FINNO-UGRIC ETHNIC GROUPS IN THE BIBLE GENEALOGY OF NATIONS IN THE PALAEA INTERPRETATA

Abstract

Informative opportunities of Palaea Interpretata -the important source on the history of medieval Russia - is considered in relation with Finno Ugric study. The special attention is paid to comparison of Tables of Nations in Palaea Interpretata and Tale of Bygone Years. Three Finno-Ugric tribes are mentioned in Palaea, but they are not in Tale of Bygone Year. It doesn't mean that at the time of drawing up the Tale they didn't exist; we could rather speak about the change of an external ethnonym of these people. Palaea Interpretata is the first source which recorded emergence of an ethnonym “Meshchera” and one of the first mentions of an ethnonym “Lop”. It is important that in Palaea there is the name “the Karelian”. It’s not the first mention of this ethnos, but its emergence in an authoritative source sums up the result of the Russian-Karelian relations. The Vod didn't enter in the Palaea Interpretata. It is connected with political (dissolution in Novgorod administrative-political organization), or natural (mass death from starvation in 1215) processes of the XIII century. There is an attempt to reconstruct the relation of the author of Palaea Interpretata to Finno-Ugric. This work is performed with due account for the latest findings in the field of textual criticism of Palaea Interpretata.