How this work was written
Nicholas Zharkikh
Shortened text of the section.
Full text in ukrainian version.
My interest in this topic arose back in 2018. Then I read about "Vytautas’" toponyms and thought of writing a small review. But the matter turned out to be not so simple. It soon became clear: if we are going to touch on this topic, then we must conduct a siege according to all the rules of science: collect all sources on the topic, determine their source value, identify false news, manifestations of incompetence of sources, guesses of ancient authors (which are often, but completely mistakenly, considered personal observations).
As a result, the work that began under the title "Sect of Vytautas’ Witnesses" began to diverge in different directions:
Here, arrows leading from the main work to the left indicate requests for research on related topics, and arrows in the opposite direction indicate the use of the results of this research in the main work.
Outside the window, I hear bursts of anti-aircraft artillery fire (well, I think it’s artillery, not machine guns). The sounds are quite loud and dry, intermittent, meaning they’re relatively close to me.
I thought it was a salute in honor of the completion of my work on the "List of Rus’ Towns" on October 31, 2024, but it turned out to be different. that it was a Moscow attack (November 2, 2024 at 9:25).
And so I return to my Pobozhye at a new level of knowledge of sources. I decided to abandon intriguing titles and give a neutral one: "Essays on the History of Pobozhye". It is impossible to give any kind of coherent picture due to the lack of sources, and attempts in this direction will necessarily lead to a sea of General Considerations, among which factual information about the region will be rare islands. And the genre of essays allows me to bypass this sea of Emptiness and focus on islands about which I can say something concrete.
And what about Vytautas? What about his witnesses? What about the Tatars?
If only I will live -
I will swim and see a miracle…
that the shooting I heard was indeed a "Shahed", the fragments of which fell in the Dniprovsky district of Kyiv (where I live). Cars were damaged.
So a reminder about "If I will live" is not superfluous at all (November 2, 2024 at 12:50).