Bogatyrs (1898) by Viktor Vasnetsov

If you’ve spent any time on Russian history, you’ve probably seen this painting before. It shows a classic view of the epic heroes Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets, and Alyosha Popovich. If you’ve got the language skills, the Три богатыря [tri bogatyria] or Three Heros have recently been reincarnated as animated children’s films, available on the youtubes. Even if not, humor me and watch this brief trailer for the latest: “Три богатыря на дальних берегах” after the jump.

First, you will notice that even non-Disney, non-English animated movies feel the need for an animal sidekick ala Eddie Murphy’s Mushu in Mulan. The horse is named Gaius Julius Caesar. But never mind him, we’ve got our heroic boys out defending the border from the Asiatics. I can’t quite tell if they’re Tartars, or Mongols, or Chinese, but whatevs, our brawny Slavic warriors have sent them back over the border, and agreed they’ll be back to battle again in the fall. Then Baba Yaga sends the bogatyrs to Madagascar to live with the lemurs so she can install her son as the Grand Duke of Kiev. Or something. But the point I’m trying to make is that fighting back the Asiatics is what Slavic mythological heroes do. So you can imagine that I was a bit surprised to learn a little more about the word ‘bogatyr’ — it isn’t a Slavic word.

I’m spending a certain amount of time trying to choose appropriate names for my characters in their not-quite Siberian world, which leads me to peruse lists of, say, Buryat given names. The Buryats are one of the larger minority groups in the Russian Federation and the Former Soviet Union, and closer to the Mongols than the Slavs. They are also Buddhist, which leads to a lot of Tibetan or Sanscrit originated names with meanings like ‘blue lotus.’

My attention was captured by the first B name on the list:

БААТАР – Богатырь, сокращение от старомонгольского “Багатур”.
[BAATAR – Bogatyr’, sokrashchenie ot staromongol’skogo “Bagatur”.]
BAATAR – Hero, a shortening of the ancient Mongolian “Bagatur”.*

For as much time as the Russians spent fighting the Mongol hordes, it seems a little odd that the word for epic hero would be a Mongolian one. Given the peculiar space that Russia inhabits as neither fish nor fowl between Europe and Asia, it’s not surprising, but it was interesting enough that I posted my little discovery on Facebook. I immediately got a comment from a Polish friend, who noted that the Poles also use ‘bohater’ in the same way. Polish Wikipedia pointed to the Iranian “bahadur,” meaning strong or athlete as a source. And apparently there’s a Hungarian word, “bátor”, meaning brave.

Well, then I couldn’t leave it alone. My Buryat name list also includes

БАТА – Крепкий, сильный. Имя внука Чингисхана.
[BATA – Krepkii, silnyi. Imya vnuka Chingiskhana.]
BATA – Strong (connotations of solidity), strong (connotations of muscle). Name of a grandson of Genghis Khan.*

Russian Wikipedia gives ‘bogatyr’ a Buryat origin, but acknowledges two competing theories. The first suggests it comes from the Sanskrit bhagadhara, meaning lucky. The second alternative posits derivation from бог [bog] (god), by way of the adjective  богатый [bogatyi] (rich).

But then my friend went to a Polish etymological dictionary, where he found the Polish ‘bohater’ loaned from the Russian ‘bogatyr’ which was originally from the Persian “bahadur” by way of Turkic and Mongolian “bahadur” and the Kyrgiz “bater”.

Did I lose you yet, or you are as fascinated as we two were?

Of course my next stop was an online Russian etymological dictionary.

WORD: богаты́рь

GENERAL: укр. богати́р, др.-русск. богатырь (Ипатьевск. и др.), польск. bohater, bohatyr, стар. bohaterz (в грам.). Вторично образовано укр. багати́р, блр. багаты́р “богатей, богач” отбога́тый; см. Брандт, РФВ 21, 210. Заимств. из др.-тюрк. *baɣatur (откуда и венг. bátor “смелый”), дунайско-булг. βαγάτουρ, тур., чагат. batur “смелый, военачальник”, шор. paɣattyr “герой”, монг. bagatur, калм. bātr̥; см. Гомбоц 41; Рамстедт, KWb. 38; Бернекер 1, 66; Маркварт, Chronol. 40; Банг, KSz 18, 119; Mi. TEl. 1, 254, Доп. 1, 9; 2, 80. Объяснение вост. слов из ир. *baɣapuɵra- (Локоч 15) весьма сомнительно.

I don’t quite understand all the abbreviations, but it lists all the variants discussed above, and says it’s a loan from Ancient Turkic. I think it casts some aspersion on the Persian theory. And then I thought to check the English Wikipedia, which claims it to have been an honorific title for the Turco-Mongolians, citing a Ukrainian etymological dictionary, which I didn’t try to check because it’s a file format I don’t recognize.

The final source, though, is my mother, who knows pretty much everything. Or at least something about everything.

I will put in that “bog” as “god” is indeed mindbogglingly old. Recollecting from a freshman seminar I took in an earlier millennium, it is a proto-Indo-European root word for the divine or supernatural. Modern cognates, beyond the Russian deity include India’s classic epic Bhagavad Gita and the much-less reputed American Boogeyman.

So what do we learn, besides that you can spend an hour discussing etymology in Facebook comments, and that I’ll have to visit the University of Washington library to look at ‘The Oral Art And Literature Of The Kazakhs Of Russian Central Asia‘? That bogatyr is a word which, like conquering hordes of the Central Asian steppes, got around and left a mark across half the world.

*Translations, and any attendant errors which my taller half and resident native speaker will point out to me later, are my own.