The Origin of the Folklore Hydronym Apolevta

Abstract

In their article devoted to hydronyms in the oral and handwritten charms of the North Russian, T. A. Agapkina, E. L. Berezovich, and O. D. Surikova comment on the name of a fiery river Apolevta assuming that there may exist two copies of the text. The authors suggest that this river name might either originate from an unestablished Greek word or else, is a case of erroneous usage. The author of the present work argues the existence of one single copy of the text that was published by N. N. Vinogradov in 1910. As regards the hydronym Apolevta, the structure of the original text (particularly, the space organization) testifies to an incorrect interpretation by the scribe: in fact, the text uses a short form of the adjective with a postpositive particle -to which frequently occurs in North Russian dialects. Thus, the hydronym Apolevta is a result of an incorrect reading of the source by V. A. Ivanovsky.

Keywords

• hydronyms
• textual criticism
• north russian dialects
• russian north
• russian geographical society
• russian folklore
• charms