Вопросы ономастики (Jul 2023)
Names of Pogosts and the Origins of the Term Pogost in the Oikonymy of the Russian North: Chronology and Evolution
Abstract
The article considers the composite oikonyms of the Russian North that include the term pogost, as well as the naming patterns used for the settlements defined as “pogosts” in the registers of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The author provides a brief overview of the history of the word pogost in the Russian language and examples of its first attestations in Old Russian texts. The analysed data were retrieved from the settlement registers of the Olonets (for 1873 and 1905), Arkhangelsk (1859), Vologda (1859) and Novgorod (1911–1912) provinces, as well as, for later times, from the collection of field materials of the Ural University Toponymic expedition (1960s–2010s). As additional sources, the author used data from the Karelian Toponyms Card Index (Institute of Language, Literature and History of the KarSC of the RAS) and historical maps. The study found that, despite the disappearance of the corresponding administrative unit, the term pogost is still used in the oikonymy of the Russian North (in modern field data collections, there are records of about 150 settlement names that include this term). However, the spread of the word pogost in the oikonymy of the Russian North turns out to be uneven: most of the names are attested in the west of this territory that was formerly part of the Olonets and Novgorod provinces, and largely reflects the distribution that developed in the mid-19th century, which indicates to the stability of the oikonymic system. The article also discusses the naming patterns for the settlements defined as “pogosts” in the settlement registers of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. It is noted that the Vologda and Novgorod provinces were characterized by a two-component pattern, in which one word referred to a local toponym (most often to a river name or an oikonym), and the other to the name of the local church: Raslovsky-Voskresensky pogost (near the Raslavka river), Spaso-Nuromsky pogost (near the Nurma river) and many others. In the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces, a one-component pattern was more frequent; interestingly, in the Olonets province, the name of the pogost often coincided with the name of the corresponding parish or the rural community: Megorsky pogost, Undozersky pogost, etc. The author analyses the process of displacement of the term pogost from the settlement names, many of which were gradually replaced with toponyms Popovka, Popovskoe, Popovskaya with the general meaning of ‘related to clergy’. On the territory of the Vologda and Novgorod provinces, this process can already be seen from the settlement registers of the mid-19th century.
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