Starless One
asked
Elena May:
Good evening! From the hints that you've given us in "Kingdom of Ashes" (nomadic society, came into contact with the Slavs in the Early Middle Ages, worshipped a sky god - Tengri?) I have concluded that Vladimir's people were the proto-Bulgarians and that he might have taken the name Vladimir because it means something like "ruler of the world" (nice pun). But wouldn't the old form have been "Vladiměr" at the time?
Elena May
Hi Sulime! I am really impressed with your guess! You’re absolutely correct.
I decided to leave the reveal of Prince Vladimir’s story until Book 2 because I wanted to give readers the chance to guess it themselves, so I’m really happy to see you’ve done just that.
While the fact that “Vladimir” means “ruler of the world” is discussed in Book 2, it is not the reason why the Prince chooses this name. The real reason is more specific and is revealed in detail in the next book. I won’t say it here to avoid spoilers, but with a bit of history knowledge, one could figure it out :)
You’re right that the Old Church Slavonic form of the name is "Vladiměr" though the two versions existed in parallel for a while, and the earliest recorded instance of “Vladimir” is from the time when Prince Vladimir was human. Of course, there is the question of how to interpret the records. This is all happening shortly before the Cyrillic alphabet is developed, in a region where the Latin alphabet isn’t widely used. Most sources are in Greek, and it is possible to get discrepancies because of transliteration conventions. And even in Greek sources, I’ve seen the name with both epsilon and iota in the last syllable: -μερ vs. -μιρ. Sometimes, the name is changed completely into a Greek version, such as Vladimiros or even Valdimiros, and it becomes difficult to guess what the original name was supposed to sound like. So let’s just say that names change and evolve, and sometimes different versions exists at the same time. Prince Vladimir has his own reasons to choose the form ending in “mir” which will be revealed later.
Thanks a lot for the thoughtful question!
I decided to leave the reveal of Prince Vladimir’s story until Book 2 because I wanted to give readers the chance to guess it themselves, so I’m really happy to see you’ve done just that.
While the fact that “Vladimir” means “ruler of the world” is discussed in Book 2, it is not the reason why the Prince chooses this name. The real reason is more specific and is revealed in detail in the next book. I won’t say it here to avoid spoilers, but with a bit of history knowledge, one could figure it out :)
You’re right that the Old Church Slavonic form of the name is "Vladiměr" though the two versions existed in parallel for a while, and the earliest recorded instance of “Vladimir” is from the time when Prince Vladimir was human. Of course, there is the question of how to interpret the records. This is all happening shortly before the Cyrillic alphabet is developed, in a region where the Latin alphabet isn’t widely used. Most sources are in Greek, and it is possible to get discrepancies because of transliteration conventions. And even in Greek sources, I’ve seen the name with both epsilon and iota in the last syllable: -μερ vs. -μιρ. Sometimes, the name is changed completely into a Greek version, such as Vladimiros or even Valdimiros, and it becomes difficult to guess what the original name was supposed to sound like. So let’s just say that names change and evolve, and sometimes different versions exists at the same time. Prince Vladimir has his own reasons to choose the form ending in “mir” which will be revealed later.
Thanks a lot for the thoughtful question!
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