“Thanks for being alive": towards a reading of the inscription of the Scandinavian Sivord Olafovich from Сhelm in Volhynia
Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
For citation: Gippius, Aleksey A. “Thanks for being alive": towards a reading of the inscription of the Scandinavian Sivord Olafovich from Сhelm in Volhynia // Graphosphaera. 2024. Vol. 4. № 2. P. 391–399. URL: http://writing.igh.ru/index.php?id=2024-4-2-391-399
DOI: 10.32608/2782-5272-2024-4-2-391-399
Abstract: The article offers a new reading of an inscription on a chalk stone from Chelm (Poland, Old Russian Xъlmъ), found in the 1990s and published by V. Slobodian in 2013. While agreeing with the publisher in assessing the main content of the inscription, which informs that a certain Sivord Olafovich (judging by his name and patronymic – a Scandinavian, Sivord Ólafsson) spent a year in prison, the author interprets the text and the situation as a whole differently. In the proposed interpretation, the inscription, called in the text “gramota”, appears as a memorable record made by Sivord Olafovich after leaving the dungeon, in which he was imprisoned after he had informed the prince about the money he had. The early dating of the inscription proposed by the publisher (before 1120) and the corresponding hypothesis identifying Holm in Volhynia with Holmgarðr of the Scandinavian sources, is also recognized as untenable. Paleographic analysis according to the method of A. A. Zaliznyak dates the graffito to the second half of the 13th century, i.e. the time of the founding of the city by Daniel Romanovich.
Key words: Early Rus epigraphy, Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, Chelm, Daniel Romanovich, Rus-Scandinavian relations
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