Izvestia

Albrecht Greule’s Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch is a nice introduction to the study of Central European hydronames.

It is, however, far from complete.  I am not talking about additional entries that could have been provided or additional thinking that could have been done in respect to certain other entries. All that is true and, not as important for the present point.

Take a look at the entry for Saale.  There are three such Saales in Germany: Frankish, Thuringian and one by the town of Duingen.

The entry for the Thuringian one is as follows:

We are told by Greule that this river is mentioned as:

• Salas potamos (in a 12th century manuscript of Strabo’s Geography)
• Salas fluvium (in a 9th century copy referring to circa 830) (this is from Einhard: Salam fluvium, qui Thuringos et Sorabos dividit)
• trans Salam in 945

Then Greule launches into the names of the place in 1109, 1325, 1365, 1433 and 1520 while also mentioning Salauelda in 899 and 942.

But the name that does not get mentioned is the one used by Al-Bakri in his copy of the travel report of Ibrahim ibn Yaqub – Çalâwa or Slawah – which travel report is dated to 965/966.

The later “Polish Annals” (14th century) also say:

“Bolezlavus Magnus, qui Chrabri dicitur, natus est.  Iste Bohemos et Ungaros subiugavit et Saxones edomuit, et in flumine Solave meta ferrea fines Polonie terminavit.

This – Soława – is the Sorb name to this day which is pronounced Souava.

For Ibrahim ibn Yaqub’s description in the best edition (based on the earliest manuscripts):

• Tadeusz Kowalski: Relacja Ibrāhīma Ibn Jakūba z podróży do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al-Bekrīego (Pomniki dziejowe Polski Ser. 2, T. 1. Wydawnictwa Komisji Historycznej. Polska Akademia Umiejętności T. 84 (1946) (this includes pictures Kowalski himself took of the codex Laleli 2144 in the Süleymaniye Library (discovered by Ritter) and of codex 3034 in the Nuru Osmaniye Mosque Library (discovered by Schaeffer))

(Incidentally, Kowalski’s daughter, an ethnographer in her own right, was married to Tadeusz Lewicki, the famous orientalist).

For earlier efforts you can locate L. Koczy, G. Jacob (1889), F. Westberg (1898).  For the earliest:

• Friedrich Wigger in Bericht des Ibrahîm ibn Jakûb über die Slawen aus dem Jahre 973 in Jahrbücher des Vereins für Mecklenburgische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Band 45 (1880) (see here)
• M.J. De Goeye in Een belangrijk arabisch bericht over de slavische volkeren omstreeks (1880) (see here)
• Arist A. Kunik & Baron Victor von Rosen in Izvěstija al-Bekri i drugih avtorov o Rusi i Slavjanah in Zapiski Imperatorskoj Akademii Nauk, 32, Pril. 2. (1878) (based on the discovery in the 1870s of the Al-Bakri manuscript at the Nuru Osmaniye Mosque in Istanbul) (see here)

For more information about the earliest travels of Jews in Eastern Europe see Teksty źródłowe do nauki historii Żydów w Polsce i we wschodniej Europie (Ringelblum & Mahler, 1930).

So here are some interesting points

• if -ava is really a Germanic suffix denoting the fictional Germanic designation of “water” (fictional because never attested), then why is -ava a Slavic suffix in this case but the Germanic version is, repeatedly, Saale?
• how does Greule know that the Salas potamos refers to the Thuringian Saale? The quote from Strabo refers to this “And there is also the river Sala, between which and the Rhine Drusus Germanicus died, whilst in the midst of his victories.” Why is this not the Frankish one for example (which, but for Strabo, would, as per Greule be attested in 777 or maybe even in 716). Cassius Dio relates that Drusus died before reaching the Rhine.  If Drusus were returning towards Mainz.  is soldiers later that year raised the Drususstein in Mainz.  If that is where his soldiers ended up then it is also quite possible that that is where they and Drusus were heading – southwest.  Probably then they were going for the River Main first and to get to that they may have passed the Frankische Saale and then Drusus died (of some disease acceding to Cassius Dio). This is not the only solution of course but it is just as reasonable as the one that has him die past the Thuringian Saale.
• how did the editors of Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch miss this miss?