The fact that Zhytomyr – an ancient city on the lands of modern Ukraine – will not be called news. However, there are some puzzles in the Drevliania region that the attentive researchers will find on Google maps

The first riddle
Look at the map of Europe, and you will discover a strange thing: there is not only Ukrainian Zhytomyr on it. Žitomír is a small town in Croatia, which is located not far from Zagreb, the capital of the country. In 2011 there were only 193 inhabitants. The distance from the Croatian Žitomír to Zagreb is small – only 29 km. Of course, our Zhitomir is much more numerous than the population, and from Kiev to it – 134 km, but the countries are not the same in size: the area of ​​Ukraine, the largest in Europe over the territory of the state, reaches 603 628 km², while Croatia is a small Slavic country in the north-western part of the Balkan Peninsula, which is washed by the warm waters of the Adriatic Sea. Its dimensions are 56,610 km², if only dry land is taken into account. Agree, a bit like a scale of 1:10. However, the very fact of the existence of two cities with a similar name in different parts of Europe, though quite distant from each other, is of interest. Why is there a few Zhytomyr citizens?

The second riddle
The name of the Croatian city is associated with wheat and calm (žito – “wheat”, mír – “calm”). But the rye in the Croats is “raž”, and the world, in the sense of the state of the absence of war, is translated as “svijetu”, that is, the accent is different from ours. For Croatian, the universe is “Svemir”, and the word “svet” in Croatian is “sacred”. Everyone will think about life after hearing the name of the city of Zhytomyr, and for Croatians, the city of namesake is unlikely to be associated with life, because “life” is “život”. For Croats, the name of the city Žitomír is more connected with endless wheat fields, calm and rich life in a good place. And what do we associate with the word “Zhytomyr”? First of all, with life in peace.

The third riddle
The names of the cities around the Croatian Žitomíra are interesting: 36 km from Velika Gorica, 51 km from Bjelovar. Considering the Google map, you can see other interesting names of settlements around the Croatian city of Zhytomyr: Veleshkovets, Pech, Breznitz, Mala Bistritsa, Filippovich. How not to mention such settlements of Zhytomyr region as Bistryk, Vysokaya Pich, Berezivka or Pylypovych? However, much more interesting is that in its surroundings is the town of Globochets, as well as near to Zhytomyr is the village of Hlybochytsia, where once in ancient times flowed the river Glybochok. Interestingly, on the maps of the middle of the 19th century we see the Traian and another Glubochek near it with the same river.

The fourth riddle
The fact that on the brink of the former Drevlian lands are the names of settlements similar to those of Croatian, Leonid Zalizniak also drew attention. The researcher of ancient history of Ukraine, noted that in the territories of the former Yugoslavia, there are hundreds of correspondences of geographical names of Kyiv and Zhytomyr region: Kyiv, Kyivets, Kyivo, Zhytomyr, Malin, Barashi, Bolyarka, Radychi, etc. But it is less known that the Croatian sources are extremely popular with the idea of ​​relocating their ancestors from Belaya Croatia in the VII century. because of the war with avars and the bullying of the attackers. But again the question arises: where exactly was the war?
Peculiar waypoints of the “ways of resettlement” are the names of settlements or rivers in Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland: Bistrice, Brezovica, Markusovce, Javornik or Vinica. And the names come to mind: Bystrik, Berezivka, Markushi, Yavornytsya and Vinnitsa. Interesting coincidence, is not it true? Is the mystery of the existence of two Zhytomyr citizens – is the mystery of the origin of our ancestors-Slavs, their culture and beliefs, history?

Riddle fifth
A well-known scholar of early history of the Slavs and Balts, archeology, ethnographer Maria Gimbutas believed that the study of toponymics, or the science of geographical names and their origin, does not merely confirm the Slavic names in the middle reaches of the Dnieper: with the early Slavic culture it is obvious connected with the antiquities of the Prague-Kurchatsky and the Prague-Penkiv type. At that time our ancestors calmly, peacefully, lived in small groups in the settlements without strong walls or fortifications, and piled water jugs in their half-earths with stove stoves. In short, they lived – they did not …
Will future generations understand the mysteries of Zhytomyr and its Croatian counterpart? Maybe. And then it is quite probable that the present-day Zhytomyr oblast is concerned not only with the annals of the Drevlians, but the names of settlements, rivers, and areas will open up new great secrets of ancestors.
Tranlsated by Aliona Matushevich