The article describes what a kuren is, what meanings this word has and some of its synonyms.
Language
In any language that is alive (people speak it) and develops, over time, words appear that have several meanings at once. As a rule, they are all quite old, although there are exceptions. For example, the word "language" means both oral speech, and an organ in a person's mouth, and some kind of elongated terrain or platform, and even a prisoner of war who can provide valuable information.
One of these ambiguous words is "chicken".
So what is a chicken, what does it mean and what does it mean? This is what we will understand in this article.
Definition
The word "kuren" comes from the word "to smoke" (that is, to heat in a dwelling, to heat it, and then smoke smokes in it). So until relatively recently, by historical standards, the dwellings of Russian Cossacks were called. However, this word was also common in the southern part of Ukraine. But first things first.
Initially, the word "kuren" was used to designate a special defensive structure and a place where Russian Cossacks lived. True, the Ukrainian Cossacks used it in a similar way. The first settlements of the Cossacksbuilt in floodplains (thickets of reeds and sedges near the river), their walls were often built of woven reeds or vines, the roof was also made of a similar material, in the center of which a hole was left for smoke to escape from the hearth. But during the flood period, rivers often flooded such dwellings, and over time they began to be built on stilts.
This characteristic feature can be traced in the modern dwelling of the Cossacks. Usually, a Cossack kuren is made two-story, and the first floor is built either on piles or from stone.
On the first floor, they usually kept supplies, tools, and lived on the second. (Now we have a general idea of what a kuren is.) This floor also served as a refrigerator: it had no windows, but ventilation holes were cut into the walls.
Ukrainian meaning
Kuren in the period from the 16th to the 18th century, the Ukrainian Cossacks called the military-administrative unit of the Zaporozhian Sich. Also, this term was used in the units of the Black Sea Cossack army. And during the Great Patriotic War, Ukrainian nationalists called their detachments numbering several hundred fighters that way.
The Cossacks also used this word to refer to a village with about 100 houses.
Most likely, these names of the unit of the Cossacks of the times of the Zaporozhian Sich were received because initially, in their first years, the Cossacks lived in long huts made of vines, reeds and twigs, and in the Little Russian dialect this word means "hut". So now we have expanded our understanding of whatsuch a chicken.
Over time, instead of flimsy huts, strong huts were built, and subsequently they adopted this name. Also, all of them were named in memory of the places from which the first Zaporozhian Cossacks who founded them were from. And each kuren had its own subsidiary farm, which provided the Cossacks attached to it with provisions. At the head of the kuren was his ataman. He was elected exclusively at the Cossack Council, where everyone had the same voting rights.
Kuren: synonyms
Synonyms for this word are "hut", "camp", "settlement", "strengthening". Pomors also called so a small, very dilapidated hut and a strong snowstorm. And in some regions of Russia, this word was used to refer to the space in the forest, where they cut down trees and burned them to turn them into charcoal. True, in our time it is outdated and is no longer used. There is a word, by the way, in the Mongolian language, and denotes a nomadic settlement, which consists of many yurts.
Well, here we figured out what a chicken is and what multiple meanings this word has.
