The Origin of the Names of the City of Vitebsk and the Vitba River

• Main Author: Васильев, В.Л.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: УО "ВГУ имени П.М. Машерова" 2021
• Subjects: toponym; hydronym; origin of names; etymological interpretations; area; топоним; гидроним; происхождение названий; этимологические трактовки; ареал; dvina; Russian North
• Online Access: https://journals.vsu.by/index.php/uz/article/view/1686

The available etymological interpretations of Vitba, which are connected with the names of V.A. Nikonov, V.A. Zhuchkevich, V.N. Toporov, V.P. Neroznak, A.E. Anikin, are critically reconsidered. The purpose of the article is additional grounding of the derivation of the name of the City of Vitebsk from the hydronym of Vitba, but, to a greater degree, revealing the etymology of the original hydronym itself. Material and methods. Material of Russian chronicles, record books, historical and dialect dictionaries was considered. Traditional etymology methods of old, «non-transparent» hydronomy were used. Findings and their discussion. Toponymic parallels for the Belarusian Vitebsk, Vitba, which were localized on the Russian North-West (Vitbino, Vitebsk, Vitebsko) and not considered earlier, are presented and interpreted in detail. Southern Slavonic equivalents are also presented (Slovene víba for «spiral» etc.). Analysis of these data makes it possible to conclude that Vitba is an original Slavonic hydronym which means «winding river». Conclusion. The research resulted in finding out a late pre-Slavonic lexical dialectism *vitьba which means «bend, winding», which was not found in the composition of historic and modern appellative vocabulary but remained in a number of archaic toponyms on a comparatively small but wholesome territory. This toponymic area stretched in a meridian direction from the upper Western Dvina up to Lake Ilmen thus demonstrating advance of early Eastern Slavs from the region of Upper Dnieper and Dvina onto the north, into would-be Novgorod lands. Имеющиеся в науке этимологические трактовки Витьба, связанные с именами В.А. Никонова, В.А. Жучкевича, В.Н. Топорова, В.П. Нерознака, А.Е. Аникина и др., подвергнуты критическому пересмотру. Цель статьи – дополнительное обоснование деривации названия г. Витебск от гидронима Витьба, но в большей степени – раскрытие этимологии самого данного исходного гидронима. Материал и методы. Учитывается материал русских летописей, писцовых книг, исторических и ...