Traces of the ukrainian language in the oikonymy of Belgorod, Voronezh and Kursk regions
The article examines the toponymic system of the Central Chernozem border regions of the Russian Federation (Belgorod, Voronezh, and Kursk regions), which has been developing for several centuries and is now a mixed vocabulary of different language groups (iranian, turkic, finno-ugric, slavic). All the oikonyms of the above mentioned RF subjects included in the State Catalogue of Geographical Names have been analyzed. A significant linguistic trace in the names of settlements (oikonyms) on the territory under study was left by Ukrainian settlers who began to inhabit the region en masse in the XVII-XVIII centuries (the Cossacks of the Sloboda Ukrainian regiments got into the first mass «wave» of resettlement: Sumy, Akhtyrsky, Izyumsky, Kharkov, Ostrogozhsky). The article gives a brief history of settling the region, examines oikonyms of Ukrainian origin, and provides their lexical and semantic classification. The increasing ethnic and cultural integration between the two related East Slavic peoples is a feature characterizing ethnic development of the population in the area. Ethnic contacts of the past resulting in the interaction of the national languages and cultures, their further development and enrichment are firmly fixed in the toponymy of the russian-ukrainian borderlands. The specifics of these oikonyms on the territory of the modern Central Chernozem region of Russia lies in the fact that the Ukrainian oikonymic system developed in a foreign socio-cultural environment and was assimilated in the course of time. The author, having studied the Voronezh region oikonymy of ukrainian origin since the end of the 20th century, comes to the conclusion that the ethnic history of the russian-ukrainian borderland, expressed through the interaction of national languages, is vividly reflected in the toponymy of the Central Chernozem border regions of the Russian Federation, and centuries of linguistic contacts between the two related East Slavic peoples have resulted in firm fixation of Ukrainian toponyms in the russian-speaking region under study and made them part of the Russian national culture.