Stewards, Soldiers and Court Officials: Three Scandinavian Elements in the Language of Old Russian Law

The present volume is dedicated to Scandinavian lexical borrowings in Old Russian, a topic, that has been discussed for almost 300 years, and approaches the issue from different points of view. In the first part of the book, the author deals with the specific problems that any researcher of this subject necessarily has to meet, being the so-called Varangian controversy over the beginnings of Russia that has had a strong ideological impact on the results of many hitherto publications and that is far from closed even today. The second part comprises a linguistic analysis of three borrowings in Old Russian legal language that belong to a group of historical terms, denoting ranks in social and administrative hierarchy. 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 of the chosen words, revealing a fascinating tale of their journey through the whole European continent, going back to surprisingly ancient times.