Erzyan Mastor (Purgaz's Rus, Purgaz's volost), literally meaning "Land of the Erzya" — a medieval state formation on the territory of Nizhny Novgorod Region, which preceded the The Principality of Nizhny Novgorod. The most significant tribal confederation of the Mordva.
Erzyan Mastor controlled a significant portion of the trade route for goods moving from the south, east, and northeast along the rivers Volga), Oka, Tsna, and The Sura River, which flowed through its territory. The Don connected the Land of the Erzya with the southwest.
It possessed rich forests, rivers, and fertile lands.
Nature of the phenomenon
Erzyan Mastor is usually referred to "allegorically" — as "Purgaz's volost" or "Purgaz's Rus," after the name of the last Inyazor of the Erzya people — the great ruler of Erzyan Mastor, Purgaz, who heroically laid down his life in the struggle for the independence of his country and people.
Historical legacy
The Saransk scholar N.F. Mokshin writes: "Purgaz's Rus ('Purgaz's volost') — a territory (?) in the late 12th and early 13th centuries with a population subject to the Mordva (Erzya) prince Purgaz.
The center of Purgaz's Rus has not been established.
It has been suggested that it may have been Purgasovo Gorodishche."
Colonization
Erzya patriots hold that cultural colonization began at the moment of the military conquest of Erzyan Mastor.
The traditional Erzya faith in the Creator Ineshkipaz was replaced by faith in Jesus Christ. Prayer to Ineshkipaz was forbidden. Erzya places of worship (keremets, maars, kalmazyr) were destroyed, and burial according to Erzya customs was prohibited.
The Erzya rite of lemdyamo — name-giving — was replaced by Orthodox baptism; the rite of chiyamo — the wedding — was replaced by Orthodox matrimony; the rite of layshema — lamentation — was replaced by the funeral service. Erzya festivals — Rasken Ozks, Velen Ozks, Inechi, Kizen veshnema, Tuvonsyay, and others — were banned and replaced by Easter, Epiphany, Trinity, Ascension, and so on. The Erzya Ozati and Ozavy were replaced by Orthodox priests.
On Erzya graves, instead of house-shaped markers with ancestral buycheshks-signs, a cross came to be placed. The arrangement of bodies in graves also changed.
Causes of the conflict between Slavs and the Erzya
The roots of the conflict lie in different types of land use. The economy of the Erzya tribes did not disturb the natural landscape of the land — the broad-leaved forests in the quadrant Ryazan – Zhiguli – Kazan – The Dyatlov Mountains. The Slavic tribes, having already come under pressure from the steppe peoples in the pre-Christian period, began pushing into Ugro-Finnic territory through slash-and-burn agriculture. The lands "cleared" of forest (and simultaneously of the local population), fertilized by ash, produced enormous harvests in the first few years, leading to rapid population growth; once yields declined, the settlers moved further on, sending the "firebird" ahead of them. The river Oka became a natural barrier to this colonization. The Erzya patriotic tradition traces the beginning of the conflict to the burning of the city of Ryazan (Erzyan, later known as "Old Ryazan"), and attributes further resistance to the shift of the Erzya proto-state northeastward along the right bank of the Oka and the founding of a new capital — Arzamas (Erzya-mas).
Did Purgaz's Rus exist?
The Laurentian Chronicle records that the Murom prince Yuri Davydovich entered the Mordva land, Purgaz's volost, burned the grain, trampled the crops, slaughtered the livestock, and sent the captives back. The Mordva fled into their forests and strongholds; those who had not fled were killed by Gyurgi's young warriors who overtook them… and further in the same source: …The Mordva came with Purgaz to Novgorod and were repelled by the people of Novgorod; they set fire to the convent of the Holy Mother of God and to a church that stood outside the city walls; and that same day they departed, taking away many of their dead. In that same year, Puresh's son, together with the Polovtsians, defeated Purgaz, killed all the Mordva and Purgaz's Rus, and Purgaz barely escaped with a small detachment.
It is on this passage that Erzya patriots most often build their argument, seeking to prove that the Erzya people had reached a statehood — rather than a primitive tribal — stage of development by the time colonization began, as if the term "Rus" directly denoted a state. But is this actually the case?
The arguments of those who wish to read the term "Rus" as meaning "state" derive ultimately from the quasi-historical writings of Lomonosov, who was determined at all costs to prove that the state arose spontaneously in Kievan Rus — without the participation of the Varangians. For this reason, in his account "Rus" derives from the river Ros to the south of Kyiv. It follows, Lomonosov argues, that this was an autochthonous state, since its name is of local origin.
The opposing view is held by supporters of the Norman theory of the origin of the Novgorod and later the Kievan state. In Finnish, "ruotsi" originally denoted the crew of a Viking warship and later came to mean "Sweden." In East Slavic, "ruotsi" became "rus" in the same way that "suomi" became "sum." This makes it clear what "the princely rus" — and in particular "Purgaz's rus," which was entirely wiped out by the Mokshas (led by Puresh's son) together with the Polovtsians — actually was: a princely retinue, mercenaries. In other words, the passage "killed all the Mordva and Purgaz's rus" refers, of course, not to the annihilation of the Erzya people and their state, but to the severe military defeat of the local levies and the hired soldiers of the inyazor (ruler) Purgaz.
At the same time, it must be noted that the fact that the term "rus" does not mean "state" does not automatically imply that an Erzya state as such did not exist. The contrary is suggested by the term "Purgaz's volost" — an evident administrative-territorial unit. The term "volost" is used by the chroniclers to diminish their opponent, placing the ruler Purgaz on the same level as the boyars. In the text of the tale of the battle on the Pyana, Mordva leaders of clearly lower rank than Purgaz are referred to as "accursed Mordva princes." There, the Rurikids, having suffered defeat at the hands of a Siberian-Mordva army, conversely somewhat inflate the status of their opponents in order to justify their own defeat by the enemy's might. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between — Purgaz was certainly not a tsar with princes beneath him, but neither was he a boyar. In all likelihood, Erzyan Mastor at the time of the events described stood on a par with a grand principality or a large, influential principality.
Interesting Facts
- On domestic maps, not a single Erzya city or settlement is marked on the territory of Erzyan Mastor — as if it were a desert or an empty forest. As a rule, the borders of Russian principalities and Volga Bulgaria are shown, while the substantial territory between them, supposedly empty, is labeled simply with Mordva". Russian historiography has largely suppressed the history of the war against Erzyan Mastor.
- A representative of the Erzya people (archive) Nikon was made Patriarch of All Russia.