Vampires

[R. M. Cleminson]

Lewis B. Sckolnick wrote:

> The word Upir as a term for vampire is found for the first time in 
> written form in 1047 in a letter to a Novgorodian prince referring to 
> him as 'Upir Lichyj' (Wicked Vampire in Old Russian).

In the first place, the word is found not in a letter, but in the colophon of a book (the Prophets with Commentary). Although the colophon gives the date 1047, it is preserved only in a sixteenth-century copy (Troicko-Sergiva Lavra, MS 89, f.262).

In the second place, it is not the prince (Vladimir Jaroslavič, prince of Novgorod), who is referred to but the scribe himself: азъ попъ оупирь лихыи.

In the third place, it is most unlikely that this has anything to do with vampires.  It is improbable that anyone (least of all a priest) would apply this word to himself -- if indeed we are dealing with the same word.  The Russian form is упырь (and John Dingley has just pointed out the parallel with нетопырь); I have not been able to discover any reference to a Russian упирь that clearly refers to anything but TSL MS 89.  Moreover, the late Professor Anders Sjöberg long ago demonstrated that the оупирь of the colophon is in all probability the Scandinavian name Öpir (see his article in Scando-Slavica 28 (1982), pp.109-124, and a reply to criticism on pp.151-2 of vol.31 of the same journal).  Even if one does not accept his identification of оупирь лихыи with a particular individual, a Scandinavian name (particularly in mid-eleventh-century Novgorod) is far more plausible in this context than any form of нечисть.
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