--- Sergejus Tarasovas <
S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:
> >
> > 4- Slavic VladImirU "peace of the rule(r)"
> >
>
> AFAIK, this (Proto-)Slavic name is usually
> reconstructed as *Voldime^rU
*****GK: Why not *Vlod- ? With the second "o" a later
addition? On Volodymyr's coins the name appears as
either "Vladim(i,e)r" (the usual notion is that this
is a Bulgarian/Macedonian form) or "Volodimer".*****
> 'Peace of the
> rule(r)' looks a bit
> like a folk-etymology to me.
*****GK: Volodimer (Volodymyr, Vladimir) is the ONLY
name in -MER,-MYR,-MIR adopted by the "Rurikid"
dynasts. Such names were popular enough among the
higher aristocracy (cf. Ostromyr, Ratmyr, Vitomyr,
Tvorymyr). As far as I remember one such -MIR name
became "royal" in Poland (KAZIMIR). Now as to the
meaning of the "MIR" component, things are a bit
tricky. There seems little doubt that at least by the
early 11th c. it was associated with the concept of
"peace". Names could have been concocted on that basis
after the official adoption of Christianity by Kyiv.
Thus. "Tvorymyr" is first attested, I think, as the
name of a Kyivan boyar born in the 990's. But our
Volodimer, Volodymyr, Vladimir was born somewhat
earlier. What do we know about him? That he was the
illegitimate son of Svyatoslav son of Igor and of
Queen Olga's chamberlady (kluchnitsa), one Malusha or
Malfrid, just possibly the daughter of the Derevlanian
Prince who had killed Igor. Now Svyatoslav was about
17 or 18 when Volodimer was born. My sense of things
is that he was as little interested in this offspring
as in the "legitimate" sons (Yaropolk, Oleg) born to
his wife (name unknown, perhaps Predslava, a
"Polanian" princess). These matters were in the hands
of Olga. We can make a very strong case, for instance,
that she had Svyatoslav's sons baptized (though he
always refused to adopt the religion himself). We know
too little about Volodymyr's early years (and about
his mother's orientation) to hazard a guess as to
whether he too was baptized. If he was, it would have
been in the Cyrillo-Methodian rite (this is a
deduction from the later fate of his brothers'
relics). And he would have been an apostate for part
of his life. In any event, "prince of peace" or "peace
of the rule(r)" sounds like a nice Christian
reinterpretation of something less peaceful. If the
Bulgarian name mentioned by V.Karloukovski is indeed
some variant of "Volodimer" (I also have it as
"Laodimer"), it could hardly have had that
significance in the 840's. BTW, (we may have discussed
this before?) what is the etymology of the Gothic
Valamir?******
BTW, does Germanic
> *-me:r- only mean
> 'shine'? I've come across something like 'eminent'
> (thus 'eminent ruler'
> or the like).
>
> Sergei
>
>
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