Kyi, Schek and Khoriv

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A monument to the mythical founders of Kiev.

Kyi (alt. sp. Kiy, Kij or Kyj), Schek and Khoriv (Russian and Ukrainian: Кий, Щек, Хорив three brothers, sometimes mentioned along with their sister Lybid' (#redirect , Russian: , Lybed') who according to the Primary Chronicle were the founders of Kiev (Kyiv) (now the capital of Ukraine). Archeological excavations have shown, there indeed was an ancient settlement from the 6th century. Some speculate that Kyi was a real person, a knyaz from the tribe of eastern Polans. But the majority of scholars consider them as purely mythological. Kyi, Schek and Khoriv are depicted in two almost-identical sculptures, one at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, and other at Naberezhnoye road, both in Kiev.

The legend of Kyi, Shchek and Khoriv, and their sister Lybed, can be interpreted as an example of a common mythological process whereby geographical names are personified and incorporated into the foundation myths of a place or people, often as eponymous ancestors.

There are numerous different theories concerning the origin of the names, among the most popular is that legend of three brothers and their sister is an attempt to explain the local names. Kyi appears to be derived from a Turkic word meaning "high river-bank", and denotes the hilly right (western) bank of the Dnieper on which the earliest settlement was located. Shek and Khoriv represent the mointains Shekavitsa and Khorivitsa near Kiev, Lybed river is the right tributary of Dnieper.

Other theories attempt to trace them to historical presence of different cultures in the region. The name kyi was likely given to the settlement when it was an outpost of the Turkic-speaking Khazars. Lybed, hints the sojourn of the nomadic Magyar people in the area just to the south of Kiev, before their westward migration to the central Danube region in late Ninth Century. The early Hungarian chronicles give the Latin name "Lebedia" to the area between the Don and Dnieper rivers occupied by the Magyar tribes from the end of the Seventh to the end of the Ninth Centuries. Shek may refer to the Bulgarian leader Chok who waged wars in the Dnieper region in the early ninth century. The name "Khoriv" may be of biblical origin, and is the Slavic version of the word Horeb, the name of the holy mountain of the Hebrew Exodus, also known as Mount Sinai.

References

• () [G.V.Vernadsky Ancient Rus'. online]

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