Chapter CCXXV: Section III: Warlike Names

Few more Slavonic names remain to be mentioned, and these more for their correspondence with those of other races than for much intrinsic interest.

Very few are known beyond their own limits. Stanislav, or Camp glory, is the most universal, and is one of the very few found in the Roman calendar, which has two Polish saints thus named. The first, Stanislav Sczepanowski, Bishop of Cracow, was one of the many prelates of the eleventh century who had to fight the battle of Church against king, and he was happy in that his cause was that of morality as well as discipline. Having excommunicated King Boleslav for carrying off the wife of one of the nobles, he was murdered by the king in his own cathedral; and Gregory VII. being the reigning Pope, his martyrdom was an effectual seed of submission to the Church. The wretched king died by his own hand, and the bishop became a Slavonian Becket, was enshrined at Cracow, and thought to work miracles. His name was, of course, national, and was again canonized in the person of Stanislav Kostka, one of the early Jesuits who guided the reaction of Roman Catholicism in Poland. The name has even been used in France, chiefly for the sake of the father of the Polish queen of Louis XV., and afterwards from the influx of Poles after the partition of their kingdom.

┌──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Portuguese. │ Italian. │
│Stanislaus │Stanislas │Estanislau │Stanislao │
├──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ German. │ Bavarian. │ Polish. │ Illyrian. │
│Stanislav │Stanes │Stanislav │Stanisav │
│ ———————— │Stanisl │Stach │Stanko │
│ Lettish. │Stanel │Stas │ │
│Stanislavs │Stanerl │ │ │
│Stachis │ │ │ │
└──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘

Much in the same spirit is the Russian Boris, from the old Slavonian _borotj_, to fight. It has never been uncommon in Muscovy, and belonged to the brother-in-law of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Goudenoff, who was regent for his imbecile nephew Feodor; and, after assassinating the hopeful younger brother, Dmitri, reigned as czar, till dethroned by a counterfeit Dmitri. Borka and Borinka are the contractions, and Borivor was the first Christian duke of Bohemia.

Bron, a weapon, forms Bronislav and Bronislava. Voj is the general Slavonic term for war, and is a very frequent termination. Vojtach, the Polish Vojciech, and Lithuanian Waitkus, all mean warrior.

It is a curious feature in nomenclature how strongly glory and fame are the leading notion of the entire race, whose national title of glory has had such a fall. _Slav_ is an inevitable termination; _voj_ almost as constantly used; and even the tenderest commencements are forced to love war, and to love fame. The old Russian Mstisslav glories in vengeance (_mest_), but is usually recorded as Mistislaus; Rostislav increases glory; Vratislav, Glowing glory, names not only the Wratislaus of history, but the city of Breslaw. The Slovak Vekoslav, and Vekoslava, are Eternal fame.

The two animals used in Slavonic names are warlike; Vuk, the wolf, and Bravac, the wild boar; but both these are very possibly adopted from the German Wulf and Eber.