Karavul

Nicholas Zharkikh

Shortened text of the section.
Full text in ukrainian version.

The next object in the list of "Vytautas’ Black Sea possessions" is Karavul (Karawull, the guard), recorded in three versions of the document.

Etymology

Placename Karavul

Name Karavul in the 1st half of the 15th century

It turns out that geographical objects with the name Karavul not so rare in Ukraine.

Revision of Bratslav Castle in 1545

Documents of Grygorij Chechel 1580 – 1581

After 1581, the name Karaul was completely forgotten, and we have no mention of it from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

Conclusions

1. Geographical name Karavul comes from a Turkic appellation karaul "guard post." This name was common in territories with a Turkic population, in particular, in Crimea.

2. Mentions of this name on the territory of Ukraine (with the exception of Crimea) date back to the first half of the 15th century and are relatively frequent (in terms of the number of sources of that time).

3. The mentions of Karaul from 1411 and 1447 should be attributed to the some point to the middle Pobozhye region, which cannot be located more definitely.

4. Mentions of Karaul from 1442, 1545 and 1580 – 1581 should be attributed to a currently unknown tract on the Dniester in the area of modern Rashkov.

5. Early references to Karaul do not contain any definition of what this name means. In 1545 and 1580-1581 it was stated that it was a selysche (destroyed village). In no case is it a castle or any fortification, or a permanent settlement.

6. The mentions of 1580-1581 about the “privilege of Vytautas” on Karavul should be considered late fantasies, like all other mentions of privileges that allegedly burned down in Vinnytsya Castle in 1580.

Karavul studies at the modern stage

Now that I have independently analyzed the source evidence, I can evaluate what other authors have written on this topic.

Olga Biletska, examining the mentions of "Vytautas’ charters" in the collection "Documents of the Bratslav Voivodeship", did not express any reservations about their reliability and apparently considers them real. [Biletska O. in eastern Podillja. – “Ukraine and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th – 18th centuries: political, economic, interethnic and socio-cultural relations in a pan-European dimension”, Kamianets-Podilsky, 2017, pp. 14 – 15].

In the next big article [Biletska O. Karaul in historical sources of the 15th–16th centuries – Ukraina Lithuanica, 2019, , pp. 28 – 52] she also gives full credence to these "charters," and in particular to the "charter" on Karavul.

The following article on Karavul was published in 2021 [Lytvynchuk I., Rybchinsky O. Little-known Lithuanian castle Karavul on the Dniester. – 1-2’2021. Materials of Archaeological Readings in the State Historical and Cultural Reserve "Mezhybizh" 2016-2020, pp. 145 – 152].

Overall, the article by the Lviv authors is a fairly decent piece of junk, almost like O. V. Biletska’s. A superficial (in every sense) field survey of the settlement did not yield anything significant for understanding its historical role.

The most recent publication on Karavul was written by Vladislav Gulevich [Gulevich V. P. . – Ancient Black Sea Region (Odesa), 2023, issue 14, pp. 390 – 396].

For me, the article is interesting because many of the assumptions I formulated above are also expressed in this article. If they can be the subject of priority, then I will willingly give it up to V. Gulevich, and I will ing in a second voice (in this case – provide confirmation with my independent analysis).

I believe that the assumption about Karaul as a crossing + customs house + fortification for their protection is not sufficiently substantiated in the article.