Description

The present volume is dedicated to Scandinavian lexical borrowings inOld Russian, a topic, that has been discussed for almost 300 years, andapproaches the issue from different points of view. In the first part of thebook, the author deals with the specific problems that any researcherof this subject necessarily has to meet, being the so-called Varangiancontroversy over the beginnings of Russia that has had a strong ideological impact on the results of many hitherto publications and that isfar from closed even today. The second part comprises a linguistic analysis of three borrowings in Old Russian legal language that belong toa group of historical terms, denoting ranks in social and administrativehierarchy. The book aims for the most objective possible and critical approach based on conscientious and thorough work with primary sources.Its attention is focused especially on historical-semantic development ofthe chosen words, revealing a fascinating tale of their journey throughthe whole European continent, going back to surprisingly ancient times.