Goryuns

Goryuns (also Goriuns, Goryuny), a little-documented ethnic group of East Slavs, live around Putyvl, now in the Sumy Oblast of north-eastern Ukraine, in the past in Kursk Governorate of the Russian Empire. The dialect of the Ukrainian language spoken by Goryuns has some features of Belarusian and Russian.[1]

Goryuns are sometimes considered a tiny sub-ethnos of Russians.[2] Regardless, they consider themselves as distinct from other Russians, as well as distinct from Ukrainians living in the same region.[3]

Chronicles first mention Goryun villages in the sixteenth century, shortly after the annexation of the region to Muscovy. From this the Belarusian scientist Fiodar Klimchuk concludes that the Goryuns might have lived in the region before the year 1500.[1]

Different hypotheses address the origins of the Goriuns. James Stuart Olson describes them as a Ukrainianized subgroup of the Polekhs.[4] According to Fiodar Klimchuk, the Goryuns may be descendants of local Severians or they might be of mixed Severian-Radimich stock, or their Severian ancestors might have moved to north-west and then returned.[1] Some researchers believe that they are autochthonous to the region and are related to the local early Slavic population;[2] according to others they descend from migrants from what is now Belarus - mixed with the local population.[5]

Goryuns have a reputation for their unique style of polyphonic singing.[3]

See also
  • List of Medieval Slavic tribes

References
  1. F.D. Klimchuk, About ethnolinguistic history of Left Bank of Dnieper (in connection to the ethnogenesis of Goriuns). Published in "Goriuns: history, language, culture" Proceedings of International scientific conference, (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, February 13, 2004)
  2. Russians in Ukraine Archived May 19, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  3. Radio Free Europe about the Goryuns
  4. Olson, James Stuart. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0-313-27497-5. Page 554.
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-07-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.