"Lukomorya is not on the map, so there is no way to a fairy tale", - is sung in a children's song. We really won't get into a fairy tale, but we do not agree about the coordinates of Lukomorye. Only maps are needed not modern, but XV -XVII centuries.
Before you - Tabula Russia Vulgo Moscovia ("Map of Russia, in common parlance Muscovy"), published by the Dutchman Frederic de Wit around 1680. We look at the very top of the map, look for the lower course of the Ob, along the right bank there is an inscription: Lukomorye.
The word "lukomorye" literally means "bend of the sea coast, bay", in modern language there are one-root words "bow", "bend", "bow" (near the saddle).
Converting geographic terms and descriptive expressions to place names is common on maps drawn by people who do not speak the local languages. On the same map of de Vita, the Protacka river is marked directly above Lukomorye. The dialogue is easily presented: “What is the name of this river? - Yes, here, sir, duct! ". And now the unfamiliar word has already been mapped. But where did the "bend of the sea coast" come from in the Siberian Uvaly region?
Lukomorye near Pushkin
We learn about Lukomorye from the prologue to the first great work of Alexander Pushkin, the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". Pushkin describes Lukomorye as a kind of fabulous place "where Russia smells", where there is a memorable oak with a golden chain and a learned cat walking on it.
It is important that the prologue was written already for the second edition of the poem, which was published 8 years after the first edition - in 1828. This can clarify a lot about the origin of the Pushkin Lukomorye.
By this time, Pushkin had already visited the southern exile, where, together with the Raevskys, he visited both the Azov Sea and the Crimea. General Raevsky from Gorochevodsk wrote enthusiastically to his daughter Elena: “Here the Dnieper has just crossed its rapids, in the middle of it are stone islands with a forest, very elevated, the banks are also forest in places; in a word, the views are unusually picturesque, I have seen little on my journey, which I could compare with them."
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These landscapes made an indelible impression on a military man. They simply could not help influencing the poet Pushkin.
And what about Lukomorye?
However, landscapes are landscapes, but what about Lukomorye? How could this image crystallize from Pushkin, which will go down not only in the history of Russian literature, but also in the subconsciousness of every Russian person?
The first source: Arina Rodionovna
As you know, the plots of several Pushkin's fairy tales were inspired by the poet by his nanny. The literary historian Pushkin scholar Pavel Annenkov wrote that many episodes from the tales of Arina Rodionovna are expounded by Pushkin in his own way and transferred from work to work. Here is an excerpt from "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", as told by Annenkov: "So, she had a cat:" There is an oak near the sea-curtain, and on that oak there are golden chains, and a cat walks along those chains: it goes up and tells tales, goes down - sings songs."
As we can see, the cat walks up and down with Pushkin's nanny, that is, we are dealing with a description of the world tree typical of the Finno-Ugric tradition. The cat here is at the same time the keeper of the border between the worlds, and the mediator between them.
Source of the second: "The Lay of Igor's Regiment"
Back in the Lyceum years of Pushkin, A. I. Musin-Pushkin published "The Lay of Igor's Regiment". The Lay says about Lukomorye:
And the filthy Kobyak from the onions of the sea
from the iron greats Polovtsy
like a whirlwind, vytorzh:
and Kobyak falls in the city of Kiev, in the Svyatslavli gridnitsa."
In the annals it was reported that the Russians constantly encountered nomads in the southern steppe: “it’s better to stay with them in Luzѣmor”.
According to the chronicles, the inhabitants of Lukomorye were the Polovtsians, with whom the Kiev princes were constantly at enmity. Lukomorye was the name of the territory of the Northern Azov Sea.
This opinion, according to S. A. Pletneva, is confirmed by the fact that “it is possible to trace the Lukomorian Polovtsi by the stone statues (idols) found in the area of the lower Dnieper. They belong to the developed period of Polovtsian sculpture, to the second half of the 12th and early 13th centuries”.
Thus, we can say that Lukomorye (which was sung by Pushkin) was called the bend between the lower course of the Dnieper and the Sea of Azov. Even today, in the toponymy of the Azov region, one can find echoes of this historical memory: the two steppe rivers Bolshoy and Maly Utlyuk. “Utluk” - “Otluk” - “Luka” is translated from Turkic as “pasture, meadow”.
What kind of oak tree?
It is also interesting to understand what kind of oak Pushkin described:
“And there I was, and I drank honey;
I saw a green oak by the sea."
Traveling along the Dnieper-Azov steppe during his southern exile, Pushkin could hear from old-timers the legend about the famous Zaporozhye oak that grew on the island of Khortytsya.
The Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote about him: “Having passed this place, the Russians reach the island of St. Gregory (the island of Khortitsa) and on this island make their sacrifices, as a huge oak tree grows there. They sacrifice live roosters, stick arrows around, others bring pieces of bread, meat and what everyone has, as their custom requires."
Already in the 70s of the XIX century, the Zaporozhye local historian Ya. P. Novitsky also mentioned this oak: “Five years ago, the sacred oak withered on the island of Khortytsya. It was branched and of colossal thickness, stood a hundred and fifty fathoms from Ostrov-Khortitskaya colonies.
Where else to look for Lukomorye?
Lukomorye is found not only in chronicles, "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" and Pushkin's poem, but also in Russian folklore. Afanasyev in his work "The Tree of Life" noted that this is how East Slavic mythology called the reserved place on the border of the worlds, where the world tree grows, resting against the underworld and reaching the sky. Karamzin also wrote that the word Lukomorye was used in the meaning of the northern kingdom, where people hibernate for six months and stay awake for six months.
One way or another, in folklore perception, Lukomorye is a kind of conditional land on the border of the oecumene, most often located in the north.
Lukomorye on maps
Lukomorye could be considered a historical and semi-fabulous anachronism, if not for the Western European maps of the 16th-17th centuries, on which the location of the Lukomorye is precisely determined, both on the Mercator maps (1546), and on the maps of Gondius (1606), as well as on the Massa maps, Kantelli and Witsen, the territory on the right (eastern) bank of the Ob Bay is called Lukomorye.
European cartographers themselves have not been to these places. Most likely, when drawing up the maps, they relied on the description of this area by travelers, in particular Sigismund Herberstein. He gave it in "Notes on Muscovy": "in the mountains on the other side of the Ob", "From the Lukomorsk mountains flows the river Kossin. Together with this river, another river Kassima originates, and having flowed through Lukomoria, flows into the large river Takhnin.
Nicholas Witsen, who published his Carte Novelle de la Tartarie in the 18th century, had graphic material at his disposal. On his map, the length of the Gulf of Ob corresponds to reality, and therefore "Lucomoria" is the designation of the Gulf of the Kara Sea itself. In Russian historical cartography, there was no toponym "Lukomorye", but it is obvious that Western European cartographers recognized Lukomorye as the ancient name of the Ob Bay.