On the question of the origin of the Georgian name of the ancestors of the Nakh peoples “kists” and its connection with some ancient ethnonyms of the Near East and the Caucasus

The author examines the question of the origin of the ethnonym "kista", which is found in the sources of the XVI–XIX centuries as one of the names of the Vainakh tribes. According to a number of researchers, the term "kustk", found in the "Armenian geography", is also a designation for the ancestors of the Nakh peoples. The purpose of the article is based on the etymological analysis of the ethnonym "kists", as well as the analysis of historical and historiographical sources, to show the connection of this term with such ancient ethnonyms of the Near East as "Chaldeans (Chaldeans)", "Kassites" and "Kuti (Guti)", as well as with one of the names of Colchis (and the city in in this country) by ancient authors – "Kitea". In addition, the article attempts to link the ethnonym "Khaldi" with the name of one of the oldest cities in the world "Eridu". When studying this issue, the work used historical-genetic, historical-chronological, narrative, historical-comparative and comparative methods. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the ethnonym "kists" is the Georgian form of the name of the ancient tribes of Ubeyda, who were called kaɬdu by neighboring peoples (and its variants: kaśdāy/kaśdim/kaššū), and later mostly switched to Semitic. According to the author, the name "cysts" was borrowed by the ancestors of modern Georgians from the language of one of the Semitic peoples with whom they were neighbors in ancient times. At the same time, a comprehensive analysis of written sources and ethnographic material conducted by the author shows that the term "cysts" is associated only with a certain part of modern Ingush, Chechens and Batsbians. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time the comparison of the term "cysts" with the ancient ethnonym "Chaldeans (Chaldeans)" is carried out, conducting a thorough analysis of a large volume of historical and historiographical sources. The author also outlined promising areas for further research on this issue.