Mordva (Mordovians), self-designations Moksha, Erzya, Shoksha, Karatai, Teryukhane — an exoethnonym applied to two related Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga-Permic subgroup, the Moksha and the Erzya, living in the Russian Federation.
A people numbering 1,150,000. Principal countries of settlement: the Russian Federation — 1,073,000, including Mordovia — 313,000.
Nature of the phenomenon
In numerical terms, at the beginning of the 20th century the Erzya outnumbered the Moksha by approximately three to one. Today it is difficult to determine the precise ratio from census data, since members of both sub-ethnic groups identify primarily as Mordva. However, Mordovian scholars believe the ratio has remained the same. Hungarian scholars, meanwhile, have concluded that as a result of Russification and internationalization, by the year 3400 the Mordva — along with other Finno-Ugric ethnic groups — will have disappeared entirely.
Mordva: "Erzya" + "Moksha"
Erzya and the Moksha — or erzya and moksha, as they call themselves — are two neighboring Finno-Ugric peoples who have never formed a single nation. "Mordva" is a collective name assigned to these two peoples by the Russians: perhaps it was simply more convenient for recording and administering the Volga Finno-Ugric populations; or perhaps the Orthodox monks and priests — who performed the registering and sociological function in medieval Russia — simply did not know that these were not one people but two.
In any case, relations between the Erzya and the Moksha can hardly be described as entirely unclouded. They are sharpened by the fact that the Moksha are objectively the more numerous people and are settled, moreover, along the Sura River, where the capital of Mordovia, Saransk, is also located. Historically, therefore, Mordovia has indeed turned out to be more of a Moksha autonomy than an Erzya one.
In their address to Katrin Saks, a PACE deputy from Estonia, a group of Erzya activists cites a number of facts concerning the oppression of the Erzya by Russians and by the Moksha. The authors of the petition draw attention to the situation in the education system: only a minority of schools and kindergartens teach the Erzya language, while Moksha also receives insufficient attention. Almost everywhere, native-language lessons are optional, which the activists view as evidence of attempts to forcibly Russify both peoples.
"Immeasurable damage to the future of the Erzya people is done by the concealment of their centuries-old history," the authors of the address continue. "To this day, no proper, truthful school history textbook for the Erzya and Moksha peoples has been created. The existing books — 'Homeland Studies' (collective authorship) and 'The World of History' (V. Yurchenkov) — do not stand up to scrutiny."
The main reason for the declining prestige of the Erzya language is its lack of practical use and the absence of any state policy for preserving the cultures of national minorities, Erzya intellectuals conclude. All services in Mordovia operate in Russian; administrative record-keeping in the native languages (which are fully literary) is not conducted — this is the primary symbol of the inequality of the Federation's peoples, in the view of Erzya activists.
The Erzya are also dissatisfied with certain other aspects of life in the republic: only 4–5 publications exist in the Erzya language in Mordovia, television broadcasts in Erzya are extremely brief (3.5 hours per week), and publishers in Mordovia release only a handful of book titles in the republic's native languages. All of this, in the view of the national intelligentsia, threatens the imminent demise of the people as an identity — and it is partly as a last desperate attempt at self-defense that talk of their own autonomy has arisen.
Similar processes can be observed in other republics of Russia. The fact is that the national republics, as one of the artifacts of Leninist — and in practice, Stalinist — nationality policy, united neighboring peoples who were often quite hostile to one another. Today this administrative arrangement is accompanied by squabbling between the two "republic-forming" ethnic groups. For instance, elders of Balkar clans spent the entire summer protesting in Moscow against the seizure of full power in Kabardino-Balkaria by the Kabardians.
It is also symptomatic that citizens of the Russian Federation turn to their national identity in situations where there is simply nothing else they can do. The Erzya attempt is a kind of last resort — the hope of people that the corrupt state structure surrounding them will collapse if they can achieve national autonomy.
These hopes are not groundless. At least two examples of a good life built on the basis of national identity exist within the Russian Federation. One is Tatarstan, where living standards are far above the Russian average and have come close to European levels, and the other is Chechnya, which cannot boast a high standard of living but does pride itself on the absolute protection of its residents from Russian law.
Another question is whether the relatively few Erzya will be able to achieve the same degree of autonomy as the Tatars and the Chechens. But it is important to try. It is quite possible that genuine federalism will ultimately bring Russia far more benefit than harm.
September 8, 2010, "Svobodnaya Pressa," Anton Razmakhnin
Descriptions of the Mordvins
|
"... for the most part they are a large, tall people, evidently well-fed, healthy, with open and clear faces, bold gazes, and free, easy movements" N. Ogloblin, "In the Mordovian Land" (1899)
|
|
Elements of Zoroastrian religion (Persian fire-worshippers) in Mordovian folk religion
The name "Mordva" unites two closely related Finno-Ugric peoples — the Moksha and the Erzya. Most Mordva today are Orthodox Christians; however, some legends about their traditional religion have survived and allow its general outlines to be reconstructed.
It is known that the ancestors of the Finno-Ugric peoples in ancient times occupied vast territories stretching from the forest regions of the Volga Region and the Kama basin to the Urals, where they came into contact with Iranians — which is why the Mordovian lexicon contains a distinct layer of early and later Iranian loanwords.
Alongside the most ancient Iranian borrowings in the Mordovian languages, lexical borrowings from Iranian linguistic sources of a later period are also found: Erzya vaz, Moksha vaza — Yaghnobi wása "calf," Ossetic wæs; Erzya ŕiśme "chain," Moksha ŕiśmε "rope" — cf. Ossetic rætæn "thick rope," New Persian resen, rasan "rope"; Erzya purtsos, Moksha purts "pig" — cf. Khotanese Saka pā'sa "pig," Kurdish purs, and so on.
All of this suggests connections between the ancestors of the Mordva and the Iranians. On the basis of available evidence, it can be assumed that certain features of the traditional Mordovian religion were shaped under the influence of the teachings of Zarathustra.
As is well known, the foundation of Zarathustra's teaching is the belief in the existence of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Ahura Mazda is the Creator of the World, the source of Good and Light, of Order and Truth; Ahriman is the Destroyer of the World, the source of Evil, Darkness, Cold, and Corruption. The victory of Good in the world can be achieved through good thoughts, words, and deeds, and by venerating the elements — Air, Water, Earth, and above all Fire — as a symbol of the life-force that the Creator breathed into the Universe.
After death, the soul of a person remains near the body for three days and then undergoes judgment on the Chinvat Bridge above a river of fire.
According to Zoroastrian tradition, a corpse is ritually impure and possesses a defiling power spread by the daeva Nasu; therefore it cannot be burned, drowned, or buried in the earth, as this would cause the defilement of the elements. For this reason, Zoroastrians observed special funerary rites involving the exposure of corpses in enclosed or open burial structures. Among the eastern Iranians, the tradition of constructing enclosed structures for the dead was observed: the Alans built "houses of the dead" for this purpose, the Sogdians and Khwarezmians built ossuaries and vaults.
Comparing the teachings of Zarathustra with the folk beliefs of the Mordva, one can find similarities between them.
According to the traditional Mordovian religion, the entire visible and invisible world was created by a single God. The Erzya called him Cham-Pas ("Supreme God"), the Moksha called him Shkay ("Creator"). He has neither beginning nor end; he cannot be seen, and from him comes only good. The Creator is opposed by Shaitan, who gave rise to evil spirits and constantly tries to corrupt every creation of God. The name of this negative entity came to the Mordva from Islam.
Among the animals created by Cham-Pas, the dog deserves special mention: it was considered a benevolent animal. A similar motif appears in the Good Faith (Zoroastrianism), where the dog is regarded as one of the creations of Ahura Mazda.
To perform prayers, several respected elders — ate-poksh-tey ("good people") — were chosen as priests. The priests were distinguished by special white robes, as were the servants of Ahura Mazda. The Pravt ("head") — the senior officiant at prayer — would light a fire during the ritual and kindle the sacred shtatol ("wax candle").
The Mordva, like the Iranian Zoroastrians, buried the deceased three days after death. It was believed that during the first three days the soul of the departed remained nearby.
Shortly after death, the body of the deceased was washed. For this purpose, special people were invited — ekshilitsyat (Erzya), eshelyaykht (Moksha) — "washers." Washers were usually elderly people. Young people were not supposed to perform this task, due to the danger of defilement through contact with death. All of these beliefs are similar to those concerning the Zoroastrian servants of the dead — nasasalars.
There is reason to believe that the Mordva once practiced above-ground burial. A reference to this is found in the tale "Dubolgo Pichay." Archival sources record that the Mordva would leave the deceased in a "house of the dead" — a small rectangular log structure. Such burials are still found in some Mordovian settlements. Until recently, aerial burial was also practiced among the Mordva. For example, among the Erzya of the villages of Sabayevo and Davydovo in the Kochkurovsky District of Mordovia, the deceased in their coffins were hung from trees.
The funerary rites of the Mordva clearly reflect a motif of avoiding contact with death, similar to the Zoroastrian one. Wood chips and offcuts from the coffin, the vessels used to wash the deceased, the sweepings cleared from the izba (traditional wooden house) after the removal of the body — all of this was considered ritually impure and was therefore carried to a special place. The earth from a grave was also considered dangerous. Those who had attended the funeral and returned from the cemetery carefully cleaned the earth from their footwear. Upon returning from the cemetery, participants in the funeral washed their hands on the porch, without entering the house, and then visited the bathhouse. There was also a widespread belief in the purifying power of fire. For instance, in the village of Staraya Shentala in the Shentalinsky District of Samara Region, a bonfire was lit in the yard during the memorial feast to cleanse those present from contact with death.
From the 16th century onward, Orthodoxy began to spread among the Mordva. The adherents of the traditional religion never managed to form a centralized religious system or sacred texts — without which survival under external pressure from other religions is impossible to any significant degree. The traditional religion gradually faded from memory. And although individual enthusiasts today attempt to revive it, the absence of any written record of the teaching prevents its full restoration.
Unlike the folk religion — a strictly ethnic cult — the teaching of Asho Zarathustra, while preaching similar values, succeeded in forming a religious system and has survived for more than 3,700 years even in a hostile environment, becoming a religion open to anyone who wishes to embrace it.
Prof. V. A. Yurchyonkov on the Mordovian people
"Literaturnaya Rossiya," No. 13, 30.03.2007. A HURRICANE ON ALL ROADS
In recent years, many people have not been able to shake the feeling that life is changing. It is changing quickly and inexorably. What is more, the wheel of change is speeding up. And yet there is still something that connects the epochs and crosses historical fates. Maximilian Voloshin once wrote:
|
|
What changed? The signs and the banners. The same hurricane on all roads: |
|
The poet-thinker is right to discern behind the changing of signs an essence that does not change. Whether this is good or bad is another question, but the unchanging core constitutes the foundation of the history of Russian civilization.
Russia is often called an empire, and this is frequently treated as a dark chapter in history. Recall Lenin's "prison of nations" or Reagan's "evil empire." Not long ago, an anonymous author in a small newspaper published in Saransk wrote: "Russia, which for decades championed the breaking of colonial chains, continues to be a typical colonial power. It plunders not only the material but also the spiritual wealth of the non-Russian peoples under its rule." The Tatar writer Aydar Khalim — note that he does not conceal his name — calls Russia a beast whose belly should be sliced open and its foul innards let out. Such examples are beyond counting, but fortunately this is not the view of the majority.
There are no peoples on earth who do not take pride in their imperial past and present. There is something captivating about empire. This is probably especially true of Russia and the peoples who live within it. It is no coincidence that the outstanding Russian historian and political thinker Ivan Ilyin wrote: "Russia is vast, populous, and multi-tribal, multi-confessional and vast in space. Many waters flow through it and many streams run. It has never been a single-component, simple popular mass, and it will not be. And it was and will be an EMPIRE, a unity in multiplicity, a state of spatial and everyday differentiation and, at the same time, of organic and spiritual unity. It will continue to be built not on fear but on love, not on class arbitrariness but on law and justice, not on totalitarianism but on freedom."
And here the problem of the imperial people arises. The imperial type of ethnos is formed historically, over the course of centuries. Such characteristics have been noted among Russians, Ukrainians, and Tatars. Most other peoples were regarded as the led. Nikolai Danilevsky wrote that they constitute the backdrop of historical development. This thesis was extended to the Mordva, who are among the autochthonous inhabitants of central Russia. I venture to disagree with the 19th-century thinker and offer a number of observations on this point, which may be read both as conclusions from the material already presented and as theses for understanding what follows.
The second half of the 16th century and the 17th century were marked by the economic development of lands and the incorporation of the Mordovian region into the political and social structure of the Russian estate-representative monarchy. During this period, the imperial "absorption" of lands proceeded through the creation of standardized structures (administrative-territorial divisions, specialized institutional organization at various levels of governance and justice, and so on), intensive agricultural and industrial colonization, and economic and sociocultural modernization. As a result, the Mordovian region became fully integrated into the territorial structure of the future imperial center, and the same policies were applied to it as to other provinces of the metropolis. Therefore, strictly speaking, the center's attitude toward the Mordva cannot be called imperial.
The relatively painless and chronologically early process of incorporating the Mordva into the Russian state determined the ethnos's participation in the genesis of the empire as such, as well as the absence of sharp conflict between ethnic and all-state consciousness. Initially, the building of empire was identical to the process of absorbing borderland territories and colonizing them — a process in which Mordovian peasants took part for a variety of reasons (agrarian overpopulation, flight from the encroaching feudal order, Russian landlord colonization, Christianization, and so on). Yet despite their predominantly subjective character, Mordovian settlers objectively contributed, alongside Russians, to the formation of the imperial system and the absorption of borderland territories. They actively participated in Russian "frontier" life, contributing their share to the constructive aspects of Russian colonization (the birth of a new social identity, new ethnic relations, new landscapes, regional economies, and material culture).
In the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, the Mordva settled the Penza-Saratov region. They then moved into even more southerly territories.
These migrations led to the formation of ethnically mixed settlement patterns for the Mordva both within and outside their ethnic territory. Mordovian villages were often situated alongside Russian ones, and in some places alongside Tatar, Chuvash, and Bashkir ones. Frequently they had a mixed population. For instance, the Mordva of Samara Governorate in the 1860s lived in 278 settlements, of which 144 were considered purely Mordovian, 108 had a Mordovian-Russian population, and the remaining 26 were inhabited alongside the Mordva by Tatars, Bashkirs, Russians, and Chuvashs in varying proportions. In Kazan Governorate at the end of the 19th century, in the territory of three districts (Spassky, Tetyushsky, Chistopolsky), the Mordva lived in 23 villages, only 9 of which were purely Mordovian.
The dispersed and ethnically mixed character of Mordovian settlement allows the Mordva to be characterized as a Russian people from a geopolitical standpoint. All the more so because in Siberia, the Far East, and especially Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Mordovian settlers were perceived by the local population as people from the center of Russia, as ethnically Russian, as agents of central government policy — which in turn gave rise to corresponding elements of imperial consciousness.
The Mordovian people gradually and without great hardship adapted to the initially unfamiliar socioeconomic and political-ideological realities, creating for themselves conditions of more or less comfortable existence within the empire. Evidence of this comfort and of highly favorable conditions for survival can be seen in the rapid numerical growth of the Mordovian ethnos during the imperial period — one can speak of a demographic "explosion."
At the beginning of the 18th century (1719), the empire was home to 107,400 Mordva, representing 0.7 percent of the total population of the country. By 1914–1917, the figure had reached 1,187,900. In other words, over two centuries of existence within the empire, the Mordovian population increased elevenfold. The average annual growth throughout the entire 19th century was no lower than that of Russians and other peoples of the empire.
Favorable conditions of existence and rapid population growth allowed the ethnic structure of the Mordovian ethnos to take its definitive form — a structure described by Professor Nikolai Mokshin as binary, that is, dual, comprising two sub-ethnoses: the Moksha and the Erzya. Each sub-ethnos, while considering itself Mordovian, also possessed its own distinct self-consciousness and self-designation (sub-ethnonym). The recognition of the division of the Mordva into sub-ethnoses became established in Russian scholarly and public practice as early as the 18th century. As far back as 1762, Pyotr Rychkov wrote: "...the Mordva call themselves Mokshas... Some among them, however, are called Erzya and differ somewhat from the Mokshas in language." This was subsequently noted by the leaders of the Russian Academy of Sciences expedition of 1768–1774, Ivan Lepyokhin and Peter Simon Pallas. In the end, though, the important thing is not the fact itself but that they reflected yet another crucial tendency — the tendency of the sub-ethnoses toward expansion.
In our view, the Mordva should be characterized as a pulsating ethnos. The point is that throughout history, the external and internal conditions of Mordovian existence changed repeatedly, and this led to periods when the sub-ethnoses (Moksha and Erzya) began to develop in relative independence. They received an impetus to unfold their internal forces and resources, and a tendency emerged for the sub-ethnoses to grow into fully distinct, if related, ethnoses. At other times, conversely, the sub-ethnoses found themselves in conditions requiring the pooling of efforts and consolidation in the face of danger. In such cases, a tendency emerged for the sub-ethnoses to contract and consolidate into a single ethnos — the Mordva. Internal aspirations and ambitions were sacrificed to common interests. In this way there arose the situation of a pulsating ethnic system, which alternately expands and contracts. During the imperial period, the tendency toward expansion of the sub-ethnoses apparently predominated, as evidenced by the settlement patterns and numerical growth of the Mordva.
The Mordovian ethnos was drawn into the orbit of the Russian state at a time when religion was one of the fundamental national-state criteria and Christianization was state policy. The central government created a clear legislative framework for the activities of the Orthodox Church and the status of other beliefs. Russian legislation provided for the recognition of the primacy and dominance of Orthodoxy. At the same time, the principle of freedom of religion for members of other confessions, including pagans, was acknowledged. The law defined the procedure for joining the dominant church, a system of privileges for the newly baptized, and measures for preventing "apostasy" from Orthodoxy. The official principles for the conversion of non-Orthodox peoples were "persuasion," "meekness," and "good examples," rather than force. The duty of drawing people to the Orthodox Church rested primarily with parish priests, who "in especially necessary cases" were to "enter into agreement with the civil authorities."
The Mordva's acceptance of Orthodoxy served as a kind of ideological justification and realization of their existence within the Russian state. Through the medium of religion, the Mordva finally entered the system that bound ethnoses together within a single spatial-temporal continuum, and the degree of comfort in their existence increased substantially. Moreover, the ethnos gained access to a great tradition that had selected the most important values from among a vast array.
The existence of the Mordovian ethnos within the Russian Empire was accompanied by assimilation processes that had begun as early as the 18th century. These processes were reinforced by the imperial policy of Russification, which, in official statements, aimed at integrating the Mordva into Russian society and turning them into full-fledged Russian citizens. The Minister of Public Education, Count D. A. Tolstoy, stated: "The ultimate goal of the education of all non-Russians living within the borders of our fatherland must undoubtedly be their Russification." A similar position was held by Nikolai Ilminsky, who wrote: "We take the Russian person as an ideal and strive to inculcate that ideal in non-Russians. The Russian ideal is above all Orthodoxy — which is why we insist so strongly on Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the fundamental, root, most essential element of Russian nationhood. Once a non-Russian has consciously and sincerely embraced Orthodoxy with both mind and heart, he has already become Russian." However, the arsenal of means available to the government for conducting the policy of Russification was virtually limited to the school alone. It was constrained by the general backwardness of the country, the inefficiency of the administrative system, and the tardiness of modernization processes.
Thus there emerged a distinctive intertwining of the natural demographic processes of assimilation and the imperial policy of Christianization and Russification. One must also bear in mind, however, that other factors were at work. For example, in their interaction, the Mordva and Russians were never alone with one another. In addition to Russian culture, Tatar culture also exerted an influence and in a number of cases served as a competitor and alternative model for emulation. This led to the emergence of a distinctive ethnographic group within the Mordovian ethnos — the Karatays. The first to report their existence was Ivan Lepyokhin, who recounted a conversation with Mordovian peasants: "They also told us of... a kind of Mordva called Karatays, of whom there are only three villages in Kazan District." Research in the 19th century showed that the Karatays had formed as a result of substantial Tatar influence and effective acculturation.
But it seems the time has come to draw conclusions — all the more so since the dry expository style has already thoroughly tired the engaged reader.
|
|
How the world changes! And how I myself change! I am known by one name alone, — |
|
These lines by Nikolai Zabolotsky convey the situation precisely, even though they were written on an entirely different occasion and in a different context. The Mordva changed along with the world, along with the Empire. The Mordva became an imperial people.
Interesting Facts
- 118 Heroes of the Soviet Union came from Mordovia.
- To appreciate the Mordva's participation in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, the following figures suffice. Of Mordovia's total population of 978,000, some 372,000 went to the front. Of these, 175,000 perished.