Russo-Polovtsian Dynastic Contacts as Reflected in Genealogy and Onomastics

The Silk Road, USA. 2014. Vol. 12. P. 65–75.

Litvina A., Uspenskij F.

The description of Polovtsian-Russian contacts― embodied not only in constant lesser and greater military conflicts but also in peace treaties, military-political alliances, inter-dynastic marriages, family ties, and finally, simply in personal relations― occupies in the oldest Russian chronicles devoted to the pre-Mongol period a significant place.The breadth of coverage is barely less than that devoted to the history of the Riurikid clan itself. However, the modern reader of the Russian chronicle, having become interested in the history of Russo-Polovtsian interactions, comes up against two partly discouraging, partly disorienting circumstances. On the one hand, this history, for all its eventfulness, gives the impression of something monotonic and undifferentiated: over the course of a century and a half Polovtsian invasions and answering campaigns of the Russian princes are recorded in the sources so frequently that it is difficult to detect any indication of intensification or weakening of military conflict. One is struck by the similarity of those events which fall at the boundary between the 11th and 12th centuries and those which occur a bit more than a century later. In the first as in the second of the indicated periods, we learn about the alternating success of Russians and Polovtsians in battles not far from Pereiaslavl’, about the capture of Russian princes by the nomads, about the fact that another prince marries his son to a Polovtsian woman, about flight—successful or unsuccessful—of yet another Riurikid to the Polovtsy

Keywords: Древняя Русь, половцы, кросскультурные исследования, personal names (anthroponymes), nomads, кочевники, Ипатьевская летопись, Лаврентьевская летопись, летопись, Old Russian chronicles, Cumans, историческая ономастика, Medieval Rus', crosscultural research, philological analysis of medieval source, Igor's Tale, филологический анализ средневекового источника, Слово о полку Игореве

Publication based on the results of: Eastern and Western Europe in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: historical and cultural commonalities, regional peculiarities and the dynamics of interaction (2014)