Talk:Mamayev Kurgan
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A Kurgan is often an artificial hill, raised as a burial mound. Is this a true kurgan, or does the word mean a natural hill as well? Wetman 20:32, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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It is true that usually a Kurgan is an artificial burial mound. This hill is however natural, named after Mamay as he is believed to have had a stronghold on that height in the 14th century. --Kolt 20:46, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Katzner's dictionary translates Russian курган simply as "burial mound". It certainly doesn't have any other sense in English that I am aware of. I suspect that the site is called kurgan to evoke the idea of a grave although it is not technically one. —Tkinias 00:50, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Although the hill became a mass grave during the battle of Stalingrad, it was called Kurgan already before that. --Kolt 08:58, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Interesting. Is this a common (or at least not unique) use of kurgan in that part of Russia? Or was it just an "honorary" kurgan for Mamai? —Tkinias 03:13, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps the hill just looked artificial in the otherwise rather flat landscape of the lower Volga. Furthermore, "kurgan" is a word of Turk origin, and it probably just sounded better in combination with the Tatar name Mamay. But anyway, Mamay himself is definitely not buried there, it is just assumed that he had a camp, possibly a guarded watch post on that hill. There are, by the way, theories stating that the hill is not named after the famous Khan at all. One theory states that "Mamay" simply means "hill" in the Turk language; according to another theory, "Mamay" is an old Russian term for Mongol-Tatars in general, so that the hill's name would actually mean "Tatars' Hill." --Kolt 10:27, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What puzzles me is, the name actually translates to "tumulus of Mamays" (plural). "Tumulus of Mamay" would be "mamaya kurgan" (or more typically "kurgan mamaya"). Based strictly on that I would lean toward an origin based on a generic name rather than that of a specific person. On the other hand, I'm not a native RUssian speaker so I may be missing something. The Russian article states the name came from the Khan Mamay. Gr8white (talk) 20:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)