ONIMICAL SPACE OF KIROVOHRAD REGION IN THE WORKS OF V. LUCHYK

Abstract

Regional studies of onomastic vocabulary play a significant role in the stable development of national onomastics.In this regard, the scientific research carried out on the material of Kirovohrad region personal names, where in the last century a research environment of onomasts was formed, the leader of which was V. V. Luchyk for a long time, is indicative. The scientist elaborated his own methodology for collecting factual material, conducted field research, got acquainted with the history of the region, created the Central Ukrainian Toponymic Laboratory, encouraging both experienced and young specialists to work there, and organised periodicals. However, one of V. Luchyk's greatest achievements was his own scientific descriptions of the Kirovohrad region's personal names, which were primarily dominated by hydronymic and limnonymic vocabulary. The scientist analysed and etymologised hundreds of names of rivers, ponds, streams, springs, and marshes. The researcher's interests also included such categories of onyms as oikonyms, toponyms, microtoponyms, oronyms, urbanonyms, etc. This factual material formed the basis of two monographs, two dictionaries and a number of other publications. The scientist understood the entire national onomastic space through the prism of etymologising the proper names of Kirovohrad region, the presentation of which, having been tested in a number of articles submitted to professional domestic and foreign publications, in reports at international and all-Ukrainian onomastic conferences, was reflected to the greatest extent in the author's ‘Etymological Dictionary of Place Names of Ukraine’.Awareness of the onomastic space of Kirovohrad region also influenced the general scientific views of the scholar, which he shared in his subsequent publications, some of which were included in encyclopaedic editions of onomastic, historical and interdisciplinary character. A special place was occupied by the study of the onomastic material of Kirovohrad region in the creation by V. Luchyk of the theory of the Middle Dnipro ancestral homeland of the Slavs.