Виночерпецът на българския владетел през Ранното средновековие
The Wine-Cup-Bearer of the Bulgarian Ruler in Early Mediaeval Times

Summary/Abstract: THE WINE-CUP-BEARER OF THE BULGARIAN RULER IN EARLY MEDIAEVAL TIMES TATYANA SLAVOVA (SOFIA) (Summary) The article explores the hypothesis that the term чъваньчии (“cup-bearer”) expresses an institutional status in the First Bulgarian Kingdom, i.e. the title of a courtier who served as the ruler’s wine cup-bearer. Since there is no direct evidence for the existence of such an institutionalized post in Bulgaria, various arguments are listed to support this statement: (1) historical evidence about the role of the wine cup-bearer in service to the Hunnic rulers and the Byzantine Emperor; (2) the use of the lexeme чъваньчии “ruler’s cup-bearer” in early Bulgarian translations of literary works which survived in later Slavonic copies; and (3) the Proto-Bulgarian (Turkic) origin of чъваньчии ‘one who uses a cup, pitcher’, with the following morpheme structure: a motivating lexeme чьванъ ‘vessel, cup, pitcher’ (Turkic čod(g)un with original meaning “vessel, pot”, in written Mongolian čodugar, čožugar “bottle, pitcher, jug”, secondary meaning “cast iron, molten iron”) and the Proto-Bulgarian suffix -чии for Nomina agentis. In addition, the author traces the substitution of чьваньчии with чрьпчии / чрьпьць and чашьникъ, trying to explain the reason behind it.

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