In the Old Russian language, there was the word D'tinc "inner fortress, Kremlin", which is still quite well known as historicism. Semantically, it is in a correlative (correlative) pair with the noun ostrog "external fortress in contrast to detinets": "having seen the Polovech power, the people(m) commanded everyone to flee from the prison to detinets" (Lavrentiev chronicle under 1152); " Izyaslav also came to Belugorod, and standing near detinets (...) Rostislav burned the prison of Byashe before him " (Ipatiev chronicle under 1161. Dictionary of the Old Russian language (XI-XIV centuries). Moscow, 1988. Vol. III).

It can be assumed that for native speakers of the Russian language at the time when this word was in active use, its formal and semantic structure was quite clear. However, over time, this "internal form" was lost, or rather, it was still possible to identify the root base of the word with the morpheme det- (praslav. *det -), but the nature of the connection between the meanings of "child, child" and "strengthening, kremlin" is formulated with great difficulty.

In the well-known work "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" by A. N. Afanasyev, the word detinets illustrates the reconstructed ideas about the need for a bloody sacrifice (up to a human one) during the foundation of the city. These ideas themselves do not concern us here at all (however, about the so-called "construction sacrifice" - "Bauopfer" in German ethnological terminology-see: Zelenin D. K. Totems-trees in the legends and rituals of European peoples, Moscow-L., 1937; Baiburin A. K. Dwelling in the rituals and ideas of the Eastern Slavs., 1983, etc.). Here is his retelling of the legend of the foundation of Novgorod: "when Slavensk was desolate and it was necessary to cut down a new city, the people's elders, following the ancient custom, sent messengers in all directions before sunrise, with instructions to capture the first living creature that they met. A child came across; it was taken and laid in the foundation of the fortress, which is why it is called Detinets" (Afanasyev A. N. Poetic views of the Slavs on nature. Moscow, 1994. Vol. II.). The explanation is, of course, anecdotal

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It also belongs to the typical toponymic traditions, which are characterized by naive-etymological and false-motivational conceptualizations, and on this basis - arbitrary construction of "historical facts". For example, the name of the Vorskla River is explained by the fact that Tsar Peter allegedly dropped a telescope into it and called it vor skla (-glass) in his hearts. The name of the city of Kandalaksha (of Karelian origin), referring to the presence of GULAG establishments in its vicinity, is associated with the word shackles, although iron shackling, despite its effectiveness as a means of social therapy, was not widely practiced in these Stalinist "health resorts".

If the Old Russian detinc "fortification, bulwark"," inner fortress " really refers to the word child, child, then the semantic motivation here should be different, although it is not completely clear.

A. G. Preobrazhensky tried to interpret the word as "the place where the garrison is located" and pointed to the cliched expression Boyar children "serving people" (Preobrazhensky A. G. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language, Moscow-L., 1949, Vol. 1).

Alexander Bruckner and after him Max Fasmer, who apparently did not find more successful alternatives, explained the structure of the word detinets by the fact that minor children who did not take part in the defense of the city were sheltered in the inner fortress (Bruckner A. Slownik etymologiczny jezyka polskiego. Warszawa, 1970; M. Fasmer. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1964-1973. Vol. I). Probably, the same purpose of the inner part of the city fortification is meant by Frantishek Slavsky, interpreting the Old Russian detinets as "a place for children" (Slawski F. Slownik etymologiczny jezyka polskiego. Krakow, 1952. Vol. I). The same idea, with the help of The reference to the Czech etymologist Vaclav Mahek is repeated in the Polish " Proto-Slavic Dictionary "(Slownik prastowiariski. Wroclaw; Warszawa; Krakow; Gdansk, 1974. Vol.III).

Not being satisfied with such decisions due to their tightness, Zh. Zh. Warbot suggested that the word detinets is derived from the verb children "to build, to found" with the initial motivation "arranged (fortified) settlement" (Warbot Zh. Zh. Detinets / / Russian speech. 1977. N 1). O. N. Trubachev in the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages mentions this version in the context of the idea of possible contamination of the derivative of the adjective detin "detsky", which is defined as the noun detinets, with derivatives of the verb children "to build, create" (Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages. M., 1974 [more 5). Thus, as we can see, the point of view of J. J. Warbot as a whole is still rejected by O. N. Trubachev, and the connection with the concept of "children's" and the reference of the word

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detinets "Kremlin" to the nest of Praslav. "child, children, children's" is accepted as fully established, although the details of semantic motivation are still unclear.

The compilers of the Ukrainian etymological dictionary, recognizing the dialect word ditinets, which continues the old Russian detinets, as difficult to interpret, considered it the least evil to allow the probability of a figurative meaning in it, based on the idea of the smallness of the realities called by this word (see below) - "an internal, smaller part of a composite object" (Etymological dictionary of Ukrainian movi. Kiiv, 1982. Vol. 2) - what, allegedly, justifies their calling, so to speak, "children's". This explanation should also be regarded as unconvincing.

The solution of the etymological (or, if you prefer, just semantic-motivational) problem set by the word detinets "inner fortress, Kremlin" can be facilitated by a careful look at other meanings that are transmitted by this and similar forms.

The East Slavic dialect words with the root det- (detenok, detenysh, detysh, detush, baby, etc.) have the meanings " a small log house or box at the bottom of a well (to prevent the water vein from falling asleep with earth or filled with coal and sand to purify water)"; "(central) part of a wicker fish trap in the middle of a well. in the form of a fence made of perches"; "part of a fishing tackle inserted inside"; "inner cone-shaped part of the fishing top" and under. (Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects, L., 1965 [further: SRNG]. Issue 8; Dictionary of Russian dialects of the Amur region, Moscow, 1983; Grinchenko B. D. Dictionary of the Ukrainian language. Kiev, 1907-1909. Vol. I).

It should be considered very remarkable that the meanings are identical, similar or built on the same general idea, are noted in some word-forming extensions of the root * mat (er) -: Voronezh mainland "log house"; Vyatka mainland "interior of a temple or any large building in general"; matica, matka " bearing beam (roof and floor)", "ship's keel", "matnya; the central part of the seine", "fishing tackle; top", "cone-shaped braid of the fishing tackle of the muzzle", etc., and then the Russian word on the territory of Udmurtia mainland "part of the pond where the waters of the river feeding it or an underground source flow", "riverbed", "core, fairway of the river", "ridge", "dense, dense forest; large woodlands [i.e., "middle, main part of the forest"] " (SRNG. Issue 18).

The same (and many similar) meanings are registered in related non-Slavic words, which we will not give, referring the reader to the rich set of inter-Slavic lexical roots-

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pondentium on *mat- (*mati/*mater-, *matica, *marbka, etc.) in the mentioned "Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages" (ESSA. Issues 17, 18).

This gives grounds for the assumption that the word detinets should be seen as an analogue of the word uterus, matica "base, base, axial, central or main part; base, cause, root, source" with many specific implementations of this general and broad semantics, including anatomical ones ("the internal organ of the female body in which the fruit develops"): the inner fortress or Kremlin should be considered as the root, center, metropolis (the complex Greek word "capital", directly "mother city", in its first component has the same Indo-European root as slav. *matb, *mater-) in contrast to the periphery - the outer fortress (ostrog) and, further, non-fortress buildings (posadam).

A vivid manifestation of the semantic connections that interest us between words with roots and * mat (er)- should be seen in the Ukrainian ditinnik "female uterus" and especially in the Old Czech "female uterus, womb", which we tend to consider a decisive argument in favor of the proposed interpretation. Let us also pay attention to the identity of the affixal form (*- in-b) of the Czech word given and the Old Polish matczvniec " uterus (anatom.)": the basic bases and appear in these words in absolutely parallel word-forming positions and semantic functions. No less convincing argument in favor of our explanation is the Novgorod spool "uterus of the seine" (SRNG. Issue 11) with the widespread dialect spool "female genitalia; uterus".

Interesting are the lexeme pairs registered in the Arkhangelsk dialects (extracted from the materials of the Card File of the Dictionary of Dialects of the Russian North [Ural University, Yekaterinburg], kindly reported to us by E. L. Berezovich), that is, semantically conjugated lexical units in their secondary, figurative meanings; primorye baby "the inner part of the cow's horn "and uterus"the outer part of the cow's horn", kargopolskoe detinets "a thin mattress that is placed under the mattress" and mummy "a mattress that is placed on a thin mattress". They show the motives of semantic derivation (the formation of new words), similar to those observed in the above examples, but the functional and semantic parallelism of the foundations, which we have already noted, is clearly overcome here in favor of the semantic separation of the oppositional plan; cf. Arkhangelsk detinets "cone-shaped, going inside, part of the fish trap" in the contrast matke "matne fishing projectile": "In detinets fish will go, and in the barrel, in the uterus something accumulates" (Plesetsk); "Detinets and matka, they have everything arranged like Luda and, he is like her son" (leshukonskoe).

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So, the Old Russian detinc, going back to the Proto-Slavic "(anatom.) matka (in other words, "children's place"), is a metaphor that, starting from the broad idea of "foundation, base, center, source, beginnings", reduces it to the urban-planning and city-defense concept of " inner fortress, the Kremlin (as a whole)". spatial center and historical beginning of the city)".

That would be the end of it. But the consideration developed in this article requires one more semantic touch, which completes the plot.

We have resorted to the periphrastic definition of detinets as a "children's place". The expression this, a child's place, has, as is well known, the meaning of "placenta, afterbirth, the shell in which the fetus is gestated and from which the fetus (human child, animal cub) is born". In some Russian dialects, "placenta" is denoted in addition to the words afterbirth, bed, shirt, cleaning, etc. (note that the meaning of "bed" is also denoted by the lexeme place: SRNG. Issue 18) simply by the noun place without a defining adjective (Dal V. I. Explanatory Dictionary of the living Great Russian language. Moscow, 1955. Vol. III; Yaroslavl Regional Dictionary. Липень - Няучить. Yaroslavl, 1987; Zhuravlev A. F. Domestic cattle in the beliefs and magic of the Eastern Slavs. Moscow, 1994).

In the consolidated "Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects", this value is registered only for the diminutives shtechko in Permian, Baikal dialects and shtechko in Tobolsk dialects (SRNG. Issue 18). For comparison, we also give the Bulgarian dialect place (Gerova is found in the spelling), the Polish dialect miejsce, Slovenian (at the animal), the Ukrainian mistische, the Belarusian dialect place, meyssa with the meaning "afterbirth, placenta" (Gerov N. Rechnik in Bulgarian ezik. Sofia, 1977. ch. 3; Marinov D. Dumi i frazi iz Zapadna Bilgariya [Thoughts and phrases from Western Bulgaria]. София, 1896. XIII; Karlowicz J. Slownik gwar polskich. Krakow, 1900-1911. Vol. III. Sychta B. Slownik gwar kaszubskich na tie kultury ludowej. Wroclaw - Warszawa - Krakow, 1967-1976. Т. III. Гринченко Б.Д. Указ. соч., т. II; Слоунiк беларускiх гаворак пауночна-заходняй Беларусi i яе пагранiчча. Minsk, 1979-1986. Vol. 3).

However, in almost all Slavic languages, not excluding Russian (in Old Russian and in modern dialects), reflections of Proto-Slavic also carry the meaning of 'city' (cf. derivatives of the place 'town', suburb 'suburb'). There are significant semantic nuances noted for Czech "usually a fenced settlement with a guarded gate" and Serbo-Croatian (in the dialects of Herzegovina). "fortress" (Essa. Issue 18). Is there not, therefore, an evolution in the history of this word similar to that which we observe in the semantics of the word detinets?

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