Использование регионального компонента на уроках английского языка как средства повышения коммуникативной компетенции учащихся.
статья по английскому языку (11 класс)

Why Pyatigoria?

«…руку правую потешить,

Сорочина в поле спешить,

Иль башку с широких плеч

У татарина отсечь,

Или вытравить из леса

Пятигорского черкеса»

(А.С. Пушкин)

Unfortunately, neither the teachers nor the tour guides can tell you anything about the Pyatigorsk princedom and why the city was named this way. The guidebooks and other literature have only two popular versions about the history of the name. It is either the five mountains around the area which give the name or it is the name Beshtau, “besh” in Turkish is five.

The aim of this research work is to find out why the new district city was nominated Pyatigorsk by the state senate (a state senate Decree on establishment of the new district city of Pyatigorsk under the Caucasian Mineral Waters 14th May, 1830).

It is commonly known that the highest mountain in Pyatigorsk is called Beshtau. But it has not been like this all the time. Russian Cossacks, who inhabited the territory of the Northern Caucasus till the very end of the fourteenth century, called these magnificent mountains with five summits – Pyatigoria. The vast area overdrawing the present Caucasian Mineral waters was once called Pyatigoria.

The borders of this region has been changing during different historical periods, covering very wide territory. The people who were living there were called Pyatigors.

Even the so called Tatar yoke did not change the ethnic situation in the Ciscaucasia. The real ethnic disaster was the intrusion of Tim chin at the turn of the 14th -15th century. It was that time when the autochthon population of Cossacks and Russians moved to the North to the Southern borders of the Russian Princedoms.

This fact seems unbelievable to the most of us and you may consider the idea improbable. So, let us look at the historical evidences, they are quite a lot.

The Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy (2 A.D.) in his big work “Geography” wrote that there was a big Scythian city at the foot of the Hipparchis Mountains (Horse Mountains in Greek). The Mountains got this name thanks to the big horse breeding center in this region. This is probably the first written notion of Pyatigoria. Even back at this time our ancestors were living here!

The place also refers to the brothers Kirill and Methodiy who were sent to Chazaria by partriac Photiy to “sermonize Christianity and offer help to the Christians living there…”

The Arabian traveler Ibn Batuta wrote in 1334 that there was a mosque in this place. He also gave the description of the main summit of the region calling it Beshtag. Obviously, this is the earliest written notion of the of Turk toponym “Beshtau” which is actually the loan translation of the word “Pyatigoria”.

In “Chetji Minei”, a church book completed by the Moscow metropolith Makarij and which was based on Greek and Russian sources, we can read the following “…Chozars, named Chozars after Greek, Romans called them Gazars, they were of Schythianorigin, had Slavonic language, their country was close to Meotic lake (the sea of Asov).

Here are some very interesting facts from the “Cossacs Reference Book”. We can read there that The Chercassi of  Pyatigorsk are the part of the people known in Russian matuscripts as Kasogi, Kasagi, Kazjag. They were living on the territory of upper reaches of the Cuban river to the North of the five mountains (Beshtau). In other words, to the South-East of the Land Kasak, which was noted in the Geography of Gugud al Alem in the 10th century.

Also it is a well known fact that The Tatar Baskak Ahmat hired a detachment of Cossacs in 1282 who built a city of Cherkassy on the Dnipier. They were there at the time of Tatars and after they were considered Zaporozhets.

In different documents of the 15-17th centuries the stem Pyat Gor  (five mountains in Russian) was used both as toponym and ethnonym on the territory of the Norther Caucasus. The maps of this period published in Austria,  Italy, Germany and other Europian countries also mention the people of Pyatigori in the central part of the Northern Caucasus. Also they were known as Pyatigorian Chercasses.

And the last but not the least incredible witness. In June 1820 the general Nickolaj Nickolaevitch Rayevskiy, the hero of the Patriotic war of the 1812, came to the Caucasus with his family. Lermontov M. Y.  who was a friend of the general’s son, came as well. The resort had a very remarkable impression on Pushkin and Rayevskiy’s family. Their observations and witnesses in letters and literature are very important and interesting.

In particular in his letter to his daughter Ekaterina Nickolaevna Orlova the general wrote about tha old bath “…the view from there is is very favorable on the Beshtova Mountain or Pyatigoria, because that is how the princedom was called before…”

Today on the place where the baths were at the time of Rayevskiy there is a sculpture of the eagle – the symbol of Pyatigorsk.  

We consider it worthy to mention the fact that the hero of the Patriotic war of 1812 was married to Lomonosov’s grand daughter. Everyone knows Michail Vasilyevitch as a physicist or as a chemist, but we forget that he was the second after Totishev got down to Russian history. The significant part of his works was in hands of his grand daughter, a wife of general Rayevskiy.

Thus, summing up all the information above we can conclude tht following. The first idea that  the name of Pyatigorsk reflects the existence of five big mountains around the area- Mashuk, Beshtau, Lysaja, Jeleznaja and Razvalka- is incomplete not because it contradicts the historical facts, but because of the random choice of the summits. In some other variants the names of  Utsa, Jutsa, the Golden Kurgan and Shaludivaja are mentioned. Only Mashuk and Beshtau are mentioned every time.

The second version is that the Russians who came to the area inhabited by Adygi just translated the Turkish word Beshtau and used it for a new developing city needs also to be explained.

Kabardintsy who lived in the area called it Psihuabe (psi- water and huabe- warm). Tus it makes Hot Waters or Goryachevodsk. The summit Beshtau in Kabardinian (which is not a Turkish group of languages by the way) it is Oshhithu. It also means five mountains.

Now, you understand that there is no wonder why we began our essay with the poetic lines of great Russian poet A. Pushkin, the episode where he describes how the epic heroes leave in the morning “to exercise their right hands” and they desided what to do , weather “ to cheat with sorochin” or “to cut Tatar’s head” or “ to exterminate the Pyatigorian cherkess”.

   Think about it! Why he was pyatigorian, not beshtaugorskii, or even cherkess Oshhithu- it is more to the theme, more romantic and more expressive! We are sure it was not a great deal for Alexandr Sergeevitch to rhyme words. Pushkin was always precise and true, he did not allow any negligence in details. So the words about the pyatigorian cherkess were not just the poetic license but the proof that he had some knowledge about Pyatigoria!