scholarly journals “My Arrow, Fly Up Double, Come Down Single”: To the Problem of Scandinavian–Alanic Parallels in the Mythological Onomasticon

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-99
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Napolskikh ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Common Origin ◽  
Exact Match ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Epic Tradition ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Murder Weapon

The article compares the plots of the Ossetian Nart epic (the tale of Axsar and Axsartag, sons of Warxag, in which one of the brothers gets killed by a doubled or forked arrow due to a misunderstanding) and the Icelandic epic (the story of the accidental murder of Baldr by his blind brother Höd with a dart from a mistletoe shoot, in medieval illustrations to which the murder weapon is also depicted as forked sprout). The peculiarity of the plot (a strange, forked murder weapon), which was already incomprehensible to Ossetian storytellers and Icelandic medieval writers, is a typical example of “common oddity,” which can be a decisive argument when comparing folklore motifs for a common origin. In addition to the similarity of the plots, a commonality is found in the genealogy of the heroes of these legends, through which they fit into the mythological picture of the world of the corresponding traditions and in the mythological onomasticon: the parallelism of pairs Odin — Frigg / Freya (with her father Njord, the god of waters) and Warхag / Wastyrdg’i — Dzerassa (daughter of the god of waters Donbettyr), semantic similarities in the names of the heroes (‘Warrior,’ ‘Hero’) and the exact match in the names of their ancestors (Boræ — Buri, Bor). All these observations allow us to hypothesize for the presence of borrowed Gothic plots in the North German epic tradition, which also include the story of Hermanarich, Sunilda and her brothers, known from Jordanes’ Getica. It also leads us to explain why some sagas trace the location of the Ases and Odin ancestral home to the mouth of the Don. These German-Ossetian parallels do not go back to Indo-European antiquity but testify to the close Gothic–Alanic contacts in the northern Black Sea region in the 3rd–4th centuries.

Current Status of Anserinae Wintering in Azov-Black Sea Region of Ukraine

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-312
Author(s):  
Yu. O. Andryushchenko ◽  
V. S. Gavrilenko ◽  
V. A. Kostiushyn ◽  
V. N. Kucherenko ◽  
A. S. Mezinov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Anser Anser ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Chen Caerulescens ◽  
Branta Bernicla ◽  
The North ◽  
Different Seasons

Abstract In the article is analyzed own field data of the authors and scientific publications on the wintering of Anserinae in the Azov-Black Sea region of Ukraine in 1900–2017, but the main data was obtained in frame of international mid-winter counts (IWC) in 2005–2017. It was found that 9 species of Anserinae occur in this region during the different seasons of the year: Anser anser — nesting, wintering and migrating; Rufibrenta ruficollis, A. albifrons, A. erythropus, A. fabalis — migrating and wintering; Branta canadensis, Branta leucopsis, Branta bernicla, Chen caerulescens — vagrant or birds which flew away from captivity (zoo etc.). Eulabeia indica — is possible vagrant species. The most numerous wintering species is A. albifrons, common — Rufibrenta ruficollis, not numerous — Anser anser, the other species are not met annually and registered in a very small number. There was almost tenfold drop in number of wintering geese in the Azov-Black Sea region of Ukraine during the period of counts. The main reasons of such reducing of geese amount are the followwing: weather and climate conditions, changes in the forage acessibility, hunting and poaching pressure, poisoning as a result of deratization of agricultural lands, and from 2014 — the militarization of the Syvash area and stop of water supplying of Crimea through the North Crimean channell. It is likely that the factors mentioned above led to relocating of wintering areas of Anserinae, and resulted in decreasing of their amount in this region.

Christian mission in Northern Black Sea region and its geopolitical significance

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-34
Author(s):  
P. Kusenkov
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
The North ◽  
Trading Posts ◽  
Pax Romana ◽  
Byzantine Church ◽  
Greek Colonization ◽  
Cultural Expansion

The spread of Christianity in the Northern Black Sea Region was a continuation of the vector of cultural expansion into this region, outlined in Antiquity and opposing the region’s stable geopolitical ties in the latitudinal direction, with the steppe world of the nomads of Eurasia. The stages of this process were: the Great Greek colonization on Pontus Euxinus; the spread of Pax Romana to the territory of Crimea; the Christianization of the region and the strengthening of Byzantium in the Northern Black Sea Region through an alliance with the Khazaria and the creation of the Klimata-Cherson thema; finally, the emergence of Italian trading posts and the emergence of Genoese Gazaria. The success of the Christian mission of Byzantium would not have been possible without the oncoming movement from the north, which determined the reception of the Byzantine civilization by Rus’-Russia and predefined the geopolitical contours of the modern world. In the opposite direction there was an advance to the south of Rus’ and the formation of the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, sea voyages of the Rus’ princes to Constantinople, the capture of Korsun’Cherson by Vladimir the Saint and the baptism of Rus’, the inclusion of Russia in the system of the Byzantine church administration. At the new historical stage, after the fall of Byzantium, the role of the Christian Orthodox empire passed to Russia, and the processes of intercivilizational interaction in the region changed their vector. But even in the new conditions, the meridional dimension remains incomparably more important than the latitudinal dimension: a fact that determines the future geopolitical perspective.

scholarly journals Barrow 11 of the “Garden” Group in the Lower Dniester Region and Contemporary “Mythmaking” About Scythian “Amazons”

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-101
Author(s):  
Vitalij Sinika ◽  
Sergey Lysenko ◽  
Sergey Razumov ◽  
Nikolaj Telnov ◽  
Sylwia Łukasik
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Body ◽  
Left Bank ◽  
Women Warriors ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Stone Slab

The article publishes and analyzes materials obtained during the study of the Scythian barrow 11 of the “Garden” group excavated in 2018 near village Glinoe, Slobodzeya district, on the left bank of the Lower Dniester, for the first time.The barrow was surrounded by a circular ditch and contained four burials – one infant and three female. The tools from the barrow are represented by knives, spindle-whorls, needle. The only piece of tableware was found and it was a wooden bowl. The adornments (a pair of earrings, two bead necklaces, one bead bracelet, two “elbow bracelets”) were also discovered. Earrings with conical bulges on one of the endings testify to the Thracian influence on the material culture of the Scythians of the North-West Black Sea region. All female graves contained mirrors. Two of them are identical, and both were laid under the body of the buried. One of the mirrors has handle aforethoughtly broken in antiquity. The cult objects are a pendant made of a dog’s tooth and a stone slab, the arrowheads are the only weapons. The barrow dates back to the second half (preferably the third quarter) of the 4th century BC. Finding a quiver set in the grave 4 of barrow 11 of Glinoe/”Garden” group made the authors to analyze the burials of the so-called Scythian “amazons” of the North Black Sea region. It turned out that many of them were attributed with flagrant violations of scientific methods as burials of women-warriors, which is nothing more than modern “myth-making”. As a result, the authors claim that an open-minded analysis allows us to distinguish three groups of Scythian burials with weapons: 1) containing weapons, placement of which reflects certain “ethnographic” features of the rite or the special status of buried; 2) containing arrowheads that may indicate hunting; 3) the burials of warriors with diverse and numerous weapons.

scholarly journals Caucasian Track in the River Names System of the North Black Sea Region

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
O. Bubenok ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The North

CRIMEA AND THE BLACK SEA REGION IN THE POLITICAL PICTURE OF THE WORLD OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES OF UKRAINE EXPERTS (BASED ON ANALYTICAL REPORTS TO THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGES TO THE VERKHOVNA RADA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 79-84
Author(s):  
OLEG V. Donetsk National University ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Parallel Structure ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Strategic Studies

Basing on a constructivist approach to international relations and foreign policy, the author has defined the conceptual content of the script, in which the experts of the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies imagine Crimea and the Black Sea region. The study was carried out on the basis of the materials of the Institute's analytical reports to the messages of the President to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2014-2018. It was found that the ideas about Crimea contained in them are extremely mythologized: in the political picture of the world of the Institute's experts, the peninsula is considered as a “Russian bridgehead”, a source of “military threat" and an "occupied territory". Ukrainian experts are convinced that the motives of Russia's foreign and defense policy in the Black Sea direction are allegedly due to its desire for "expansion", "imperial policy" and the desire to "restore the Soviet Union." They perceive the reunification of Crimea with Russia as an event that led to a cardinal transformation of the geopolitical space of the Black Sea region that contradicts Ukrainian national interests. At the same time, on rational grounds, the institute is actively searching for conceptual approaches to organizing a new regional security system and creating a long-term, broad and durable alliance of anti-Russian forces, which could act as a NATO parallel structure in the Black Sea region in the future. Moreover, Ukrainian experts do not have any own geopolitical project or idea on this. They are considering several options for regional coalitions at once, paying special attention to the Polish concept of "Intermarium", which consists in creating a block of Baltic-Black Sea states.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Paul Huddie
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Crimean War ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The North ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
North Western

The year 2014 marked the 160th anniversary of the beginning of the Crimean War, 1854–6. It was during that anniversary year that the names of Crimea, Sevastopol, Simferopol and the Black Sea re-entered the lexicon of Ireland, and so did the terms ‘Russian aggression’, ‘territorial violation’ and ‘weak neighbour’. Coincidentally, those same places and terms, and the sheer extent to which they perpetuated within Irish and even world media as well as popular parlance, had not been seen nor heard since 1854. It was in that year that the British and French Empires committed themselves to war in the wider Black Sea region and beyond against the Russian Empire. The latter had demonstrated clear aggression, initially diplomatic and later military, against its perceived-to-be-weak neighbour and long-term adversary in the region, the Ottoman Empire, or Turkey. As part of that aggression Russia invaded the latter’s vassal principalities in the north-western Balkans, namely Wallachia and Moldavia (part of modern-day Romania), collectively known as the Danubian Principalities. Russia had previously taken Crimea from the Ottomans in 1783....

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