Germanified Russian Place names - can anyone assist?

[PzKpfwIII]

Hello; I have some German operational maps for the area SW of Tula. The place names in most English sources seem to be German, or anglicized German names. I was wondering if anyone could provide the Russian names, as they appeared at that time (October 1941)? I think I have some of them figured out.

Mtzensk appears to be the German name for Mcensk; or at least this is how it appears in Google Earth and on current Russian websites as well as the Russian version of mapquest.

I'm not looking for Cyrillic names, anglicized alphabet is fine, in fact, necessary, but if anyone could help me out with the following, I'd be grateful.

Saroschtscha

Guschtschenskij

Krasny Lipowez

Werchn

Butyrki

Nischn

Strepurino Golubotschki

Krasnyj Berez

Kawergino Belkow

Tula

Orel

Can anyone tell me what conventions the Germans followed (if any) when converting Russian placenames into German?

Would also be interested in the Cyrillic spelling of the "Russian" names as an added bonus, though I think I can get those from Russian documents.

Thanks in advance

[Bigduke6]

Glad to help, but I need to make a few qualifications. There is no international-standard means for transliterating Russian place names into other languages as, well, other languages differ, and what's more the place name's spelling is not always standard throughout the ages.

A worst case might for example be the capital of modern Ukraine, which in English can be rendered Kyiv and Kiev, in German Kiew and (I think) Kiyew, and in Russian Kiev only - but half the Ukrainians will object and say that's not correct, the Russians are using an imperial term and so are being insulting.

But I'm off the subject. Here's a fair shot at rendering the locations you listed into standard "English" transliterations. There will be variations, for instance, Google apparently is using Mcensk, but a standard transliteration as far as I know would be more likely Mtsensk.

Saroschtscha - Saroshchina

Guschtschenskij - Gushchenskiy

Krasny Lipowez - Krasniy Lipovets

Werchn - Verkhniy (I suspect your source dropped the inflected ending here, "Verkhn" would be a really strange place name)

Butyrki - Butyrki

Nischn - Nizhniy (As Verkhniy above)

Strepurino Golubotschki - Stepurino Golubotshchiy

Krasnyj Berez - Krasniy Berets

Kawergino Belkow - Kavergino Belkov

Tula - Tula

Orel - Orel

I can't tell you what conventions the Germans used to transliterate as my experience is English-Russian and back, and German only peripherally. My impression is the German approach was to try and replicate the sound of the word, rather than the exact Russian letters that went into it, which is the standard Russian-to-English approach (At least at the academic level. Novels do whatever they please, for instance). But I am sure if you wait one of the smart Kamaraden on the forum will tell you the exact way the Germans did this business.

Hope this helps.

Originally posted by Russophile:

Hello; I have some German operational maps for the area SW of Tula. The place names in most English sources seem to be German, or anglicized German names. I was wondering if anyone could provide the Russian names, as they appeared at that time (October 1941)? I think I have some of them figured out.

Mtzensk appears to be the German name for Mcensk; or at least this is how it appears in Google Earth and on current Russian websites as well as the Russian version of mapquest.

I'm not looking for Cyrillic names, anglicized alphabet is fine, in fact, necessary, but if anyone could help me out with the following, I'd be grateful.

Saroschtscha

Guschtschenskij

Krasny Lipowez

Werchn

Butyrki

Nischn

Strepurino Golubotschki

Krasnyj Berez

Kawergino Belkow

Tula

Orel

Can anyone tell me what conventions the Germans followed (if any) when converting Russian placenames into German?

Would also be interested in the Cyrillic spelling of the "Russian" names as an added bonus, though I think I can get those from Russian documents.

Thanks in advance

[76mm]

Dear Russophile:

I am very familar with Russian place names in general, but not with the particular places mentioned. That said, I've tried below to "anglicize" the place names. Note also that there are several different conventions for transliterating Russian into English (ie, see Orel, below). My suggestions are below in CAPS:

Saroschtscha

SAROSCHA

Guschtschenskij

GUSCHENSKY

Krasny Lipowez

KRASNY LIPOVETZ

Werchn

VERKHN (LOOKS LIKE "Y" MIGHT BE MISSING AT END)

Butyrki

BUTYRKY

Nischn

[LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING DROPPED OFF--SHOULD IT BE PART OF A NAME LIKE "NIZHNI NOVGOROD"?

Strepurino Golubotschki

STREPURINO GOLUBOSCHKY

Krasnyj Berez

KRASNY BERYEZ

Kawergino Belkow

KAVERGINO BELKOV

Tula

TULA

Orel

ORYOL

As you can see, no real magic here, change "w" to "v", drop some of the "t"s, etc. Not sure if this is what you wanted, but trying to be helpful.

[PzKpfwIII]

Thanks to both of you; Orel does show up closer to 76mm's transliteration than Bigduke6's in Google. A good start, though, thanks for taking the time to respond.

[76mm]

Yeah, as both BigDuke and I mentioned, there is not really a "correct" way to transliterate from Russian into English--my version of Oryol is closer to the Russian pronunciation, but BigDuke's is the more common spelling.

[Pichelsteiner]

Well, in Germany the transliteration is mainly used when u need a high level of precision and for organisational reasons, e.g. at court.

More often transcription(you say the Russian word and write it the German way) is used(as in your case). Its a little more comfortable for the german reader and allows the different kinds of fonts which were used until 1941 in Germany.

(1941 declared Hitler Antiqua as "normal"-types)

The link leads to a German page, the last list at the bottom of the page is the German-Russian-transcription-System.

http://www.aurint.de/Transliterationssysteme_Russisch_Deutsch.htm

Britains and Americans know this system as well, but not for militarical use due to the reason that the American transcription is quite different from the British one. The Transliteration codes on the HP dont fit in 1941 because they were developed to be more comprehensible for Anglo-Saxons after ww-II(but they are similar).

But there are some special cases. Remember that some cities have/had historical German names before WW-II. Most of them were German when WW2 started.

(Stettin/since 1720 part of Preussa, today Polish: Szczecin) (Königsberg ,Today Russian: Kalinigrad.

Single cities were renamed for propaganda reasons.

(Polish Lodz in German Litzmannstadt/after Gerneral Litzmann of WW1)

Some special historical reasons:

The German spelled Name Sankt Petersburg was even in Russia used for centuries(though it has never been German). 1914-1924 the Russian spelling Petrograd was introduced. Then Leningrad until 1991 (Today its Petrograd and Sankt Petersburg again). You may find all those names on German maps.

[jurpo]

Originally posted by Pichelsteiner:

The German spelled Name Sankt Petersburg was even in Russia used for centuries(though it has never been German). 1914-1924 the Russian spelling Petrograd was introduced. Then Leningrad until 1991 (Today its Petrograd and Sankt Petersburg again). You may find all those names on German maps.

Reminds me of the story of a Russian who travelled extensively in his life. He went to school in Tsaritsyn, worked in Stalingrad, and finally enjoyed his retirement days in Volgograd.

[Bigduke6]

The street I live on in Kiev prior to the revolution was Vasilievskaya, after the name of a St. Vasyl cathedral I think.

Then after the 1917 revolution it became Krasnoarmeyskaya, or "Red Army" street.

Then after Ukraine became independant in 1991 it became Chervonoarmeyska, or Red Army, just in Ukrainian.

Then a bit later the city of Kiev went on a history kick, and renamed the street Vasilievska, which is the same as the 1917 pre-Revolutionary, just in Ukrainian not Russian.

And yes, the post office has real trouble deciding which name is the "real" one that mailmen actually will deliver to.

[Pichelsteiner]

Does anyone know what happened to polish villages cities which became Russian after WW-2?

Where they renamed as well, or was just their spelling changed into Russian?

Well I guess some of them got named after kommunists.

And Latvia and Estonia? Where those cities transliterated from their Estonian names or their Russian spelling?

[Bigduke6]

The thing to remember is that most of the part of Poland that the SU annexed, wasn't particularly Polish. The regions of Galicia, Bukovina, etc. and so on were historically ethnic Ukrainian, and to a lesser extent Hungarian, Romanian, and Jewish. (An ethnicity in that part of the world.)

When the Soviets came most village names stayed the same, but a few of the bigger ones got renamed. For example Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, became Lvov, which is what the city had always been called in Russian. A town called Kowel in Polish, and Kovil by the Ukrainains that lived there, became Kovel, as that's what the Russians had always called the place. So often the changes if they came were not dramatic, but rather minor adaptations to the new ruling language of Russian.

The big shift Russification brought in terms of names came on the level of streets and so on. Virtually every main street everywhere became Lenin street, and the main square whatever it was very frequently became October square. New urban regions or farms or whatever set up by the Soviets naturally almost always had very Socialist names, things like Kolkhoz Number 32 Named for the Komintern.

If you are doing map research the type of name is a good rule of thumb for the age of the place. I've used Soviet maps dated 1980 or so to recreate a 1944 battle in west Ukraine for CM, and as a matter of course when I did the CM map I just left out everything Soviet-sounding. Later on I saw wartime maps, and as it turned out the rule of thumb replicated what had actually been the case by more than 90 per cent. Nine times out of ten where I left out the place because it sounded Soviet, it in fact didn't exist during the war.

[AlmightyTH]

Orel is the really correct transliteration of the town, but if you want to follow the sound, you would have to write it like Aryol.

Because the O isn't emphasized (which means in Russian that it's pronounced like "A" and the e is actually ë (two dots on top which is pronounced "yo" and IS emphasized)

In city names like Kiiv or Kiev, an Ukrainian and a Russian will pronouce it the same way even if they spell it differently.