With the word "Moscow", most people have associations with the capital of the Russian state - the legal and historical center. However, the meaning of the name itself and its origin is not entirely clear to the masses. This article will examine several versions of what the word "Moscow" means. Along with official, generally accepted theories, versions of the origin of the geographical name will be presented, which are little known or, conversely, cause prolonged debate among scholars and ordinary history buffs.
What does the word “Moscow” mean?
It is known from history that the name of the capital is first encountered in documentary sources of the XII century, namely in one of the letters of Yuri Dolgoruky, where it is used in the form of "Moscow". This name of the Russian capital is typical for most European languages. This indicates that already in those days the principality had close trade and political ties with other states. A number of scientists believe that the modern word "Moscow" got its form from the accusative case of the old Russian "Moscow" or "Moscow". Also, most representatives of science are inclined to believe that the Russian capital took its name from the name of the river flowing on its territory.
In several chronicles, it was noted that the settlement at this place was long before the city was built. As usual, in such controversial issues of linguistics, there are several versions of the origin of this word, each of which is based on the similarity of its root with similar tokens of any language.
One of the most popular is the position of scientists who tend to derive the origin of this geographical name from Slavic languages. In the Proto-Slavic language there was a root “mosk”, which also had a pronunciation variant “brain” and denoted something related to water and moisture. In modern Russian, there are words with the same name as "Moscow".
One of them is the adjective "dank", which means humidity and cool dampness. This point of view is confirmed by the fact that both in Russia and on the territory of other European countries there are numerous water bodies whose names are derived from the same Indo-European root. An example is the name of the Moskovets stream.
Short adjective
Usually the history of the formation of a toponym in Russia was as follows. At first, the village or village was called the full adjective, for example, Trinity or Bogoroditsky. Later, when the settlement expanded to the scale of the city, its name changed to a short adjective, for example Troitsk or Bogoroditsk.
If the proper name came from a word that ended with the letter "ck", then the adjective, which then became the name of the locality, was formed by adding the ending "av". In this way, such names as Pskov and Moscow were created, and more specifically, the ancient form of the toponym "Moscow". It would seem that such a confident explanation by scientists of the origin of the word in itself rejects all other hypotheses on this subject.
Finnish roots
However, there are still enough theories whose representatives are of the opinion of the borrowing of a toponym from other languages. Proponents of these versions substantiate their point of view and at the same time criticize the adherents of the Slavic theory using the following arguments.
In the territory where the capital city of the Russian state was subsequently founded, for centuries, mainly non-Slavic tribes who spoke the languages of the Finno-Ugric group lived. The tendency of these peoples to call geographical objects words from their native dialects is confirmed by the fact that many of the names of neighboring settlements and reservoirs come precisely from their vocabulary.
According to historians and linguists, adherents of this scientific theory, the word "Moscow" comes from the Finno-Ugric root "mosk", meaning "cow". Thus, the name of this reservoir can literally be translated as "cow river".
The second largest ethnic groups living in this territory were the Baltic tribes. In the language of many of them, the word "mosk" meant "marshy," "wet," which brings this version of the origin of the name of the capital closer to Slavic theory.
Dipper or meandering river?
There were also some dialects in which the name of the capital had a different meaning.
An interesting fact is that the word "Moscow" means "winding" or "knobby" in Lithuanian. Such an interpretation of the name is quite logical, since the Moscow River really makes a large number of turns and bends, including in the capital. According to the scientific assumption of the linguist Kuznetsov, the name of the city came from the Mari language, where there is the word "Moscow", which means "female bear".
This hypothesis has been repeatedly criticized in the scientific literature, since the term denoting the she-bear was first recorded in the Mari after the emergence of the Russian capital. It is also worth mentioning that this root came to this language from Russia. In Old Russian, the she-bear was called a “sword.” In addition, Kuznetsov’s theory tends to ascribe all the names of nearby settlements and other geographical objects to Mari origin. Such an interpretation seems rather strained and implausible.
Trading city
There is another scientific assumption that the name of the main city of Russia came from the Tatar language. This version is also quite popular. What does the word "Moscow" mean in Tatar?
In the dictionary of this people there is a consonant verb, meaning "measure" or "weigh". Perhaps the authors of the theory wanted to emphasize the fact that, due to the existence of close trade ties between Moscow and Kazan, the capital of Russia could be named after the merchants, who at numerous Moscow fairs were engaged in weighing goods and selling them.
What does the word "Moscow" mean by Fomenko?
In recent years, the work of Anatoly Fomenko, who offers his own version of Russian and world history, has gained wide popularity. In these works, he relies on his own concept, which he calls the "new chronology."
The essence of his teachings is that many historical events, according to Fomenko, happened at the wrong time and in the wrong place, as is commonly believed. Naturally, such an approach cannot leave readers of his books indifferent. Anatoly Fomenko has numerous fans, but there are also many who refer to the works of this author as empty intellectual games that have nothing to do with real science.
What does the word "Moscow" mean in the opinion of this author? The answer to this question would be interesting to many readers. In the book “Moscow in the Light of the New Chronology,” Fomenko and his co-author Nosovsky, although they do not explain the origin of the name of the capital of Russia, still give some interesting assumptions about its history.
Confusion in the Chronology
For example, these scientists hypothesize that the city of Moscow was founded not at all in the XII century, as the official version of history tells about it, but in the XIV. What do the words "Moscow is the capital of Russia" mean? The fact that the king’s residence is located in this city. Only in the 16th century did the capital of Moscow appear in the Russian state. What do the words mean?
Anatoly Fomenko suggests that in the Middle Ages the Vladimir-Suzdal principality was a large empire, which was then called Moscow. This name could also mean the centers of a powerful power, such as Suzdal and Tver.
On the Kulikovo field
The village, which was located on the site of modern Moscow, was called Krutitsa, and the river flowing on this territory was called Smorodina. In the XIV century, the rulers decided to build a new center for their state, which was supposed to be on the spot where the Kulikovo battle took place several centuries before. The authors of the book believe that this great battle took place in a place called Kulichki and is now part of modern Moscow.
From all of the above, we can conclude that the history of the capital of Russia and the question of what the word “Moscow” means has always aroused great interest among historians, which has not weakened to this day.