Eine slowenisch-prußische lexikalisch-mythologische Parallele: kres/kresze

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Issue Date
1997-01-01Author
Mikhailov, Nikolai
Publisher
ZRC SAZU / Hall Center for the Humanities
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Article
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ENGLISH: A Slovene-Prussian Lexical-Mythological Parallel: kres / kresze
In three 15th-century German sources concerning certainly Baltic (chiefly Prussian) pagan customs, the term Kresze 'a pagan feast' is mentioned (the other two forms mentioned are keyse, krysze). This form is comparable to the Slavic *krůs+ and also with the Slovene kręs 'ogenj pred 24. junijem', which means primarily a pagan feast. The etymology is not fully clear, because the ancient Baltic word must have had an other form. The traditional hypothesis considers the Prussian Kresze as an earlier Slavic (Old-Polish?) lexeme. Two other etymological explanations of this word are less certain, but they have never been definitively refuted.The parallel kresze / kręs is interesting especially on a mythological and ritual level. We may assume that the Prussian kresze corresponds to the Slovene pagan ritual kręs, kresovánje. Such a parallel would prove the primary sacred character of the stem *kres for all the Balto-Slavic area and confirm the theory that the Slovene form is archaic, where the stem *kres has maintained more of its primary meanings than in other Slavic languages.SLOVENE: V treh nemških virih iz 15. stol., ki se nanašajo na baltske (v glavnem pruske) poganske šege, je omenjen Kresze neki poganskipraznik (drugi dve obliki sta keyse, krysze). Obliko tebesede in njen pomen lahko primerjamo s slovanskim *kre krůs+ in torej s slovenskim kręs 'ogenj pred 24. junijem', kar prvotno pomeni tudi poganski praznik. Etimologija Kresze ni popolnoma jasna, ker je prvotna baltska beseda morala imeti drugo obliko. Navadna hipoteza nudi rešitev, da je prus. Kresze zelo zgodnja slovanska (staropoljska?) izposojenka. Poleg nje obstajata še dve hipotezi, ki sta verjetno manj zanesljivi, toda nista bili popolnoma zavrnjeni.Paralela kresze / kres je zanimiva predvsem na mitološko-ritualni ravni. Lahko domnevamo, da prusko kresze odgovarja slovenskemu poganskemu ritualu kręs, kresovanje. Taka paralela lahko dokazuje prvotno sakralnost elementa *kres na vsem baltsko-slovanskem območju, poleg tega potrjuje tudi arhaičnost slovenščine, v kateri je podstava kres- ohranila več prvotnih pomenov, kakor v drugih slovanskih jezikih.
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Slovenski jezik / Slovene Linguistic Studies 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.17161/SLS.1808.882
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