The Armenian Tracks in the History of the Chuvash

The introduction provides brief information to acquaint the reader with the history of the study of the topic in the title.It points to the difficulties in identifying the original homeland of the historical ancestors of the Chuvash.It also provides an ethnonymic picture.With regard to the methodology of the study, the author gave preference to a complex, cross-genre approach.This is most suitable for tackling questions of ethnic history because it makes it possible to draw on conclusions provided by allied disciplines.In this way, new knowledge emerges.Such a methodology also helps to get away from stagnated views.The materials subjected to analytical examination were primary sources (the authors of al-Kūfī, a -abarī, al-Beladsori/al-Balā urī, Łewond (Leontius), Zacharias Rhetor, Xenophon, and Apollonius of Rhodes), as well as the works of prominent 20 th -and 21 st -century scholars (A.V. Golovnev, M.S. Gadjiev, A.S. Kassian, M.L. Khachikian, and A.K. Shahinyan).Analysis.Attention is chiefly devoted to an examination of historical and geographical facts, ethnographic matters, and linguistic analogies.The paper includes a series of lexical correspondences between Chuvash and Armenian.For example, Armenian dzor/tsor and Chuvash çyr mean "bank, steep slope"; kh"yar and khăyar mean "cucumber."There are instances when Chuvash and Armenian homophones have similar meanings.Kin refers to "daughter-in-law" in Chuvash and "wife, woman, lady" in Armenian.Results.The author's previous publications as well as the present paper make it possible to conclude that the ethnonym of the Chuvash has undergone a lengthy course of transformation through history in the form of Savir (Saspir/Sapir, Savar, Sabir)  Suvar (Suvas, Suvan)  Suvash (Săvaš)  T'šăvaš.In the 9 th to the 1 st centuries BC, the Saspirs occupied a territory from Media to Colchis, between the Medes and the Colchians, with the former to the south and the latter to the north by the River Phasis, i.e., the territory of the Armenian Highlands.