From ancient myths to myths of historiography: the problem of the old Russian god Khors as a symptom of the ‘malady’ of mythological studies

Opinion about the solar nature of the Eastern-Slavonic deity Khors (Xors) prevails in world historiography. The opinion is based on the traditional etymology linking this theonym with the Persian word xorsed ‘sun’ or related words in other Iranian languages. But there is a serious criticism of this etymology, that is why the origin of the theonym continues to be a relevant issue. However, the theory of the Iranian origin of Khors is established in the historiography so deeply that rejecting this theory cannot be painless. The possible collapse of the general etymology raises questions: how valuable etymological analysis of theonyms for Mythological Studies and what additional scientific tools we can use in the absence of informative written sources? The purpose of this article is to pose these questions and invite colleagues to the discussion. To answer these questions the following tasks were solved: 1) the history and causes of strengthening of the traditional etymology of Khors in science were explored; 2) the results of discussion on the Promezhica Idol, stone statue which was found at the end of the 19 century near Pskov, as the idol of god Khors were considered. Source base of the study is works of historians and linguists, concerning the hypothesis about Iranian origin of the Khors, and works of researchers discussing a possibility to identify the Promezhica Idol with mythological image of Khors. On the basis of historiographical analysis it seems justified to draw the following conclusions. The etymological derivation of the theonym Khors from Iranian languages was initially only intuitive and that it was an example of the so-called ‘amateur linguistics’. This etymology has been well received due to the fact that it corresponded to the view, which was popular among scholars and originated in some indirect evidence, on Khors as the sun god. In the 20 century this theory strengthened its position in the scientific world. This was facilitated by two circumstances: the lack of any comprehensive scientific criticism of the theory and the exaggerated confidence in the data supplied by linguistics which was characteristic of many researchers of mythology. Nevertheless the theory about the Iranian origin of Khors has many internal contradictions. Also there were no compelling reasons to identify the Promezhica Idol with Khors. However, if one discards the flimsy theories, which the author considers as historiographical myths, it becomes evident that the science has not advanced in solving the “Khors problem” during the past century. The popularity of the linguistic method in the 20 century has not benefited the advance of research of the Eastern-Slavonic mythology. Meanwhile, the possibilities of modern science allow us to see new horizons of studying the old problems. The genetic research combined with studying of genealogy of people carrying the surname ‘Khors’ can give us some interesting data about the origin of this word. However, the scope of these problems is so great that they can only be solved by the efforts of research teams.

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