What's in a name? A short guide to the etymology of the former Soviet Republics
Where does the word Estonia come from? Which are the origins of the term “Russia”? What does the toponym Georgia mean? And what about Kyrgyzstan?
When the mighty Soviet Union tragically collapsed back in 1991 very few of us were acquainted with the intricate geopolitical puzzle that was going to succeed the former “Evil Empire”. Thirty years later most people in the West have become somehow aware that the USSR and Russia are two terms that cannot be used synonymously, the latter being just one of the fifteen constituent republics of the former. The (rough) geographical locations and the toponyms of the remaining fourteen post-Soviet independent states belong by now to the very basic geographical notions of each of us. But do you know what do those toponym mean? Where does exotic-sounding names come from? Let us guide you on a short philological trip across the etymologies of the former Soviet Union!
RUSSIA
RUSSIA TOURS
The word Russia (Россия - Rossija in Russian) is derived from Rus', a medieval state populated mostly by the East Slavs. The country typically was called by its inhabitants "Русская Земля" (Russkaja Zemlja), which can be translated as "Russian Land" or "Land of Rus'". The name Rus' itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, Swedish merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea. According to the most prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Finnish name for Sweden (Ruotsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern and Northern Europe. The current name of the country, Россия (Rossija), comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rus', Ρωσσία (Rossía) —spelled Ρωσία (Rosía) in Modern Greek.
UKRAINE
UKRAINE TOURS
There are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine (Україна - Ukrayina in Ukrainian). The mainstream view interprets the name "ukraina" from Russian in the sense 'borderland, frontier region, marches' etc. These meanings can be derived from the Proto-Slavic noun *kraj’, meaning 'edge, border'. This suggests that it was being used as a semantic parallel to -mark in Denmark, which originally also denoted a border region. Some more recent (albeit academically questionable and politically biased) studies claim different meanings such as an identity-serving “homeland” or a more generic “country, territory”. "The Ukraine" used to be the usual form in English, but since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, "the Ukraine" has become less common in the English-speaking world.
BELARUS
BELARUS TOURS
The name Belarus (Беларусь - Belarus’ in Belarusian) is closely related with the term Belaya Rus', i.e., White Rus'. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus': an ethno-religious theory suggests that the name used to describe the part of old Ruthenian lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that had been populated mostly by Slavs who had been Christianized early, as opposed to Black Ruthenia, which was predominantly inhabited by pagan Balts. An alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. Just to let you know: modern-day Belarusians hate to be called White Russians.
MOLDOVA
MOLDOVA TOURS
The name Moldova (Moldova also in Moldavian/Romanian) is derived from the Moldova River: the valley of this river served as a political centre at the time of the foundation of the first Principality of Moldavia in 1359. The origin of the name of the river remains unclear. According to a legend recounted by Moldavian chroniclers, medieval Prince Dragoș named the river after hunting an aurochs: following the chase, the prince's exhausted hound Molda drowned in the river. The dog's name, given to the river, extended to the Principality. For a short time in the 1990s, at the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the name of the current Republic of Moldova was also spelled Moldava.
ESTONIA
The name Estonia (Eesti in Estonian) has been connected to Aesti, first mentioned by Roman historian Tacitus around 98 AD. Some historians believe he was directly referring to the Balt people proper (i.e. Latvians and Lithuanians and not Finnic-speaking Estonians), while others have proposed that the name applied to the whole Eastern Baltic region. The Scandinavian sagas referring to Eistland were the earliest sources to use the name in its modern meaning: the toponym Estland/Eistland has been, indeed, linked to Old Scandinavian eist, meaning "the east".
LATVIA
The name Latvia (Latvija in Latvian) is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Baltic tribes, which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finno-Ugric Livonians. Priest, missionary and historian Henry of Latvia coined the latinisations of the country's name, "Lettigallia" and "Lethia", both derived from the Latgalians, meaning "forest-clearers", which is also how medieval German-Teutonic settlers referred to these peoples.
SOVIET BALTICS TOUR
LITHUANIA
The first known record of the name of Lithuania (Lietuva in Lithuanian) is in the Quedlinburg Chronicle. Due to the lack of reliable evidence, the true origins of the name is unknown. Nowadays, scholars still debate the meaning of the word and there are a few plausible versions. A likely candidate is Lietava, a small river not far from Kernavė, the core area of the early Lithuanian state and a possible first capital of the eventual Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, the river is very small and some find it improbable that such a small and local object could have lent its name to an entire nation. Local linguists proposed another hypothesis, that Lietuva relates to the word leičiai, a distinct warrior social group of the Lithuanian society subordinate to the Lithuanian ruler or the state itself. The word leičiai is used in the 14–16th century historical sources as an ethnonym for Lithuanians and is still used, usually poetically or in historical contexts, in the Latvian language, which is closely related to Lithuanian.
GEORGIA
GEORGIA SOVIET TOURS
Georgia (საქართველო - Sakartvelo in Georgian) probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān. Lore-based theories were given by French traveller, chronicler and theologian Jacques de Vitry, who explained the name's origin by the popularity of St. George amongst Georgians. Modern and contemporary Georgian historians and linguists reject, however, these century-old explanations and point to the Persian term gurğ ("wolf") as the root of the word. The native name, Sakartvelo (land of Kartvelians), derived from the core central Georgian region of Kartli, recorded from the 9th century, and in extended usage referring to the entire medieval Kingdom of Georgia by the 13th century.
ARMENIA
ARMENIA TOURS
The biblical land of Armenia (Հայաստան - Hayastan in Armenian) derives its name from from Hayk (Հայկ), the legendary patriarch of the Armenians and a great-great-grandson of Noah, who, according to the 5th-century AD author Moses of Chorene, defeated the Babylonian King Bel in 2492 BC and established his nation in the Ararat region. The further origin of the name is uncertain. Ultimately, Hay may derive from the proto-Indo-European words póti (meaning "lord" or "master") or *héyos/*áyos (meaning "metal"). The exonym Armenia is, instead, first attested in Old Persian as Armina and in Ancient Greek as Armenía. Some scholars have linked the name Armenia with the Early Bronze Age state of Armani.
AZERBAIJAN
SOVIET AZERBAIJAN HOLIDAYS
According to a modern etymology, the term Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan in Azerbaijani) derives from that of Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander the Great. The original etymology of Atropates itself is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism with the meaning "Protected by the (Holy) Fire". Over the span of millennia, the name evolved to Āturpātākān (Middle Persian), then to Āzarbāydjān (New Persian) and present-day Azerbaijan. The name Azerbaijan was first adopted for the area of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan by the government of Musavat in 1918, after the collapse of the Russian Empire.
KAZAKHSTAN
The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, "to wander", reflecting the Kazakhs' nomadic culture. The Russian term "Cossack" is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means "land" or "place of", so Kazakhstan (Қазақстан - Qazaqstan in Kazakh) can be literally translated as "land of the wanderers".
CENTRAL ASIA JOURNEYS
TAJIKISTAN
It is difficult to definitively state the origins of the word "Tajik" because the term is embroiled in twentieth-century political disputes about whether Turkic or Iranian peoples were the original inhabitants of Central Asia. The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle Persian tāzīk meaning “Arab”. The Arab Muslim armies that invaded Transoxiana early in the eighth century, conquering the Sogdian principalities and clashing with the Qarluq Turks consisted, in fact, not only of Arabs, but also of Persian converts. Hence the Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, täžik, to designate their Muslim adversaries in general. As for Kazakhstan the Persian suffix -stan means "land" or "place of". Hence Tajikistan (Тоҷикистон - Tojikiston in Tajik) can be oddly translated as "land of the Arabs", although the Tajiks belong, in fact, to the Persian people and have little in common (ethnically, culturally and linguistically) with the Arabs proper.
TURKMENISTAN
The name "Turkmen" comes from Turk, plus the Sogdian suffix -men, meaning "almost Turk", in reference to their status outside the Turkic dynastic mythological system. However, some (local) scholars argue the suffix is an intensifier, changing the meaning of Türkmen to "pure Turks" or "the Turkish Turks." Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Kathir suggested that the etymology of Turkmenistan came from the words Türk and Iman (Arabic: إيمان, "faith, belief") in reference to a massive conversion to Islam of two hundred thousand households in the year 971. Since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the official name of the state has been the "Republic of Turkmenistan" (Türkmenistan Respublikasy / Түркменистан Республикасы).
UZBEKISTAN
The origin of the word Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Oghuz Khagan, also known as Oghuz Beg, a semi-mythological khan of the Turkic peoples. Another theory states that the name means “independent” or “the lord itself”, from Oʻz (self) and the Turkic title Bek/Bey/Beg. A third theory holds that the pronunciation of “uz” comes from one of the Oghuz Turks variously known as Uz or Uguz united with the word Bey to form uguz-bey, meaning "leader of an oguz (tribe)". The etymology we like the most is the second one and therefore we’ll simply accept that Uzbekistan (Oʻzbekiston in Uzbek) means “Land of the Independent (Lords)”.
KYRGYZSTAN
"Kyrgyz" is believed to have been derived from the Turkic word for "forty", about the forty clans of Manas, a legendary hero who united forty regional clans against the Uyghurs. Literally, Kyrgyz means “We Are (the) Forty”. The 40-ray sun on the flag of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is a reference to those same forty tribes.In terms of naming conventions, the country's official name is "Kyrgyz Republic" (Кыргыз Республикасы - Kırğız Respublikası in Kyrgyz).
DE JURE UNRECOGNISED BUT DE FACTO INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES
During the first chaotic post-communist years both diplomatic and military battles were waged for the sake of a territorial sovereignty both in the Caucasus and in Eastern Europe. The victory of the separatist forces led to the internationally unrecognised independence of four secessionist regions: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. Here is what their toponyms mean:
TRANSNISTRIA
This breakaway state squeezed between Moldova and Ukraine derives its name from the River Dniestr. Transnistria (Приднестровье - Pridnestrov’e in Russian) thus literally means "(the land) beyond the Dniester".
UNRECOGNIZED COUNTRIES
