Goryuns
Encyclopedia
Goryuns is a little-documented ethnic group of East Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...

 living around Putyvl
Putyvl
Putyvl or Putivl is a town in north-east Ukraine, in Sumy Oblast. Currently about 20,000 people live in Putyvl.-History:One of the original Siverian towns, Putyvl was first mentioned as early as 1146 as an important fortress contested between Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky principalities of...

 in the Sumy Oblast
Sumy Oblast
Sumy Oblast is an oblast in the northeastern part of Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Sumy.Other important cities within the oblast include Konotop, Okhtyrka, Romny, and Shostka....

 of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. The dialect of the Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 spoken by Goryuns has some features of Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...

 and Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

.

Goryuns are usually considered to represent a tiny sub-ethnos of Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

. Regardless, they consider themselves to be distinct from other Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

, as well as Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 living in the same region
.

Goryun villages were mentioned for the first time in chronicles in sixteenth century, shortly after the annexation of the region to Muscovy
Grand Duchy of Moscow
The Grand Duchy of Moscow or Grand Principality of Moscow, also known in English simply as Muscovy , was a late medieval Rus' principality centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the early modern Tsardom of Russia....

. From this the Belarusian scientist Fiodar Klimchuk concludes that the Goryuns might have lived in the region before the year 1500.

There are different hypotheses about the origin of Goriuns. James Stuart Olson describes them as a Ukrainianized subgroup of the Polekhs
Polekhs
Polekhs are a subethnic group of Russians settled along the Desna River and Seym River and mixed with local populations of Belarusians and Lithuanians. Most of them retained the Russian Orthodox religion, with some turning to Roman Catholicism....

. According to Fiodar Klimchuk, the Goryuns may be descendants of local Severians
Severians
The Severians or Severyans or Siverians were a tribe or tribal union of early East Slavs occupying areas to the east of the middle Dnieper river around the rivers Desna, Sejm and Sula on the territory of the archaeological Romny culture....

 or they might be of mixed Severian-Radimich stock, or their Severian ancestors might have moved
to North-West and then returned. Some researchers believe that they are autochthonous to the region and are related to the local early Slavic population, according to others they are descendants of migrants from what is now Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

that were mixed with the local population.

Goryuns are known for their unique style of polyphonic singing.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK