Псковские микротопонимы Полонище и Поле

Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета. Серия 3: Филология. 2022. № 70. С. 9–19.

Vvedenskiy A.

This article suggests a new motivation for the Pskov suburb place name Поло- нище. Based on the common Slavic meaning of the word полон ‘a clean place usable as pasture or a haymaking area’, preserved in the region of Polesye, the article claims that Полонище in Pskov was originally used for an area near the city where cattle grazed. Drawing on the data of the Pskov chronicles, it is suggested that the area between the city walls of 1309 and 1375 was never called Полонище, as it is commonly believed in current historiography, while the early mentions of the microtoponym Полонище in the text of the Pskov Second Chronicle in entries for the 14th century are late interpolations in the text. The microtoponym Полонище originally referred to the territory behind the wall of 1375, and gradually replaced the microtoponym Поле, which designated the ter- ritory located behind residential buildings adjacent to the city walls. The microtoponym Поле ‘field’ most likely appeared before Полонище, but the chronicle data for the 14th century is very difficult to interpret, since the term Поле could well be used by chroni- clers in a physiographic, rather than toponymic sense. After the construction of the wall of Okol′nyi Gorod in 1465, the distinction between these names became clearer. Полонище continued to be applied to the territory between the walls of 1375 and 1465, and Поле began to refer to the area behind the wall of Okol′nyi Gorod.

Keywords: этимология, топонимика, etymology, городская застройка, Pskov, Псков, urban development, Toponimics