Peasants’ bynames in the Yeniseian Siberia of the XVII century as a reflection of work activity of the first settlers

Abstract

The object of this research is the anthroponymic space of business writing records in the Yeniseian Siberia of the XVII century, while the subject is the peasants’ bynames. The unpublished manuscripts preserved in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (Moscow) served as the sources for this research. Emphasis is placed on the semantic content of bynames as part of the anthroponymic formula. Using the traditional onomastic and lexical-semantic methods of research (descriptive, statistical, semantic and definitional analysis, etc.), the author describes bynames united by the concept “the type of work activity”. The semantics of the anthropological grounds of bynames, clarification is given to the composition of the social group under review, as well as to the types of economic activity of the peasants of Yeniseian and Krasnoyarsk counties. The acquired results indicated that semantic diversity of peasant bynames is substantiated by the objective situation during the colonization of Siberia, as well as complex composition of the peasantry, which could include the representatives of service class and suburb inhabitants. The scientific novelty consists in expanding the scope of sources for carrying out a comprehensive research of the regional anthroponymicon, as well as in broadening the knowledge on byname nomination within a single social group. The obtained results can be used as comparative materials in the analysis of anthroponymic systems of other regions, as well as in development of the regional dictionary of non-calendric personal names and bynames of the first Russian settlers of Yeniseian Siberia.