Krajina (pronounced[krâjina]) is a
Slavictoponym, meaning '
country' or '
march'. The term is related to kraj or krai, originally meanings land, country or edge[1] and today denoting a region or province, usually remote from urban centers.
Etymology
The
Serbo-Croatian word krajina derives from
Proto-Slavic *krajina, derived from *krajь, related to *krojiti 'to cut';[1][2] the original meaning of krajina thus seems to have been 'place at an edge, fringe, borderland', as reflected in the meanings of
Church Slavonicкраина, kraina.[2]
In
Old East Slavic: Ѹкраина/Ꙋкраина, romanized: Oukraina [uˈkrɑjinɑ]) appears in the Hypatian Codex of c. 1425 under the year 1187 in reference to a part of the territory of
Kyivan Rus',[3] meaning specifically region or land itself rather than borderland.
The
name of Ukraine has a similar linguistic origin (it is a combination of two words У — U which means In and країна — kraina which literally means country or land in
Ukrainian). And here it goes "
Ukraine", in
UkrainianУкраїна. Compare Deutschland is a combination of two words Deutsch and land.
In some
South Slavic languages, including Serbo-Croatian and
Slovene, the word krajina or its cognate still refers primarily to a
border,
fringe, or
borderland of a country (sometimes with an established military defense), and secondarily to a region, area, or landscape.[2][4] Krajina is also a surname, mostly among South Slavic language speakers. The word kraj can today mean an end, extremity, region, land or area.
Neretvanska krajina, historical area west of the river
Neretva and southwest of
Imotski;[5] including a part of the peri-littoral area near
Makarska in Croatia is called Krajina;
Omiška krajina, region in the hinterland of
Omiš, in
Zagora in southern Croatia, west of Cetinska krajina;
SAO Kninska Krajina, used by some since the
Yugoslav Wars to signify two regions,
Knin and its surroundings, and to a larger extent Krajina proper (the main portion of the Republic of Serb Krajina).
^Group of authors (1969). "Кра̏јина". Речник српскохрватскога књижевног језика, vol. 3 (in Serbo-Croatian). Novi Sad/Zagreb: Matica srpska/Matica hrvatska. p. 30.
Karlo Jurišić, Lepantska pobjeda i makarska Krajina, Adriatica maritima, sv. I, (Lepantska bitka, Udio hrvatskih pomoraca u Lepantskoj bitki 1571. godine), Institut JAZU u Zadru, Zadar, 1974., str. 217., 222., (reference from
Morsko prase)