Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)

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A NOTE ON PLACE-NAMES, PROPER NAMES,

AND FOREIGN TERMS

Most of the localities referred to in the present study are situated within

the present borders of Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania,

Belarus, and Russia. In the early modern times, the Crimean Khanate

was inhabited by the Tatars, Nogays, Circassians, Turks, Armenians,

Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Italians, and of course Ruthenians, mostly

slaves but also free immigrants, not to mention other ethnic groups.

In Poland-Lithuania, the Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians (ances-

tors of modern Ukrainians and Belarusians, but also of modern Rus-

sians in areas extending further to the east) shared the common space

with Germans, Jews, Armenians, and many others, including Muslim

Tatars. All these peoples had their own names for their habitats, in

their proper languages. Moreover, many of them used a number of

languages simultaneously, for instance Latin at school but Polish at

home, Polish at the law court but Ruthenian at home, Armenian at

church but Kipchak Turkic at home, or—like Nikolaus Copernicus—

Latin in scholarly publications, but German in private correspon-

dence. For instance, the city of L’viv, situated today in the Ukraine,

was known as Lwów to its Polish inhabitants, L’vov and later L’vüv

(but still not L’viv) to the Ruthenians, Lemberg to the Germans, while

the Latin term Leopolis continued to be used in ocial documents.

If we add the Armenians and Jews, who also had legitimate rights to

refer by their proper terms to the town in which they had been born

and lived, the confusion will be complete. e question now arises:

which of the above languages and forms should be promoted and used

in a book written today in English?

In the few cases when a town or a river has a standard English

equivalent, the author may feel relieved from making a choice,

although the objectivity of “standardized forms in English” might be

put in question. As these forms oen origin from the 19th century, no

Many of the thoughts expressed in the present essay originated during my end-

less discussions with Victor Ostapchuk. I would like to thank Victor for them; even if

we did not always agree, they stimulated me to clarify my arguments, and sometimes

reconsider my points.

xxxii a note on place-proper names, and foreign terms

wonder that most of the terms regarding Eastern and Central-Eastern

Europe tend to be either Russian or German, since the only states to

be found in the area on nineteenth-century maps were Russia, Prussia,

and Austro-Hungary. For this very reason, the editors of the Harvard

Ukrainian Research Institute have recently endeavored to “Ukrainize”

a number of standard English terms such as Kiev, Odessa, and Dniester

and replace them with Kyjiv, Odesa, and Dnister, although so far the

eort has not been very successful. e Lithuanians have been more

eective and the once common form Vilna has been already replaced

by Vilnius in standard English dictionaries (needless to say, neither

the former, nor the latter form, respectively Russian/Belarusian and

Lithuanian, would satisfy former Polish or Jewish inhabitants of the

town, who knew it as Wilno or Vilne respectively).

For the terms that have never had a standard English equivalent,

a custom has prevailed for years in the American academia, accord-

ing to which modern terms, reecting the current borders and ocial

dominating languages of contemporary nation states, should be pre-

ferred. At rst sight the rule appears reasonable and protects a writer

from accusations of political revisionism. Yet, should we really apply

the modern Ukrainian term Jevpatorija for the early modern Crimean

port that was known to its Tatar inhabitants as Közlev, or refer to

Königsberg—the Prussian royal capital and the town of Immanuel

Kant- as Kaliningrad? Even in less evident cases, when the name of

a town has never been changed but only pronounced dierently, a

preference towards one and only one form might be unjustied. A

Baltic port, known today as Gdańsk, was known under the same name

to a seventeenth-century Polish noble, but its average German citizen

then referred to it as Danzig, while in a neighboring Kashubian vil-

lage it was probably known as Gduńsk. It also had as many as three

alternative ocial Latin names: Gedanum, Gedania, and Dantiscum.

Still more confusing is the case of a Tatar fort built on the Crimean

isthmus, known as Ferahkerman to the Tatars, but as Perekop to their

Slavic neighbors. e latter term was also used by the Tatars when

they composed their correspondence in a Slavic language.

Having said all this, I nevertheless decided to honor modern terms

as long as the ethnic composition of a given territory or town has not

changed drastically since the period described. In some cases, it has

brought awkward results: for instance, the names of Ruthenian locali-

ties, granted by Crimean khans to Lithuanian rulers, are rendered in

a note on place-proper names, and foreign terms xxxiii

English translation in either Ukrainian, or Belarusian, or Russian form

and orthography, depending on the current position of state borders,

even though in the 16th century linguistic barriers between Ukrainian,

Belarusian, and even Russian were less visible than today.

e one general exception from the above rule is the preservation of

the integrity of historical terms, for instance in the names of treaties

(hence the “Treaty of Karlowitz” and not the “Treaty of Sremski Kar-

lovci,” and the “Treaty of Zborów” and not the “Treaty of Zboriv”).

Also, whenever English equivalents existed, such as Cracow, Warsaw,

Vilnius, Kiev, Dnieper, Dniester, Podolia, or Volhynia, they were used

instead of contemporary place-names.

Personal names present a problem as well. For instance, in the

instrument from 1513, issued by Sigismund I in Vilnius on behalf of

the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, we encounter the name of the Lithu-

anian chancellor, recorded in Cyrillic script in a standard Ruthenian

form, along with the patronymic: Mykolaj Mykolaevyč Radyvylovyča

(Миколаи Миколаевич Радивиловича). He was a Lithuanian Roman

Catholic, who certainly spoke Ruthenian and Polish uently; perhaps

he also spoke Lithuanian, but this matter is disputable and cannot be

proven due to the lack of written evidence. Today, the members of this

aristocratic family are entirely Polonized and live in Poland under the

family name Radziwiłł. In the Lithuanian historiography the family is

known as Radvila. Which form should we use today in an English-

language publication when referring to a member of this family who

lived in the early 16th century: Ruthenian, Polish, or Lithuanian?

Departing from the fact, that the protagonist was a Roman Catholic

while in the given period the Ruthenian identity was strongly associated

with the Greek confession, the present author excluded the Ruthenian

option and chose from the remaining two the Polish one against the

Lithuanian one, on the premise that the protagonist used the former

rather than the latter form of his family name, at least in writing. Never-

theless, the choice remains disputable and it is always risky to attribute

modern identities to early modern characters. In the same document

from 1513, we nd another Lithuanian dignitary recorded as Kostentyn

Ivanovyč Ostrozkyj (Костентин Ивановичъ Ѡстрозкии). As he was

an Orthodox and the family originated from ethnic Ruthenian lands of

the Grand Duchy, it was resolved to record his name in the Ruthenian

form. In consequence, in the English translation of this document,

the name of Mikołaj Mikołajewicz Radziwiłł, recorded in the modern

xxxiv a note on place-proper names, and foreign terms

Polish orthography, will be followed by the name of Kostjantyn

Ivanovyč Ostroz’kyj, recorded in the modern Ukrainian orthography

rendered in Latin transcription.

As it is impossible to satisfy all tastes, a reader upset with the forms

chosen by the author should be assured that the choices do not reect

any revisionist schemes and do not intend to awake nationalistic

demons or oend anybody’s sensibility. Besides, in the era of post-

modernism any form, even cherished by the tiniest minority, should

be considered equally legitimate as the one preferred by a current or

former majority.

Place-names and personal names written in languages using Latin

script (e.g., Polish or Lithuanian) are rendered in their original orthog-

raphy, while Cyrillic names (e.g., Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian)

are transcribed according to the rules explained below (see Principles

of publication). Recording Turkic personal names and place-names,

especially encountered in the Crimea, causes a serious headache as

these names have been recorded in various scripts (Arabic, Cyril-

lic, Latin) and pronounced dierently in dierent times by dierent

speakers. For instance, the Tatars from the southern Crimea inclined

towards the Oghuz forms, while those from the north towards the

Kipchak ones. In the present volume, a slight predilection has been

given towards the former as such predilection was also detectable in

the Crimean chancery, at least since the mid-17th century. Besides,

some of the Oghuz forms have been already domesticated in English

through the medium of Ottoman Turkish, like the dynasty name Giray

(not Gerey or Kerey) or the historical name of the Tatar fort Islamker-

man (not Islamkermen).

Modern Turkish names, e.g., the names of present-day Turkish

authors, are rendered in the modern Turkish alphabet, which is based

on the Latin one, but with some letters having dierent sound value

(e.g., “c” for “dj”) and some letters added. For the transcription of

Tatar documents, recorded in Arabic script, and for rendering origi-

nal Tatar terms (italicized) in the English text, a more “sophisticated”

version was used, based on the modern Turkish alphabet but with a

few additional letters for the sounds encountered in Tatar but lacking

in standard modern Turkish (see Principles of publication). Finally,

Tatar place-names and personal names appearing in the main text,

footnotes, and English translations of the published documents are

recorded in standard English letters with the addition of three signs:

“ö,” “ü,” and unpalatalized “ı.” I have chosen the latter option aer

a note on place-proper names, and foreign terms xxxv

much hesitation, persuaded by the fact that: a) some names of prom-

inent personages are already used in English so commonly that an

alternative form might confuse the reader (e.g., Tokhtamısh and not

Tohtamış or Toqtamış); b) modern Turkish alphabet, being the most

obvious alternative, lacks a few sounds encountered in Tatar (espe-

cially the velar “k” and “g”), while a fully scholarly transcription might

be hardly digestible for the reader; on the other hand, by using the

letter “q” and such standard English digraphs as “sh,” “ch,” “kh,” or

“gh,” we can fairly render the pronunciation of Tatar names without

the necessity of using diacritical marks.

Royal names are usually rendered in the English form, as has been

customary so far. Hence, aer their respective enthronements Jan

Sobieski turns into John III, and Stanisław Poniatowski into Stanis-

laus Augustus. An exception has been made for the Muscovian rulers

named Ivan, Vasilij, and Fedor, although perhaps it would be more

justied to refer to them as John, Basil, and eodor.

Finally, foreign terms are in general given in italics (e.g., mirza or sta-

rosta), with the exception of historical terms already adopted in English,

such as hetman, hospodar, bey, agha, or khan. e present author

decided that the titles of qalga and nureddin, appearing repeatedly in

the text, also deserve to be adopted into standard English hence they

are not italicized. It is hoped that his humble contribution to the lan-

guage of Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad (alias Józef Korzeniowski)

will survive the present publication.

PART ONE

A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY

CHAPTER ONE

ON THE QUEST OF GENGHISID LEGACY:

SHAPING EASTERN EUROPE (1240–1523)

From Batu to Tokhtamısh. e foundation and internal making

of the Golden Horde

In 1240, a large Mongol army led by Batu Khan captured Kiev, the

political and spiritual capital of medieval Eastern Slavdom known as

Ruthenia (Rus’). In the following year, Batu invaded Hungary, while

the northern detachment of his army entered Poland. Henry the Pious,

the duke of Silesia and Cracow who aspired to the Polish royal crown,

tried to stop the invaders at the head of Polish and German knights,

but perished in the battle of Legnica (Germ. Liegnitz).

e Mongol invasion of Hungary and Poland was ephemeral, but

their presence further to the east proved more lasting. Historians will

argue forever, whether by capturing Kiev the Mongols destroyed a

ourishing economy and culture, thus aecting a further develop-

ment of what is today Ukraine, or perhaps their conquest was facili-

tated by an internal crisis already aecting medieval Ruthenia on the

eve of their appearance. Whatever our judgment might be, the Mon-

gol conquest of Kiev facilitated the rise of another center of power

in the north, namely Moscow. In 1308, a Muscovian duke succeeded

by inviting the metropolitan (Orthodox archbishop) of Kiev to settle

down in Moscow, thus turning the latter into a new spiritual center

of Ruthenian lands.

Medieval chroniclers as well as nineteenth-century Russian his-

torians oen explained the rise of Muscovy by its uncompromising

struggle against the “Mongol yoke.” Yet, the reality was more com-

plicated. Muscovian dukes (grand dukes since 1328) knew how to use

the Mongol suzerainty, declaring loyalty to the khan and then invok-

ing the latter’s authority to subjugate neighboring principalities. e

Mongols never perceived northern woodlands as an attractive area of

direct expansion. ese lands were unsuitable for grazing horses and—

on the other hand—oered less booty than urbanized lands of China,

Central Asia, Middle East, or even Hungary. Hence, the khans pre-

ferred to reappoint local rulers with formal diplomas (yarlıqs), control