#erzya

[folkfashion]

Erzya woman, Russia, by Labti l Лаборатория традиционного искусства

[nonrussian]

In Memoriam Albert Razin Design: István Orosz, Budakeszi, Hungary

In 2019, philosopher Albert Razin set himself on fire in protest against the language policy of the Russian government and the oppression of Uralic languages such as Udmurt. The poster “In memoriam Albert Razin” commemorates this act and makes an unequivocal statement with its stark motif: illustrated tongues, torn out and nailed to a grey background, hanging above signs bearing the names of Uralic languages, blood splattered across the entire surface of the poster. This representation creates a powerful image of the conflict and calls uncompromisingly for this issue to be addressed.

[nevuot]

Image of Teryukhan goddess Ange-Patyai with her attributes: a flower, a bird and a dog, which is one of the incarnations of the goddess associated with the chthonic world, 13-15th century

[kalevalaandothers]

Эрзя и Мокша борьба с русскими и защита от нашествия монголо-татар

В русских летописях, датируемых 1103 годом, есть первые упоминания о мордве. И связаны они именно с войной между русами и этой народностью, в которой русы потерпели крах. Поражение связывают с именем основателя Муромо-Рязанского княжества Ярославом Святославовичем. Через некоторое время колонизацию мордвы возглавили Владимиро-Суздальские князья. В те времена мордва жила не только на своих нынешних территориях, но и на Волжских берегах, от устья Оки и до устья Суры. В 1221 году князь Юрий Всеволодович основал в самом центре территории тогдашних врагов Нижний Новгород, город, который рассматривался в качества форпоста для военных походов на Волжскую Булгарию и для завоевания союзной им мордвы.

Великие князья часто посылали войска на мордву с целью грабежей, разбоя, захвата рабов. Эти набеги не всегда были безответными. Мордовские князья пытались разрушить Нижний Новгород — оплот русского господства в Поволжье. Князь Пургас, который возглавил движение за независимость народа, подошел к Нижнему в 1229 году, сжег посад, но крепость взять не получилось. В ответ на это суздальская рать разгромила мордву и вы��гла их земли. Пургас был лидером ранних объединений эрзя, а в союзе с Русью выходили на поле боя некоторые лидеры мокшан. Этими межплеменными раздорами и пользовались русы при покорении мордвинов.

Одновременно с русскими на мордву нападали монголо-татары, которые уничтожили Волжскую Булгарию, давнюю союзницу мордвы. Разгром Волжской Булгарии открыл Орде дорогу к покорению Северо-восточной Руси — до неё было не очень далеко. Согласно историческим источникам, в русские земли проводили монголо-татар именно мордвины. Другие источники утверждают, что орды Батыя разорили и мордву, а князь Пургас погиб в битве зимой 1238-1239 г.

[chomametchi]

sometimes language families fuck me up a bit. like hi we used to sit around the same fire and we saw the same birds flying south and our children climbed in the same trees but then we parted ways and now we might not understand each other at all but maybe we can still recognize each others words for the moon.

[europeansculpture]

Stepan Erzya (1876-1959)

[russianreader]

You Don't Speak for Us

You Don’t Speak for Us

A Statement by the Free Nations League Regarding the Convocation of a Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation in Poland From open sources, we have learned about an undertaking to convene a Congress of People’s Deputies in the town of Jabłonna, Poland (November 4–7, 2022). The delegates to the Congress are parliamentary deputies of different years and different levels who were…

[craftsart]

Stepan Erzya is a man who did not break the axe

Stepan Erzya at work.

Stepan Erzya is a man who did not break the axe. Biography of the sculptor

Stepan Erzya is not like most sculptors who use stone or metal as a material. Erzya preferred to turn wood into sculpture. Stepan Erzya, a famous Russian sculptor, was born in 1876 in the village of Bayevo, then still in the Simbirsk province. His real name is Stepan Dmitrievich Nefedov, but he entered the history of art under the pseudonym “Erzya,” taken from the name of the Mordovian nation of the same name to which he belonged. One of the sculptor’s teachers was Konstantin Korovin (whose painting “Veranda” recently went at auction for 560 thousand euros). Read the full article

[thenuclearmallard]

League of Free Nations: Indigenous activists from Russia to fight for independence from Moscow

Kalmyks in Elista, Republic of Kalmykia. Source: Wikipedia  

2022/05/24 - 00:00 • INTERNATIONAL, RUSSIA, RUSSIAN AGGRESSION

Article by: Christine Chraibi

Indigenous activists from Russia, representing six national movements, have announced the creation of the League of Free Nations– a political platform for the decolonization of indigenous peoples in the Russian Federation and the acquisition of each nation’s sovereignty.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war on 24 February, 2022, many Russian citizens of indigenous nations have been wittingly or unwittingly drawn into the ranks of the Russian army. However, most are there because they are trying to escape the horrible poverty they experience at home and see the military as the best or in many cases only way to improve their sorry lives.

Indigenous peoples have been under the Russian yoke for centuries

Back in April 2021, Sires Bolaen (Syres Boliayen), Inyazor (Chief Elder) of the Erzya people, addressed the 20thsession of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, drawing attention to the Kremlin’s policy of purposeful neglect and discrimination of indigenous people.

Sires Bolaen (Syres Boliayen), Inyazor (Chief Elder) of the Erzya people. Photo: open source

“Within the past 30 years, the Ezrya have been turned from a nation of a few million people into a small ethnic group on the brink of complete extinction.

Our neighbours in the Idel-Ural region – Mokshans, Udmurts, Maris, Chuvashs, Bashkirs and even Tatarsalso find themselves in a very similar position. Native peoples in Russia are forbidden to have their own political parties, or even to study their mother tongue in secondary schools. Only dancing in national costumes is tolerated. Those who stand up for their rights are persecuted as extremists and become victims of punitive psychiatry.”

The leader of the Erzya national movement is known not only for his anti-imperialist stance, but also for leading a group of Erzya volunteers fighting with the Ukrainian army. He is the co-founder of the Free Idel-Ural movement,which advocates the withdrawal of six Volga republics (Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Mordovia, Mary El and Udmurtia) from the Russian Federation and the creation of the Idel-Ural confederation.

In May 2022, Sires Bolaen once again addressed the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous People during its 21stsession. He publicly condemned and blamed Moscow for turning federal republics and indigenous communities in Russia into socially backward and under-developed regions where local young people seek to escape poverty by joining the Russian Armed Forces.

North Ossetia, Buryatia, Tuva, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chukotka and Idel-Ural are the regions with the highest number of dead soldiers per thousand population, he says. 

Indigenous peoples gather in the League of Free Nations

In order to draw attention to the dire situation facing the indigenous people of Russia,Bashkir, Buryat, Ingush, Kalmyk, Erzya and Adyghe activistsdecided to set up a new organization – the League of Free Nations – and proceeded to issue a public announcement.

“These past few weeks, various media have been writing and talking more about the future of the Russian Federation after the Russian-Ukrainian war.

First of all, these discussions do not concern the organization of the federal subjects of the Russian Federation, but look more towards the paradigm ‘the future of the federal center is the future of Russia’.”reads the statement.

Vladimir Dovdanov, member of the Oirat-Kalmyk People’s Congressunderlines that his people have been experiencing colossal demographic catastrophes for centuries.

Vladimir Dovdanov, member of the Oirat-Kalmyk People’s Congress. Photo: Idel Realii (RFE/RL)

“…This is due to the fact that we’ve always been treated as a colony ruled by a tsar. Later [during the Soviet period-Ed], the different general secretaries used the Kalmyksas disposable objects. Today, as a result of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, major global political changes are taking place, and this gives us the opportunity to become a subject state, and no longer be treated as an object. I see that many other peoples in the Russian Federation have the same desire.”

In their manifesto, the indigenous leaders proclaim the principle of “presumption of subjectivity/agency”, according to which the regions do not need to appeal to anyone to grant them sovereignty in the event of the collapse of the current political regime in the Russian Federation,.

All regions, by definition, can achieve and declare full sovereignty and full independence from Moscow. Then, acting as free territories, they can decide their own future: whether they want to remain independent, unite with other regions/republics, or create a confederation of states.

Sires Bolaen, Inyazor (Chief Elder) of the Erzya peopleassures that the League of Free Nations is open to new members and invites all those who share anti-imperialist views and recognize the right of peoples to self-determination to join the organization.

Erzya women from Penza Oblast dressed in traditional clothes. Source: Wikipedia

Activists of the Buryat national movement Dorjo Dugarov and Rajana Dugar-De Ponte, who co-founded the platform, believe that uniting different national movements around the struggle for freedom and political subjectivity will have a cumulative effect – in particular, open new opportunities for the members to convey their ideas on different international platforms.

Activist Ruslan Gabbasov from Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan. Photo: Idel Realii

Activist Ruslan Gabbasov from Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, who fled Russia in December 2021 fearing for his safety and obtained political asylum in Lithuania, is a representative of the Bashkir national movement.

“I believe that all constituent subjects, as well as all indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation have the right to participate in the discussion on the future of Russian territories and to exercise their right to self-determination,”said Gabbasov .

 

The initiators of the League of Free Nations are as follows:

Vladimir Dovdanov, Batyr Bormongaev, Erenzen Doliaev(Kalmyks, Republic of Ralmykia)

Ruslan Gabbasov(Bashkir, Republic of Bashkortostan)

Sires Bolen and Vitaliy Romashkin(Erzyas, one of the peoples of the Republic of Mordovia)

Dorjo Dugarov, Rajana Dugar-De Ponte(Buryats, Republic of Buryatia)

Today, the members of the League of Free Nations call for the establishment of direct contacts with European, Turkish and Kazakh public organizations and political parties.

Administrative mao of the Russian Federation. Photo: World Atlas

Editor’s Note

Background

According to its constitution, the Russian Federation is divided into 85 federal subjects, 22 of which are republics. Republics are administrative divisions originally created as nation states to represent areas of non-Russian ethnicity. The indigenous ethnic group that gives its name to the republic is referred to as the titular nationality. However, due to decades of Russian migration, each nationality is not necessarily a majority of a republic’s population.

During his long years in power, Vladimir Putin has launched several centralization reforms which steadily eradicated all autonomy the republics had, with the exception of Chechnya. All bilateral agreements were abolished and in practice all power rests with the central federal government.

In fact, some experts believe that Russia has ceased to be a federation.

[iseo58]

Erzya young lady

[possessivesuffix]

I just remembered that, despite my username, I have not posted anything about possessive suffixes on here so far; to set right this oversight, here is a small sample of possessive suffix systems across the Uralic languages from reference literature I have around

Proto-Samic, from Sammallahti 1998, The Saami Languages: An Introduction

Proto-Samoyedic, from Mikola 2004, Studien zur Geschichte der samojedischen Sprachen

Late Proto-Permic, from Csúcs 2005, Die Rekonstruktion der permischen Grundsprache

Erzya and Moksha (in the nominative), from Bartens 1999, Mordvalaiskielten rakenne ja kehitys

[nonrussian]

Mordovians. Мордва. 1872

Mikhail Bukar (photographer) Михаил Букарь (фотограф)

[inkyami]

11, 30?

11  favourite native writer/poet? I wrote a bigger list of authors that I love, but I will add Grigory Fedoseev — soviet writer/ engineer-geodesist, (which I illustrate for a living, haha!) X. He travelled through entirety of Far East and wrote about his expeditions. Not only is he interesting, you can feel his deep love for people, nature and his work in every sentence. Books that warm your heart.

30  Do you have people of different nationalities in your family?  Almost all are Russian. Grandma is Mordvin, her father being Erzya and mother Moksha. Doesn’t speak any language but russian. Also there are some Jewish people and definitely someone from Germany, but I personally am not related to that branch of a tree.

[ezra-earith]

Finnish

orja /ˈorjɑ/

slave

From Proto-Finnic *orja (“slave, servant”), from Proto-Finno-Permic *orja, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *áryas ("Aryan": autonymic (self-identifying) ethnonym of the respective Indo-Iranian peoples, i.e. the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians).

Cognates include Estonian ori, Erzya уре (ure) and Udmurt вар (var).

WIKTIONARY

[europeansculpture]

Stepan Erzya (1876-1959)

[russianreader]

Erzyan Morot: Fiddle Tunes from Erzya Mordva Villages of Samara Province

Erzyan Morot: Fiddle Tunes from Erzya Mordva Villages of Samara Province

78th release from Antonovka Records Armas Otto Väisänen (1890-1969) was a famous Finnish ethnomusicologist and ethnographer. In 1914, when his native Finland was still part of the Russian Empire, he traveled around Samara province and recorded music of traditional fiddlers from local Erzya Mordva villages on wax cylinders. These recordings have been preserved in the Finnish archives. The album…