What epithet did the knyaz of Suzdal Vsevolod (baptized Dmitry) Yuryevich (1154–1212) bear? When did it appear, and for what reason was the knyaz given it?
At least the first question may seem odd to readers: in modern historiography the epithet “Bolshoe Gnezdo” (The Big nest) is firmly attached to Vsevolod. However, contrary to that tradition, medieval sources do not contain such a designation of the knyaz. Contemporary written monuments make no record of any epithet for Vsevolod. He is first mentioned with an epithet in the article «Sitse rodosloviat︠s︡ia velikie kniazi rusi︠s︡tii» (“Thus are recounted the genealogies of the great knyazes of Rus’”) in the Commission copy of the Novgorod First Chronicle, younger redaction (mid-15th century): “Yurii rodi Vsevoloda Velikogo Gnezda” (Yuri begot Vsevolod Velikoe Gnezdo). A fully developed characterization of the epithet appears in the Tver Collection of the mid-16th century as an addition by the compiler to the report of Vsevolod’s birth: “sei est Vsevolod vsēm Ruskim nyneshnim kniazem, zovomyi Velikoe Gnezdo” (this is Vsevolod, father of all the present Rus’ knyazes, called Velikoe Gnezdo).
Thus, in fact, in the Middle Ages Vsevolod’s epithet sounded as Velikoe Gnezdo (The Great nest) rather than Bolshoe Gnezdo (The Big nest). The question remains: when and how did “velikoe” become “bolshoe”?
In 18th – mid-19th century historiography Vsevolod was referred to either by his patronymic or in accordance with the Westernized Russian practice then current of designating rulers by numerals (Vsevolod III). But Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin noted in his notes to the third volume of his “History of the Russian State”: “He in different places of the chronicles is called Velikiy, and in the Genealogical Books Bolshee Gnezdo, from the multitude of his progeny.” In 1830 Nikolay Alekseevich Polevoy drew attention to the knyaz’s epithet and cited it in the correct form: “Our ancestors called Vsevolod Velikoe Gnezdo, because of his numerous progeny”; a footnote indicated the source as “in the Genealogical Books.” Nevertheless, in the mid-century Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin and Nikolay Gavrilovich Golovin again used the phrase “bolshoe gnezdo”: “Vsevolod, bolshoe gnezdo; he has sons…”; “Vsevolod III, bolshoe gnezdo, Grand Knyaz of Vladimir.” Twenty years later Pogodin reproduced this designation with capital letters and explicitly indicated that it was an epithet: “Vsevolod left a numerous family, by which he is called in the genealogical books: Bolshee Gnezdo.” By “genealogical books” Karamzin (and apparently, after him, Polevoy and Pogodin) meant the genealogical list of 1660 in the Synodal collection mentioned in his list of sources, which reads, of course, not “bolshoe” but “velikoe”: “knyaz velikiy Vsevolod velikoe gnezdо.”
At the end of the nineteenth century the epithet “Bolshoe Gnezdo” was used by Dmitriy Ivanovich Ilovaiskiy and Andrey Vasilievich Ekzempliarskiy. In that form the epithet was established in the early 20th century in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary: “Vsevolod Yuryevich, by the epithet Bolshoe Gnezdo.” In the Soviet period its usage increased, and in the Soviet Historical Encyclopedia it was even given without the knyaz’s patronymic: “Vsevolod Bolshoe Gnezdo (1154–1212) — grand knyaz of Vladimir.” In the newest encyclopedia Drevniaya Rus’ the article on Vsevolod is titled “Vsevolod Yuryevich Bolshoe Gnezdo,” and the text asserts: “The epithet Bolshoe Gnezdo, given by the chroniclers of the fifteenth century.”
Thus, the earliest attestation in a surviving source of Vsevolod Yuryevich’s actual epithet — Velikoe Gnezdo — belongs to the first half of the fifteenth century. Of course the epithet could have arisen earlier than its first fixation. When precisely? One must turn, here, to the question of why it was ascribed to the knyaz.
The traditional assumption is that the epithet is connected with Vsevolod’s fecundity. Indeed, he had eight sons and four daughters — a family numerous even by medieval standards. Numerous, but by no means unique. Vsevolod’s father Yuriy Dolgorukiy had eleven sons and three daughters. Vsevolod’s grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh, had eight sons and three daughters. Vsevolod’s son Yaroslav sired eight or nine sons. Vsevolod’s uniqueness lay elsewhere — in the extraordinary multitude of his descendants in more remote generations. All the branches of the North-Eastern Rus’ knyazes (with the exception of the Yaroslav line, which was related to him through the female line) — the knyazes of Moscow, Tver, Rostov, Belozersk, Suzdal–Nizhniy-Novgorod, Galich–Dmitrov, Starodub — traced their origin to him (and these are only those branches that survived to the 15th century, when Vsevolod’s epithet is first fixed; earlier there were also extinct branches of Kostroma, Pereiaslavl, Gorodets, and Yuriev). It is precisely this fact that could have given rise to the epithet Velikoe Gnezdo. In instances where the word “gnezdo” appears with the meaning “the progeny of a given knyaz” in monuments of Old Russian literature, it denotes not children but more remote descendants. In The Tale of Igor’s Campaign the “Olgovym khorobrim gnezdom” (Oleg’s brave gnezdo) are not Oleg Gorislavich’s children but his grandsons and great-grandsons — participants in the 1185 campaign. In the “Zadonshchina” Dmitriy Ivanovich calls himself and his cousin Vladimir Andreevich a gnezdo of Vladimir the Saint or of Ivan Kalita; to the first these Moscow knyazes were descendants in the twelfth generation, to the second they were grandsons. And in the Tver Collection the epithet “velikoe gnezdo” is treated precisely in the sense of ‘progenitor’: “sei est Vsevolod vsēm Ruskim nyneshnim kniazem, zovomyi Velikoe Gnezdo”; to the contemporary knyazes of the Tver Collection’s compiler Vsevolod was, of course, “father” in the remote, common-ancestor sense. The epithet therefore could have arisen only when the extraordinary multitude of Vsevolod’s male descendants became evident: hardly in the age of his grandsons (their number then was not yet especially impressive — sixteen), but rather in later generations, when the count ran to many dozens. Thus the epithet was manifestly not contemporary and is unlikely to have arisen earlier than the 14th century. It is not excluded that it was assigned to Vsevolod only upon the compilation, in the late first quarter of the 15th century, of the article «Sitse rodosloviat︠s︡ia velikie kniazi rusi︠s︡tii», since in that and adjacent articles of the Novgorod First Chronicle, younger redaction, which contain lists of knyazes, many knyazial epithets unknown from earlier sources are first fixed.
The phrase “Bolshoe Gnezdo” is an unsuccessful attempt to translate the epithet “Velikoe Gnezdo”. Unsuccessful because the word “velikiy” is entirely intelligible to the modern reader, although today it is used primarily in the sense ‘distinguished’ rather than ‘large’. If one nevertheless assumes that its meaning will remain unclear to the reader, then the second part of the epithet would have to be translated all the more, since the word “gnezdo” in modern Russian does not carry the meaning ‘progeny’ (and even in Old Russian it was not the principal term). One might then render Vsevolod’s epithet as “Big Progeny,” or more precisely “Numerous Progeny.” But such exercises are pointless. Other epithets of knyazes of medieval Rus’ in historiography appear untranslated, even when they are unfamiliar to the modern reader. For example, we do not translate the epithet “Kalita”: we do not write “Ivan the Sack” or “Ivan the Pouch,” although the word “kalita” is absent from modern Russian. All the more unnecessary is a translation for the epithet “Velikoe Gnezdo” — it is perfectly accessible to a modern reader. Translating only its first element is absurd. If the reader understands that “gnezdo” in this case denotes progeny, he will all the more readily understand that “velikoe” indicates multitude.
Accordingly, it is necessary to cease using the unfortunate artificial expression “Bolshoe Gnezdo” and to “restore” to Vsevolod Yuryevich his actual epithet — Velikoe Gnezdo. At the same time one should recognize that this epithet is not contemporaneous, but was given to the knyaz by his descendants.
Knyaz (pl. knyazi) — a hereditary prince or ruler in medieval Rus’.
Velikii knyaz — “Grand Knyaz,” the senior ruler within a princely hierarchy.
Gnezdo — literally “nest”; in Old Russian usage, when applied to a dynasty, denotes a lineage or progeny extending beyond immediate offspring.
Novgorod First Chronicle, Younger Recension — a principal East Slavic chronicle compilation of the fifteenth century.
