sergejus Tarasovas <
S.Tarasovas@...>
wrote:
The question is since what time the
> consequences of this
> influence let us state Old Ukrainian, Old Belarusian
> and Old Russian
> have alredy emerged, replacing earlier dialectal
> bunches.
*****GK: This is essentially a linguistic question of
course, to which the political historian can only make
a tentative and perhaps merely peripheral
contribution. But since we're talking about language
rather than ethnicity, "national consciousness" or
state appurtenance (with knowledge of the "leading"
lingo thereof) I would suggest that it all depends on
how extensive you wish "Old X" to be before
recognizing it as such. Do you wish "Old X" to be the
main lingo of most or all of the territory later
labelled "Modern X" or only of a part? I think the
latter is probably the safer course to take. In that
case I would hypothesize that you can already identify
the koine of Kyiv (Kiev) in ca. 1100 as "Old
Ukrainian" (If you're less ticklish about extent area
perhaps even the speech of the "Polany" would qualify
from the moment they changed their ethnonym to "Rus'"
[sometime soon after 944 AD]). By then it would have
an area of "strong" influence englobing the Derevlany,
Siverjany, and "lesser" radiation in all directions.
It would also have some influence as the "center"
speech of the Rus' dominions.=== On the same approach
principle I would call the speech of Polotsk "Old
Belarusan". Does Zalizniak include it into the area of
his "Krivichian" reconstructions? Before dealing with
"Old Russian" let me return for a minute to Ukraine.
What about the speech of its West? Here we must deal
with the "Galician problem". For a long time this
territory had a rather unique position in the Rus'
complex. Without getting into too many details, and
simply from the perspective of the early 12th c.
Kyivan chronicler, it was considered "Lyakh"
territory. But not in the sense of "Polish" even
though competition for its possession was constant
between Kyiv and Gniezno in the 10th and 11th
centuries. The term "Lyakh" (for Nestor=let's use the
traditional name) meant the following groups: (1) the
Poles (3 sub-groups mentioned) (2) the Pomorians (3)
the East Polabians (Liutichi) and (4) the east Croats
of the later Galicia.[only somewhat later did the term
come to be wholly identified with "Poles"] I would
suspect(though I can't prove) that in the 10th c. the
dialect of these Croats was either West Slavic (Belz
and 'Przemysl' as indicators)or intermediary between
West and East Slavic. So I would not yet call it "Old
Ukrainian". But after inclusion into the Rus' complex,
the language of the "center" made quick inroads here.
By c.1100 and perhaps even earlier "Old Ukrainian"
would probably be an acceptable designation for the
local lingo, despite some continuing dialectical
differences. After 1199, the fusion would become even
more intense, but we don't have to go into this.== Now
as to "Old Russian". I may have to modify some of this
after having a look at Zalizniak, but at the moment
here's my take. As a political historian I associate
the rise of Russia with the fortunes of Suzdalia and
its successor states not with Novgorod. But Novgorod
was absorbed by Moscow, much as Galicia by Kyiv
(mutatis mutandis et circumstanciis debitis
obervatis). Close connections between Novgorod and
Suzdalia were long standing, and the former was
clearly the latter's cultural superior for a long
time. Could we then state that in 1100 and earlier the
language of Novgorod was "Old Russian"? At that time
the centers of Suzdalia were just developing and the
Slavic koine in use there likewise. You had incoming
Krivichi, some administrators from "Rus'" proper (Old
Ukraine), and Novgorodian merchants, as key carriers
of Slavic speech, plus the local Ugro-Finnish Meryans.
Nor must we forget the scions of the Norse, who
probably constituted a large if not dominant
proportion of the local aristocracy. I'm not sure how
to characterize the Slavic koine of Suzdalia at that
time. Politically, Suzdalia would be "Old Russia" in
my eyes from the moment that Yuri Volodymyrych
transferred his seat there in 1136 (from the north of
the Pereyaslav Principality) and began to "build it
up". That is the moment when both Novgorod and
Suzdalia declared their political independence from
Kyiv. But the language issue is not too clear to me. I
have no problem in calling Suzdalian "Old Russian" on
all grounds other than linguistic ones. Perhaps there
are also linguistic ones. There surely were as time
went on.******
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