Grad (
Cyrillic: град),
gard,
gorod (Cyrillic: город) or
gord is a Slavic word for town or city.
The ancient
Slavs were known for building wooden fortified settlements. The reconstructed
Proto-Slavic word for such a settlement is *
gordъ, related to the
Germanic *
gard.
Similar strongholds were built during the late
Bronze and early
Iron Ages by the people of the
Lusatian culture (ca. 1300 BC – 500 BC), and later in the 7th - 8th centuries
CE in modern-day
Russia,
Belarus,
Ukraine,
Poland,
Czech Republic and eastern
Germany. These settlements were usually founded on strategic sites such as hills, riverbanks, lake islands or peninsulas.
A typical gord was a group of wooden houses, built either in rows or in circles, surrounded by one or more rings of walls made of earth and wood, a
palisade and/or
moats. Some gords were ring-shaped, with a round, oval or occasionally polygonal fence or wall surrounding a hollow. Others, built on a natural hill or a man-made mound, were cone-shaped. Those with a natural defense on one side, such as a river or lake, were usually horseshoe-shaped.
Most gords were built in densely-populated areas, and situated in places which presented particular natural advantages. However, as Slavic tribes united into states, gords were also built for defense purposes in less populated border areas.
Those gords which served as a ruler's residence or lay on trade routes, quickly expanded. A
suburbium () formed near or below the gord. Its population served the residents of the gord and could shelter within the gord's walls in the event of danger. Eventually the
suburbium would have its own fence or wall. In the
High Middle Ages, the gord would normally evolve into a
castle or
citadel (
kremlin); the
suburbium – into a
town.
Grodzisko in Stara Rawa, Poland
Some other gords, which did not stand the test of time and were abandoned or destroyed, gradually turned into more or less discernible mounds or rings of earth (known in
Russian as
gorodische, in
Polish as
grodzisko, in
Ukrainian as
horodyshche, in
Slovak as
hradisko and in
Czech as
hradiště). Notable archeological sites include
Biskupin, Poland and Bilsk, Ukraine (see
Gelonus).
Evolution of the word
The Proto-Slavic word *
gordъ means a "fenced area", compare to Ukrainian
horodyty and Russian o
gradit meaning "fence away". It ultimately finds its root in the
Proto-Indo-European language; a
cognate is the English word "yard". In some modern
Slavic languages, *
gordъ has evolved into words for a "
garden" (likewise a fenced area): the
Ukrainian ґород (gorod) and
город (horod), the
Bulgarian and
Macedonian градина (gradina), the
Polish ogród, the
Slovak záhrada, the
Czech zahrada, the
Russian огород (ogorod). In some Slavic languages, *
gord has evolved into a word for "town" or "city": the
Russian gorod, the
ancient Pomeranian and modern
Kaszubian gard, the
Bulgarian,
Croatian,
Macedonian and
Serbian град,
grad. The
Slovak and
Czech hrad and
Slovene grad have evolved to mean "fortified castle." The
Polish gród and
Ukrainian horod retain their original meaning of an "ancient fortified settlement."
Towns and villages in Poland whose names derive from gród (pink circles)
The names of many Central and Eastern European cities hark back to their past as gords. Some of them are in countries which used to be, but no longer are, inhabited mostly by Slavic-speaking peoples. Examples include:
Novgorod,
Gorodets,
Volgograd (
Russia);
Hrodna,
Davyd-Haradok,
Haradok,
Navahrudak (
Belarus);
Uzhhorod,
Horodok,
Horodysche (
Ukraine);
Hradec Králové and
Vyšehrad (
Czech Republic);
Stargard Szczeciński;
Grodzisk Mazowiecki and
Grodzisk Wielkopolski (
Poland);
Dravograd and
Gornji Grad (
Slovenia);
Biograd and
Stari Grad (
Croatia);
Visegrád (
Hungary);
Belgrade (
Beograd),
Dimitrovgrad,
Veliko Gradište (
Serbia);
Danilovgrad (
Montenegro);
Blagoevgrad,
Asenovgrad and
Razgrad (
Bulgaria);
Gradsko (
Republic of Macedonia);
Novohrad region, many places named
Hradisko or
Hradište (
Slovakia);
Graz (
Austria);
Gartz (
Germany);
Pogradec (
Albania), and
Višegrad (
Bosnia and Herzegovina).
In old Iran (Persia) Gerd had the same meaning. This word changed to Jerd after Arab invasion. Burugerd or
Borujerd is a city in West of Iran.
See also
- Biskupin, a life-size reconstruction of a gród in Poland.
- Fortified settlements in other cultures:
