page_title: Bolokhovians
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Bolokhovians / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: a map of a historical region, between Nistru and Nipru rivers, Northern Black Sea.
context_page_description: Bolokhovians, Bolokhoveni, also Bolokhovens, were a 13th-century ethnic group that resided in the vicinity of the Rus' principalities of Halych, Volhynia and Kiev, in the territory known as the "Bolokhovian land" centered at the city of Bolokhov or Bolokhovo. Their ethnic identity is uncertain; although Romanian scholars, basing on their ethnonym identify them as Romanians, archeological evidence and the Hypatian Chronicle suggest that they were a Slavic people. Their princes, or knyazes, were in constant conflict with Daniel of Galicia, Prince of Halych and Volhynia, between 1231 and 1257. After the Mongols sacked Kiev in 1240, the Bolokhovians supplied them with troops, but the Bolokhovian princes fled to Poland. The Bolokhovians disappeared after Daniel defeated them in 1257.
context_section_description: Romanian scholars suggest that the name "Bolokhoveni" may have derived from Voloch, the East Slavic term for Romanians, or Vlachs. If this theory is correct, the Bolokhoveni were Romanians living in the western regions of Kievan Rus'. However this theory is contradicted by archaeological evidence, which indicates that the Bolokhovian material culture resembled that of its contemporaries in the western parts of Kievan Rus'. Furthermore, it is documented that the Bolokhovian princes had family ties with boyars of the Principality of Halych.
  The ethnonym seems to be connected to the name Bolokhovo, an early medieval settlement that the Hypatian Chronicle – an accurate source of the history of Kievan Rus' – mentioned around 1150. According to historian Victor Spinei, this town may have been the same town as Borokhov, which was recorded by the same chronicle in 1172. Alternatively, Spinei states, Bolokhovo may be the same town as Bolechow (now Bolekhiv, Ukraine), which was mentioned as the "town called 'the Vlachs'" in a Polish charter from 1472.
caption: The "land of Bolokhoveni", according to Alexandru V. Boldur.[1]
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