Kushtan D.

Once again about the founding and early history of the city of Cherkasy

Abstract: The article is devoted to the foundation and early history of Cherkasy. Reliable documentary evidence, as well as the analysis of archaeological finds from the Middle Ages, are decisive in solving the problem of the city's founding. The absence of finds from the Old Russian period (XI-XIII centuries) renders the «Chornoklobut» and «Kasoz» theories of the city’s origin unfounded. The official version, according to which Cherkasy was founded by the North Caucasian Circassians in the last quarter of the 13th century, is also unconfirmed. (The 700th anniversary of the city was celebrated in 1986). The main argumentation of the "Circassian" theory came down to the retelling of legends and hoaxes of Russian historians of the 18th century. It turned out that this version about the founding of the city and the origin of its name is not supported by any evidence. At the same time, the «Lithuanian» version of the founding of the city proposed here is confirmed both by the linguistic analysis of the city's name and by the logic of historical processes. Archaeological findings discovered on the territory of Cherkasy (especially in recent decades) indicate that the city appeared in the second half or at the end of the 14th century. The prerequisite was the victory of the Lithuanian-Russian army led by Grand Duke Olgerd over the Golden Horde in the Battle of Blue Waters (1362). Cherkasy Castle was built as an outpost of Lithuanian colonization. The first documentary references to it date back to the early 1390s. The first documentary mentions of it date back to the early 1390s. In them, Cherkassy appears as a city that originally belonged to the Koriatovych Principality of Podilsk, a vassal to Lithuania.

Keywords: Cherkasy, 700th anniversary, Middle Ages, archaeological dating, Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/kraieznavstvo2024.02.114     Citation

• Kushtan D. (Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, kushtan_dp@ukr.net) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6411-2154

Cite:
Kushtan D. (2024). Once again about the founding and early history of the city of Cherkasy. Local Lore Studies, ( 2) 114. (In Ukrainian). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/kraieznavstvo2024.02.114

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