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The Mordvins (also Mordva, Mordvinians) are among the larger indigenous peoples of Russia. They speak languages of the Volga-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric language family. They consist of two major subgroups^{citation needed}, the Erzya and Moksha, besides the smaller subgroups of the Qaratay, Teryukhan and Tengushev (or Shoksha) Mordvins who have become fully Russified or Turkified during the 19th to 20th centuries.

The Erzya Mordvins (Erzya: эрзят, Erzyat; also Erzia, Erza), who speak Erzya, and the Moksha Mordvins (Moksha: мокшет, Mokshet), who speak Moksha, are the two major groups. The Qaratay Mordvins live in Kama Tamağı District of Tatarstan, and have shifted to speaking Tatar, albeit with a large proportion of Mordvin vocabulary (substratum). The Teryukhan, living in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast of Russia, have switched to Russian in the 19th century. The Teryukhans recognize the term Mordva as pertaining to themselves, whereas the Qaratay also call themselves Muksha. The Tengushev Mordvins live in southern Mordovia and are a transitional group between Moksha and Eryza. The western Erzyans are also called Shoksha (or Shoksho). They are isolated from the bulk of the Erzyans, and their dialect/language has been influenced by the Mokshan dialects.

Names

While Latham (1854) had identified Mordva as a self-designation, identifying it as a variant of the name Mari, Aleksey Shakhmatov in the early 20th century has noted that Mordva was not used as a self-designation by the two Mordvinic tribes of the Erzya and Moksha. Nikolai Mokshin again states that the term has been used by the people as an internal self-defining term^{dubious – discuss} to constitute their common origin. ²

The ethnonym Mordva is possibly attested in Jordanes' Getica in the form of Mordens who were among the subjects of the Crimean Gothic king Ermanaric.³ A land called Mordia at a distance of ten days journey from the Petchenegs is mentioned in Constantine VII' De administrando imperio.⁴ In medieval European sources the names Merdas, Merdinis, Merdium, Mordani, Mordua, Morduinos have appeared. In the Russian Primary Chronicle the ethnonyms Mordva and mordvichi first appear in the 11th century. After the Mongol invasion of Rus' the name Mordvin rarely gets mentioned in Russian annals and is only quoted after the Primary Chronicle up until the 15th-17th century ⁵⁶

The name Mordva is thought to originate from an Iranian (Scythian) word mard meaning "man". The Mordvin word mirde denoting a husband or spouse is traced to the same origin. This word is also probably related to the final syllable of "Udmurt", and also in Komi: mort and perhaps even in Mari: marij.⁷ Connections with the Hungarian word magyar or the former Estonain self-identification, maarahvas are however non-existent (magyar is probably cognate with the autodenomination of the Mansi only; and Estonian maarahvas is actually a compound, meaning "people (rahvas) of the land (maa)".

'Erzya' is thought to derive from the Persian: arshan - man. The first written mention of Erzya is considered to be in a letter dated to 968 AD by Joseph the Khazar khaqan in the form of arisa, and sometimes thought to be in the works of Strabo and Ptolemy called as Aorsy and Arsiity respectively. Estakhri from the 10th century has recorded among the three groups of the Rus people the al-arsanija whose king lived in the town of Arsa. The people have sometimes identified by scholars as Erzya, sometimes as the aru people and also as Udmurts. It has been suggested by historians that the town Arsa may refer to either the modern Ryazan or Arsk⁴ In the 14th century the name Erzya is considered to be mentioned in the form of ardzhani by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani ⁸, and as rzjan by Jusuf, the Nogaj khan ⁹ In Russian sources the ethnonym Erza first appears in the 18th century.¹⁰

'Moksha' is thoght to derive from the name of the Moksha River (an Iranian hydronym in origin, cognate to Sanskrit: moksha "releasing, causing to flow").¹¹ The earliest written mention of Moksha in the form of Moxel is considered to be in the works of a 13 century Flemish traveler William of Rubruck and in the Persian chronicle Rashid-al-Din who reported the Golden Horde being in war with the Moksha and the Ardzhans (Erzia). In Russian sources 'Moksha' appears from the 17th century ¹²

Ethnic structure

The Mordvins are divided into 2 ethnic subgrous¹³¹⁴ and three further subgroups¹⁵

Mokshin (1991) concludes that the above grouping does not represent subdivisions of equal ethnotaxonomic order, and discounts Shoksha, Karatai and Teryukhan as ethnonyms, identifying two Mordvin sub-ethnicities, the Erzya and the Moksha, and two "ethnographic groups", the Shoksha and the Karatai. ¹⁶

Two further formerly Mordvinic groups have assimilated to (Slavic and Turkic) superstrate influence:

Appearance

The 1911 Britannica¹⁸ noted that the Mordvins although they had largely abandoned their language, had "maintained a good deal of their old national dress, especially the women, whose profusely embroidered skirts, original hair-dress large ear-rings which sometimes are merely hare-tails, and numerous necklaces covering all the chest and consisting of all possible ornaments, easily distinguish them from Russian women."

Britannica (1911) described the Mordvins as having mostly dark hair and blue eyes, with a rather small and narrow build. The Moksha were described as having a darker skin and darker eyes than the Erzya, while the Qaratays were described as "mixed with Tatars". Lathan (1854) described the Mordvins as taller than the Mari, with thin beards, flat faces and brown or red hair, red hair being more frequent among the Ersad than the Mokshad.

Cultures, folklores and mythologies

According to Tatiana Deviatkina: although sharing some similarities no common Mordvin mythology has emerged and therefore the Erza and Moksha mythologies are defined separately.¹⁹

In the Erza mythology the superior deities were hatched from an egg. The mother of gods is called Ange Patiai, followed by the Sun God Chipaz who gave birth to Nishkepaz, to the earth god Mastoron kirdi and the wind god Varmanpaz. From the union of Chipaz and the Harvest Mother Norovava was born the god of the underworld Mastorpaz. The thunder god Pur’ginepaz was born from Niskende Teitert, the daughter of the mother of gods Ange Patiai. The creation of the Earth is followed by the creation of the Sun, the Moon, the humankind and the Erza. The man was created by god Chipaz who molded the humankind from clay while in another version of the legend the man is made from soil.

In Moksha mythology the Supreme God is called Viarde Skai. According to the legends the creation of the world went through several stages: first the Devil moistened the building material in his mouth and spit it out. The spat piece grew into a plain, which was modeled uneven by creating chasms and the mountains. The first humans created by Viarde Skai could live for 700–800 years and were giants of 99 archinnes. The underworld in Mokshan mythology was ruled by Mastoratia.

Latham (1854) reported strong pagan elements surviving Christianization. The 1911 Britannica noted how the Mordvins

History

Prehistory

The Mordvins emerged from the common Volgaic group around the turn of the Common Era.²⁰

A proof that the Mordvins have long been settled in the vicinity of the Volga is also found in the fact that they still call the river Rav, evidently the same as the Rha of Ptolemy. ²¹²²

The Gorodets culture dating back to around 500 BC has been associated with the people. The north-western neighbors were the Muromians and Merians who spoke related Finno-Ugric languages. To the north of Mordvins lived Maris , to south Khazars and the eastern neighbors became the Bolgars around 700 AD.

From the mid-1st century AD the ancestors of the Erza and the Moksha have been distinguished by different orientations of the burials and by elements of costumes and variety of bronze jewelery found by archaeologists in the ancient cemeteries. The Erza graves from the era have been north-south, and the Moksha graves south-north oriented. ⁴

The Mordvin language began to diverge into Moksha and Erzya over the course of the 1st millennium AD²³²⁴ Erzyans lived in the northern parts of the territory, close to where is Nizhny Novgorod nowadays. The Mokshans lived further south and west of present Mordovia, living closer to the neighboring Iranian, Bolgar and Turkic tribes became under their cultural influence.

The social organization of Moksha and Erzya was based on patriarchy, the tribes were headed by elders kuda-ti who selected a tekshtai, senior elders responsible for coordinating wider regions.

Early history

Around 800 AD two major empires emerged in the neighborhood: Kievan Rus in present day Ukraine adopted Orthodox Christianity, Bolgar kingdom Islam at the confluence of Kama and Volga rivers and some Mokshan areas became tributaries to the latter until the 12th century.

Following the foundation of Nizhny Novgorod by Kievan Rus in 1221, the Mordvin territory was increasingly falling under Russian domination, pushing the Mordvin populations southwards and eastwards beyond the Urals, severing cohesion among them.

The Russian advance was halted by the Mongol Empire and the Mordvins became subjects to Golden Horde until the beginning of 16th century.

Christianization of the Mordvin peoples took place during the 16th to 18th centuries, and most Mordvins today adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church all carrying Russian Orthodox names. In the 19th century Latham reported strong pagan elements surviving Christianization, the chief gods of the Erzyans and the Mokshas being called Paas and Shkai, respectively.

Modern history

In Tsarist Russia, the Mordvins were known as capable carpenters, and Ivan the Terrible used them to build bridges and clear forests during his advance on Kazan.¹⁸.

Although the Mordvins were given an autonomous territory as a titular nation within the Soviet Union in 1928, Russification intensified during the 1930s, and knowledge of the Mordvin languages by the 1950s was in rapid decline.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Morvins, like other indigenous peoples of Russia, experienced a rise of national consciousness. The Erzya national epic is called Mastorava, which stands for "Mother Earth". It was compiled by A. M. Sharonov and first published in 1994 in the Erzya language (it has since been translated into Moksha and Russian). Mastorava is also the name of a movement of ethnic separatism founded by D. Nadkin of the Mordovian State University, active in the early 1990s.²⁵

Languages

The Mordvinic brancch of Volgaic comprises the Erzya and Moksha languages, with about 500,000 native speakers each. Both are official languages of Mordovia alongside Russian. Mordvinic is closely related to the now extinct Meshcherian and Muromian languages.

Erzya is spoken in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia. Within Volgaic,

The two languages are closely related, but distinct in phonetics, morphology and vocabulary. Both are currently written using the standard Russian alphabet.

Demographics

Latham (1854) quoted a total population of 480,000. Mastyugina (1996) quotes 1.15 million. ²⁶ The 2002 Russian census reports 0.84 million.

List of notable Mordvins

References and Notes

^ official 2002 Russian census figure.
^ Balzer, Marjorie; Nikolai Mokshin (1995). Culture Incarnate: Native Anthropology from Russia, M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9781563245350, http://books.google.com/books?id=-t34nFqaiH0C&pg=PA31.
^ (Getica XIII, 116) "Among the tribes he [Ermanarich] conquered were the Golthescytha, Thiudos, Inaunxis, Vasinabroncae, Merens, Mordens, Imniscaris, Rogas, Tadzans, Athaul, Navego, Bubegenae and Coldae" — The Origin and Deeds of the Goths (116).
^ ^a ^b ^c László, Klima (1996). The Linguistic Affinity of the Volgaic Finno-Ugrians and Their Ethnogenesis, Societas Historiae Fenno-Ugricae. ISBN 9789519704012, http://mek.oszk.hu/01700/01794/01794.pdf.
^ (Kirjanov 1971, 148-149) Laslo
^ Kappeler (1982) Taagepera
^ Bryant, Edwin; Laurie L. Patton (2005). The Indo-Aryan Controversy. PA201: Routledge. ISBN 9780700714636, http://books.google.com/books?id=8VnAk14pODsC&pg=PA201&dq=marij.
^ (Sbornik… 1941, 96) see László
^ (Safargaliev 1964, 12) László
^ (Mokshin 1977, 47) László
^ all according to Mokshin (1995), p. 32.
^ (Mokshin 1977, 47)László
^ Bromley, Julian; Institut ėtnografii imeni N.N. Miklukho-Maklaia (1982). Present-day Ethnic Processes in the USSR, Progress Publishers, http://books.google.com/books?q=%22The+Mordvin+ethnic+groups+(Erzya+and+Moksha)%22&btnG=Search+Books.
^ "MORDVINS (Erzyas and Mokshas)". Information Center of Finno-Ugric Peoples. Retrieved on 2008-10-14.
^ Mokshin (1995), p. 43. Latham in his account of the "Native Races of the Russian Empire" (1854) divided the Mordvins into three groups, viz. the Ersad, on the Oka River, the Mokshad, on the Sura River and the Karatai, in the neighbourhood of Kazan.
^ "the ethnic structure of the Mordva people at present reveals two subethnoses — Erzia and Moksha — and two ethnographic groups -- so-called Shoksha and Karatai" Mokshin (1995), p. 43)
^ Tengushev Mordvins, Karatai Mordvins, Teryukhan Mordvins, Meshcheryaks, Mishars in Stuart, James (1994). An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, Greenwood Publishing Group. pp.PA491,492,545. ISBN 9780313274978, http://books.google.com/books?id=CquTz6ps5YgC&pg=PA491.
^ ^a ^b "Mordvinians". Encyclopædia Britannica. (1911).
^ Deviatkina, Tatiana (2001). "Some Aspects of Mordvin Mythology" (PDF). Folk Belief and Media Group of ELM. Retrieved on 2008-10-13.
^ Mokshin, p. 32
^ Pre-and Proto-historic Finns by Abercromby, pp. 8
^ Taylor, Isaac (1898). Names and Their Histories, Rivingtons. pp.pp. 289 Volga the Rha of Ptolemy, a Finnic name retained by the Mordvins, http://books.google.com/books?id=vqgYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA289.
^ Taagepera, p. 152
^ Mokshin (1995), p. 33.
^ Tatiana Mastyugina, Lev Perepelkin, Vitaliĭ Vyacheslavovich Naumkin, Irina Zviagelskaia, An Ethnic History of Russia: Pre-revolutionary Times to the Present, Greenwood Publishing Group (1996), ISBN 0313293155, p. 133; Timur Muzaev, Ėtnicheskiĭ separatizm v Rossii (1999), p. 166ff.
^ Mastyugina, Tatiana; Lev Perepelkin (1996). An Ethnic History of Russia, Greenwood Publishing Group. pp.PA133. ISBN 9780313293153, http://books.google.com/books?id=xd3ZnfyRgncC&pg=PA133.

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