Kurbatov O. A. (2021). Legenda o berendejke. Istoriko-lingvisticheskaja zametka [The Legend of “berendeika”. Historical and linguistic note]. Istoricheskoe oruzhievedenie [Weapons History Journal], № 11, pp. 150 — 170.
Abstract: The article is dedicated to simultaneous existence of two terms for a bandelier* in Russian historiography. One of them is bandeler which has occurred in documents since 1631 with a large number of variant readings. The word bandeler itself was borrowed unchanged from Western European military terminology alongside with other terms for items of equipment not yet known in Russia.
The second term is berendeika which first occurred in the Military Dictionary by General Tuchkov S.A. in 1818. Tuchkov substituted the term bandeler with berendeika based on erroneous etymology. However, the final establishment of the word berendeika in military historical and reference literature due to its use in “Historical description of the clothes and weapons of Russian troops, with illustrations” (1841) by Viskovatov A.V.
According to V.I. Dal’s dictionary, the term derives from the name of Berendeevo village which is known for chiseled and carved wooden toys, knobs and other small trinkets called berendeika among the people.
The author concludes that the term berendeika which is used as an alternative to bandeler in several museum catalogues is historiographical: it does not occur in documents of XVII – XVIII centuries and was unknown to compilers of first Russian lexicons. The term first occurs in the Military Dictionary in 1818. The grounds which prompted Tuchkov to use it were obviously romantic: he attempted to replace foreign words with those from the native language.
*Bandelier is a leather sling with tools for a fast load of a musket (a set of small cylindrical containers with single-shot portions of gunpowder) and some space for storing gun cleaning tools.
Keywords: bandelier, berendeika.