What is Chuvash by religion? Appearance of the Chuvash: characteristic features and features

Faces of Russia. “Living together while remaining different”

The multimedia project “Faces of Russia” has existed since 2006, telling about Russian civilization, the most important feature of which is the ability to live together while remaining different - this motto is especially relevant for countries throughout the post-Soviet space. From 2006 to 2012, as part of the project, we created 60 documentaries about representatives of different Russian ethnic groups. Also, 2 cycles of radio programs “Music and Songs of the Peoples of Russia” were created - more than 40 programs. Illustrated almanacs were published to support the first series of films. Now we are halfway to creating a unique multimedia encyclopedia of the peoples of our country, a snapshot that will allow the residents of Russia to recognize themselves and leave a legacy for posterity with a picture of what they were like.

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"Faces of Russia". Chuvash. "Chuvash "Treasure"", 2008

CHUVASH'I, Chavash (self-name), Turkic people in Russian Federation(1773.6 thousand people), the main population of Chuvashia (907 thousand people). They also live in Tatarstan (134.2 thousand people), Bashkiria (118.6 thousand people), Kazakhstan (22.3 thousand people) and Ukraine (20.4 thousand people). The total number is 1842.3 thousand people. According to the 2002 Census, the number of Chuvash living in Russia is 1 million 637 thousand people, according to the results of the 2010 census - 1,435,872 people.

The Chuvash language is the only living representative of the Bulgarian group of Turkic languages. They speak the Chuvash language of the Turkic group of the Altai family. Dialects are lower ("pointing") and upper ("pointing"), as well as eastern. Subethnic groups - upper (Viryal, Turi) in the north and northwest, middle lower (Anat Enchi) in the central and northeastern regions and lower Chuvash (anatri) in the south of Chuvashia and beyond. The Russian language is also widespread. The Chuvash began writing a long time ago. It was created based on Russian graphics. In 1769, the first grammar of the Chuvash language was published.

Currently, the main religion of the Chuvash is Orthodox Christianity, but the influence of paganism, as well as Zoroastrian beliefs and Islam, remains. Chuvash paganism is characterized by duality: belief in the existence, on the one hand, of good gods and spirits led by Sulti Tura (supreme god), and on the other - evil deities and spirits led by Shuittan (devil). The gods and spirits of the Upper World are good, those of the Lower World are evil.

The ancestors of the riding Chuvash (Viryal) are Turkic tribes of Bulgarians who came in the 7th-8th centuries from the North Caucasus and Azov steppes and merged with the local Finno-Ugric tribes. The self-name of the Chuvash, according to one version, goes back to the name of one of the tribes related to the Bulgarians - Suvar, or Suvaz, Suas. They are mentioned in Russian sources since 1508. In 1551 they became part of Russia. By the mid-18th century, the Chuvash were mostly converted to Christianity. Some of the Chuvash who lived outside Chuvashia converted to Islam and became Tatars. In 1917, the Chuvash received autonomy: Autonomous Okrug from 1920, Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 1925, Chuvash SSR from 1990, Chuvash Republic from 1992.

The Chuvash joined Russia in the middle XVI century. In the formation and regulation of the moral and ethical standards of the Chuvash, the public opinion of the village has always played and continues to play a large role (yal men drip - “what will fellow villagers say”). Immodest behavior, foul language, and even more so drunkenness, which was rare among the Chuvash until the beginning of the 20th century, are sharply condemned. Lynchings were carried out for theft. From generation to generation, the Chuvash taught each other: “Chavash yatne an sert” (don’t disgrace the name of the Chuvash).

Series of audio lectures “Peoples of Russia” - Chuvash

The main types of settlements are villages and hamlets (yal). The earliest types of settlement are riverine and ravine, the layouts are cumulus-cluster (in the northern and central regions) and linear (in the south). In the north, the village is typically divided into ends (kasas), usually inhabited by related families. The street layout has been spreading since the 2nd half of the 19th century. From the 2nd half of the 19th century, dwellings of the Central Russian type appeared. The house is decorated with polychrome painting, saw-cut carvings, applied decorations, the so-called “Russian” gates with a gable roof on 3-4 pillars - bas-relief carvings, later painting. There is an ancient log building (originally without a ceiling or windows, with an open hearth), serving as a summer kitchen. Cellars (nukhrep) and baths (muncha) are common. Characteristic feature Chuvash hut is the presence of onion trim along the roof ridge and large entrance gates.

Traditional food is dominated by plant products. Soups (yashka, shurpe), stews with dumplings, cabbage soup with seasonings made from cultivated and wild greens - hogweed, hogweed, nettle, etc., porridge (spelt, buckwheat, millet, lentil), oatmeal, boiled potatoes, jelly from oatmeal and pea flour, rye bread (khura sakar), pies with cereals, cabbage, berries (kukal), flatbreads, cheesecakes with potatoes or cottage cheese (puremech). Less often they prepared khupla - a large round pie with meat or fish filling. Dairy products - turah - sour milk, uyran - churning, chakat - curd cheese. Meat (beef, lamb, pork, among the lower Chuvash - horse meat) was a relatively rare food: seasonal (when slaughtering livestock) and festive. They prepared shartan - a sausage made from a sheep's stomach stuffed with meat and lard; tultarmash - boiled sausage stuffed with cereal, minced meat or blood. They made mash from honey, and beer (sara) from rye or barley malt. Kvass and tea were common in areas of contact with the Tatars and Russians.

A rural community could unite residents of one or several settlements with a common land plot. There were nationally mixed communities, mainly Chuvash-Russian and Chuvash-Russian-Tatar. Forms of kinship and neighborly mutual assistance (nime) were preserved. Family ties were steadily preserved, especially within one end of the village. There was a custom of sororate. After the Christianization of the Chuvash, the custom of polygamy and levirate gradually disappeared. Undivided families were already rare in the 18th century. The main type of family in the 2nd half of the 19th century was small family. The husband was the main owner of family property, the wife owned her dowry, independently managed income from poultry farming (eggs), livestock farming (dairy products) and weaving (canvas), and in the event of the death of her husband, she became the head of the family. The daughter had the right of inheritance along with her brothers. In economic interests, the early marriage of a son and the relatively late marriage of a daughter were encouraged (therefore, the bride was often several years older than the groom). The tradition of the minority is preserved (the youngest son remains with his parents as an heir).

The most developed genre of folklore is songs: youth, recruit, drinking, funeral, wedding, labor, lyrical, as well as historical songs. Musical instruments - bagpipes, bubble, duda, harp, drum, and later - accordion and violin. Legends, fairy tales and tales are widespread. Elements of ancient Turkic runic writing can be traced in generic tamgas and in ancient embroidery. Arabic writing was widespread in Volga Bulgaria. In the 18th century, writing was created based on Russian graphics of 1769 (Old Chuvash writing). Novochuvash writing and literature were created in the 1870s. The Chuvash national culture is being formed.

T.S. Guzenkova, V.P. Ivanov

They don’t carry firewood into the forest, they don’t pour water into the well.

“Where are you going, gray caftan?” “Shut up, you wide mouth!” Don't be alarmed, this is not a conversation between some drunken hooligans. This is a Chuvash folk riddle. As they say, you can’t guess it without a hint. And the hint is this: the action of this riddle does not take place in modern house, but in an old hut. Over time, the stove in the hut turned gray... Warm, warm...

Here is the answer: smoke coming out of the open door of the smoking hut.

Have you warmed up? Here are a couple more dashing Chuvash riddles.

Clay mountain, on the slope of a clay mountain there is a cast iron mountain, on the slope of a cast iron mountain there is green barley, a polar bear is lying on the green barley.

Well, this is not such a difficult riddle, if you try hard and give free rein to your imagination, then it will be easy to guess. This is baking pancakes.

Don’t think that the Chuvash came up with riddles a hundred or two hundred years ago. They still don’t mind composing them. Here's a good example of a modern riddle.

At first, like a pillow. Then, like a cloud. What is this?

Well, okay, let's not torture. This is: a parachute.

We learned something about the Chuvash. They found out what was on their minds.

To find out more, listen to the fairy tale.

It’s called: “Shirt made of hemline fabric.”

One young widow was haunted by an evil spirit. And this way and that way the poor woman tried to free herself from him. She’s exhausted, but the evil spirit isn’t far behind—and that’s all. She told her neighbor about her trouble, and she said:

“And you hang the door with a shirt made of hemline fabric - it won’t let an evil spirit into the hut.”

The widow listened to her neighbor, sewed a long shirt from the timber and hung it on the door to the hut. At night an evil spirit came, and the shirt said to him:

- Wait a minute, listen to what I had to see and experience in my lifetime.

“Well, speak,” answered the evil spirit.

“Even before I was born,” the shirt began its story, “there was so much trouble with me.” In the spring, the land was plowed, harrowed, and only after that, hemp was sown. Some time passed and I was blocked again. Only then did I ascend and appear into the world. Well, when I appeared, I grow, I reach for the sun...

“Well, that’s enough, I guess,” says the evil spirit. “Let me go!”

“If you start listening, let me finish,” the shirt answers. “When I grow up and mature, they pull me out of the ground...”

“I understand,” the evil spirit interrupts again. “Let me go!”

“No, I haven’t understood anything yet,” his shirt won’t let him in. “Listen to the end... Then they thresh me, separate the seeds...

- Enough! - the evil spirit loses patience. - Let him go!

But at this time a rooster crows in the yard, and the evil spirit disappears without ever visiting the widow.

- So where did I stop? - she says. “Oh yes, on the seeds.” My seeds are peeled, winnowed, stored, and what the seeds grew on—hemp—is first put in stacks, and then soaked in water for a long time, three whole weeks.

“Well, is that all?” asks the evil spirit. “Let it go!”

“No, not all,” the shirt answers. “I’m still lying in the water.” After three weeks they pull me out of the water and put me out to dry.

- Enough! - the evil spirit begins to get angry again. - Let him go!

“You haven’t heard the most important thing yet,” the shirt answers. “You don’t know how they crush and break my bones... So, they break and crush me until my whole body is cleared of bones.” Not only that: they also put it in a mortar and let three or four of us pound it with pestles.

- Let me go! — the evil spirit begins to lose patience again.

“They knock all the dust out of me,” the shirt continues, “they leave only a clean body.” Then they hang me on a comb, separate me into thin hairs and spin them. The strained threads are wound on a reel and then dipped into the liquor. Then it’s difficult for me, my eyes are filled with ash, I can’t see anything...

- And I don’t want to listen to you anymore! - says the evil spirit and already wants to go into the hut, but at this time the rooster crows, and he disappears.

And on the third night an evil spirit appeared.

“Then they wash me, dry me, make skeins out of me and put me through a reed, weave it, and it turns out to be canvas,” the shirt continues its story.

- That's it now! - says the evil spirit. - Let him go!

“There’s still quite a bit left,” the shirt answers. “Listen to the end... The canvas is boiled in alkaline water, laid on green grass and washed so that all the ash comes out.” And again, for the second time, three or four of them push me so that I become soft. And only after that they cut off as much as necessary from the piece and sew it. Only then does the seed placed in the ground become a shirt, which is now hung over the door...

Here again the rooster crowed in the yard, and again the evil spirit, having had a slurp, had to go away.

In the end, he got tired of standing in front of the door and listening to the shirts' stories, from then on he stopped flying to this house and left the young widow alone.

An interesting fairy tale. With a lot of meaning. The entire process of making a shirt is laid out in detail in this fairy tale. It is useful to tell this fairy tale to adults and children, but especially to students of agricultural universities and textile institutes. In the first year, of course.

And now we move from fairy-tale affairs to historical affairs. There is also something to tell about the Chuvash themselves. It is known that the Chuvash joined Russia in the middle of the century. Currently, there are 1,637,200 Chuvash in the Russian Federation (according to the results of the 2002 census). Almost nine hundred thousand of them live in Chuvashia itself. The rest live in several regions of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, in the Samara and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as in Moscow, Tyumen, Kemerovo, Orenburg, Moscow regions of Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

The Chuvash language is Chuvash. It is the only living language of the Bulgaro-Khazar group of Turkic languages. It has two dialects - low (“pointing”) and high (“pointing”). The difference is subtle, but clear and noticeable.

The ancestors of the Chuvash believed in the independent existence of the human soul. The spirit of the ancestors patronized the members of the clan and could punish them for their disrespectful attitude.

Chuvash paganism was characterized by duality: belief in the existence, on the one hand, of good gods and spirits led by Sulti Tura (supreme god), and, on the other, of evil deities and spirits led by Shuittan (devil). The gods and spirits of the Upper World are good, those of the Lower World are evil.

The Chuvash religion in its own way reproduced the hierarchical structure of society. At the head of a large group of gods stood Sulti Tura with his family.

In our time, the main religion of the Chuvash is Orthodox Christianity, but the influence of paganism, as well as Zoroastrian beliefs and Islam, remains.

The Chuvash began writing a long time ago. It was created based on Russian graphics. In 1769, the first grammar of the Chuvash language was published.

In the formation and regulation of the moral and ethical standards of the Chuvash, the public opinion of the village has always played and continues to play a large role (yal men drip - “what will fellow villagers say”). Immodest behavior, foul language, and even more so drunkenness, which was rare among the Chuvash until the beginning of the 20th century, are sharply condemned. Lynchings were carried out for theft. From generation to generation, the Chuvash taught each other: “Chavash yatne an sert” (don’t disgrace the name of the Chuvash).

Orthodox Chuvash people celebrate everything Christian holidays.

Unbaptized Chuvash have their own holidays. For example, Semik, which is celebrated in the spring. By this day, you need to have time to eat seven different plants, for example, sorrel, dandelion, nettle, hogweed, lungwort, caraway seeds, and squash.

Nettle is especially revered, because if you eat nettle before the first thunder, then whole year you won't get sick. It is also good for your health to run outside during thunder and shake your clothes.

For Semik, the Chuvash bake pies, brew beer and kvass, and also prepare brooms from young birch.

On the day of the holiday, they wash in the bathhouse, certainly before sunrise. By lunchtime, festively dressed, everyone goes to the cemetery to invite deceased relatives to visit their home. Moreover, men call men, women call women.

After Christianization, baptized Chuvash especially celebrate those holidays that coincide in time with the pagan calendar (Christmas with Surkhuri, Maslenitsa and Savarni, Trinity and Semik), accompanying them with both Christian and pagan rituals. Under the influence of the church, patronal holidays became widespread in the everyday life of the Chuvash. By the beginning of the 20th century, Christian holidays and rituals became predominant in the everyday life of baptized Chuvash people.

Chuvash youth also have their own holidays. For example, in the spring-summer period, the youth of the entire village, or even several villages, gather for outdoors for round dances.

In winter, gatherings are held in huts where the older owners are temporarily absent. At gatherings, the girls are engaged in spinning, but with the arrival of the boys, games begin, the participants of the gatherings sing songs, dance, and have playful conversations.

In the middle of winter, the Maiden Beer festival takes place. The girls pool together to brew beer, bake pies, and in one of the houses, together with the boys, organize a youth feast.

Three forms of marriage were common among the Chuvash: 1) with a full wedding ceremony and matchmaking, 2) a “walk-away” wedding, and 3) kidnapping the bride, often with her consent.

The groom is escorted to the bride's house by a large wedding train. Meanwhile, the bride says goodbye to her relatives. She is dressed in girl's clothes and covered with a blanket. The bride begins to cry and lament.

The groom's train is greeted at the gate with bread and salt and beer.

After a long and very figurative poetic monologue, the eldest of the friends is invited to go into the courtyard to the laid tables. The meal begins, greetings, dances and songs of the guests sound.

The next day the groom's train leaves. The bride is seated astride a horse, or she rides while standing in a wagon. The groom hits her three times (for fun) with a whip to “drive away” the spirits of his wife’s clan from the bride (Turkic nomadic tradition). The fun in the groom's house continues with the participation of the bride's relatives.

The newlyweds spend their wedding night in a cage or other non-residential premises. According to custom, the young woman takes off her husband’s shoes. In the morning, the young woman is dressed in a woman’s outfit with a women’s headdress “hush-poo”. First of all, she goes to bow and makes a sacrifice to the spring, then she begins to work around the house and cook food.

The young wife gives birth to her first child with her parents.

In a Chuvash family, the man dominates, but the woman also has authority. Divorces are extremely rare. There was a custom of the minority - the youngest son always remained with his parents.

Many are surprised that, seeing off the deceased in last way, the unbaptized Chu-Wash sing not only funeral songs, but also cheerful ones, even wedding songs. There is an explanation for this. Pagans consider themselves children of nature. And therefore they are not afraid of death. It is not something terrible and scary for them. It’s just that a person goes to another world, and they see him off. Songs. Cheerful and sad.

Chuvash songs are really different. There are folk songs. In turn, they are divided into everyday ones (lullabies, children's, lyrical, table, comic, dance, round dance). There are ritual songs, labor songs, social songs, and historical songs.

Among the people musical instruments the following are common: shakhlich (pipe), bagpipes of two types, kesle (harp), warkhan and palnaya ( reed instruments), parappan (drum), khankarma (tambourine). The violin and accordion have long become familiar.

The Chuvash also love fairy tales in which truth and reality are easily intertwined. Fairy tales with more fiction than truth. If we use modern language, then these are fairy tales with elements of the absurd. When you listen to them, they clear your mind!

One day my grandfather and I went hunting. They saw a hare and began to chase it. We hit with a club, but we cannot kill.

Then I hit him with a Chernobyl rod and killed him.

Together with my grandfather, we started to lift it, but we couldn’t lift it.

I tried one - picked it up and put it on the cart.

Our cart was harnessed by a pair of horses. We whip the horses, but they cannot move the cart.

Then we unharnessed one horse and drove the other.

We arrived home, my grandfather and I began to remove the hare from the cart, but we couldn’t remove it.

I tried one and took it off.

I want to bring it in through the door, but it won’t fit, but it went through the window freely.

We were going to cook a hare in a cauldron - it didn’t fit, but we put it in the cauldron - there was still room left.

I asked my mother to cook the hare, and she began to cook, but didn’t follow: the water began to boil violently in the pot, the hare jumped out, and the cat - right there - ate it.

So we never had to try the hare meat.

But we made up a good fairy tale!

Finally, try to guess another Chuvash riddle. It is very complex, multi-stage: on an unplowed fallow field, next to an ungrown birch tree, lies an unborn hare.

The answer is simple: lies...

Do you feel what the wise Chuvash are getting at? An unborn lie is still much better than a born lie...

Chuvash (Chavash) is a Turkic-speaking people of Suvaro-Bulgar origin in the Russian Federation, the titular nation of the Chuvash Republic (the capital is Cheboksary). The total number is about 1.5 million, of which in Russia - 1 million 435 thousand (according to the results of the 2010 census).

Approximately half of all Chuvash people in Russia live in Chuvashia; significant groups settled in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Saratov, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Kemerovo regions and Krasnoyarsk region; a small part is outside the Russian Federation (the largest groups are in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine).

The Chuvash language is the only living representative of the Bulgarian group of Turkic languages; it has two dialects: the upper one (the okaya dialect) and the lower one (the ukaya dialect). The main religion of the religious part of the Chuvash is Orthodox Christianity; there are adherents of traditional beliefs and Muslims.

The Chuvash are a distinctive ancient people with a rich, monolithic ethnic culture. They are the direct heirs of Great Bulgaria and later of Volga Bulgaria. The geopolitical location of the Chuvash region is such that many spiritual rivers of the east and west flow through it. The Chuvash culture has features similar to both Western and Eastern cultures; there are Sumerian, Hittite-Akkadian, Sogdo-Manichaean, Hunnic, Khazar, Bulgaro-Suvar, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Slavic, Russian and other traditions, but in this it is not identical to any of them. These features are reflected in the ethnic mentality of the Chuvash.

The Chuvash people, having absorbed the culture and traditions of different peoples, “reworked” them, synthesized positive customs, rites and rituals suitable for the conditions of their existence, ideas, norms and rules of behavior, methods of management and everyday life, preserved a special worldview, and formed a unique national character . Undoubtedly, the Chuvash people have their own identity - “chavashlah” (“Chuvashness”), which is the core of their uniqueness. The task of researchers is to “extract” it from the depths of the people’s consciousness, analyze and identify its essence, and record it in scientific works.

Reconstruction of the deep foundations of the mentality of the Chuvash people is possible using fragments of ancient Chuvash runic writing, the structure and lexical composition of the modern Chuvash language, traditional culture, patterns and ornaments of national embroidery, clothing, utensils, religious rites and rituals, based on materials from mythology and folklore. A review of historical, ethnographic and literary and artistic sources also allows us to look into the past of the Bulgaro-Chuvash people, to understand their character, “nature,” etiquette, behavior, and worldview.

Each of these sources has been touched upon by researchers only partially to date. The curtain of the history of the post-Nostratic Sumerian stage of language development (IV-III millennium BC), the Hunnic period, has been slightly opened, some gaps of the Proto-Bulgar period (I century BC - III century AD) of the ancient Suvazian ancestors have been restored , broke away from the rest of the Hunnic-Turkic tribes and migrated to the southwest. The Old Bulgar period (IV-VIII centuries AD) is known for the transition of the Bulgar tribes to the Caucasus, Danube, and the Volga-Kama basin.

The pinnacle of the Middle Bulgarian period is the state of Volga Bulgaria (9th-13th centuries). For the Suvar-Suvaz of Volga Bulgaria, the transition of power to Islam was a tragedy. Then, in the 13th century, having lost everything during the Mongol invasion - their name, state, homeland, book, writing, Keremets and Kerems, over the course of centuries emerging from the bloody abyss, the Suvaz Bulgars formed the Chuvash ethnos proper. As can be seen from historical research, the Chuvash language, culture, and traditions are much older than the ethnonym of the Chuvash people.

Many travelers of past centuries noted that the Chuvash were noticeably different in character and habits from other peoples. In the notes of famous and frequently cited researchers F. J. T. Stralenberg (1676-1747), V. I. Tatishchev (1686-1750), G. F. Miller (1705-1783), P. I. Rychkov (1712- 1777), I. P. Falka (1725-1774), I. G. Georgi (1729-1802), P.-S. Pallas (1741-1811), I. I. Lepekhin (1740-1802), “preacher of the Chuvash language” E. I. Rozhansky (1741-?) and other scientists who visited in the 18th-19th centuries. The mountainous side of the Kazan province, there are many flattering reviews about the “Chuvashens” and “Chuvashans” as hardworking, modest, neat, handsome, savvy people.

The diary entries of the foreigner Tovius Koenigsfeld, who visited the Chuvash in 1740 among the participants in the journey of the astronomer N.I. Delisle, confirm these ideas (cited from: Nikitina, 2012: 104): “Most Chuvash men are of good height and physique. Their heads are black-haired and shaved. Their clothes are close in style to the English, with a collar, with a sash hanging behind the back and trimmed in red. We saw several women. With whom one could make acquaintances, who were not at all unsociable and even had pleasant shapes... Among them there are quite beautiful ones with delicate features and an elegant waist. Most of them are black-haired and very neat ..." (Record dated October 13).

"We spent several hours with these good people. And the hostess, a smart young woman, prepared us dinner, which we liked. Since she was not averse to joking, we chatted casually with her with the help of our translator, who was fluent in the Chuvash language. This woman had thick black hair, a wonderful physique, pretty features and looked a little like an Italian" ( Entry dated October 15 in the village of Maly Sundyr (now Cheboksary district of the Chuvash Republic).

“Now I’m sitting with my Chuvash friends; I really love this simple and meek people... These wise people, so close to nature, see all things from a positive point of view and judge their worth by their results... Nature produces more good people than evil ones" (A. A. Fuks) ( Chuvash..., 2001: 86, 97). “All Chuvash are natural balalaika players” (A. A. Korinfsky) (ibid.: 313). “... The Chuvash people by nature are as trusting as they are honest... The Chuvash are often in complete purity of soul... almost do not even understand the existence of lies, for whom a simple handshake replaces a promise, a guarantee, and an oath” (A. Lukoshkova) ( ibid: 163, 169).

The basis of the Chuvash centuries-old ethnic mentality is made up of several supporting elements: 1) “the teaching of the ancestors” (Sardash ethnoreligion), 2) a mythological worldview, 3) a symbolic (“readable”) embroidery ornament, 4) collectivism (community) in everyday life, 5 ) respectful attitude towards ancestors, admiration for motherhood, 6) authority native language, 7) loyalty to the fatherland, oath and duty to the homeland, 8) love for the land, nature, and wildlife. The Chuvash worldview as a type of spiritual activity of society is presented in the system of children's play school (serep), oral folk art, morality, features government structure, in customs and rituals that capture important and theoretically fundamental provisions. The assimilation of works of oral folk art, myths, legends, traditions and fairy tales, proverbs and sayings is a specific school of the Chuvash worldview and a way not only of storing knowledge, but also of developing the mind in a traditional society.

The turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. is the beginning of the Christian educational period in the cultural and historical life of the Chuvash people. Over four centuries, Orthodox ideology was closely intertwined with the traditions, beliefs, mentality and worldview of the Chuvash, but the values ​​of the Russian-Byzantine church did not become basic in the ethnomentality of the Chuvash. This is evidenced, in particular, by the facts of the careless, careless attitude of the Chuvash peasants of the 19th century. to churches, priests, icons of Orthodox saints. M. Gorky in a letter to the head of the editorial board of the magazine “Our Achievements” V. T. Bobryshev wrote: “The originality of Chuvashia is not only in trachoma, but in the fact that back in the 1990s. peasants, as a reward for good weather, smeared the lips of Nicholas of Myra with sour cream, and for bad weather, they took him out into the yard and put him in an old bast shoe. This is after a good hundred years of teaching Christianity. And in this case, devotion to pagan antiquity is commendable as a sign of the people’s awareness of their dignity.” (Moscow. 1957. No. 12. P. 188).

In the largest and most valuable work “Christianity among the Chuvash of the Middle Volga region in the XVI-XVIII centuries. Historical sketch" ( 1912 ) the outstanding Chuvash ethnographer, folklorist, historian Professor N.V. Nikolsky explored the most decisive and turning point the New-Bulgar (actually Chuvash) era of ethnic history, when there was a transformation of the traditional religious consciousness of the Chuvash, the destruction of the structure of the Chuvash universe, and the forcibly introduced Orthodoxy served only as an ideological justification for the colonization of the Chuvash region by Muscovy.

Contrary to his initial missionary goals, Nikolsky negatively assessed the results of the Christianization of the Chuvash. For him, discrimination against the Chuvash, violence, the disappearance of the “foreign service class,” and methods of forced Russification and Christianization were unacceptable. He especially emphasized that “the Chuvash, alien to Christianity in life, did not want to be one by name... The neophytes wish that the government would not consider them Christians.” In Orthodoxy they saw the “grown tene” (Russian faith), i.e., the ideologized religion of the oppressors. Further, analyzing this period, the scientist notes the facts of spiritual and physical resistance of the Chuvash to oppression and lawlessness and summarizes that “cultural and educational events were not adapted to people’s life, which is why they did not leave a significant mark among the Chuvash” (see: Nikolsky, 1912) . The Chuvash peasants, who were isolated in their communities until the twentieth century. There were no cases of mass Russification. Prominent Chuvash historian V.D. Dimitriev writes that “the Chuvash national culture has been preserved without deformation until recently...” (Dimitriev, 1993: 10).

National identity, character, mentality of the Chuvash people in the twentieth century. experienced several significant transformations that were caused by popular revolutions, wars, national movements and state-social reforms. The technical achievements of modern civilization, especially computerization and the Internet, have significantly contributed to the change in ethnomentality.

In the revolutionary years of the beginning of the twentieth century. within one generation, society, its consciousness and behavior changed beyond recognition, and documents, letters, works of art clearly recorded spiritual, economic, political, social transformations, uniquely reflecting the features of the renewed national mentality.

The creation of Chuvash statehood in 1920, the famines of 1921, 1933-1934, repressions of 1937-1940. and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. left noticeable imprints on the traditional mentality of the people. Obvious changes in the mentality of the Chuvash were observed after the creation of an autonomous republic (1925) and after the unprecedented scale of repression. The spirit of the nation, liberated by the October Revolution, was purposefully supplanted by the ideology of 1937, which was begun precisely in the Chuvash Republic by the authorized control commission under the Central Committee of the party, headed by M. M. Sakhyanova.

The positive features of the traditional Chuvash mentality were especially clearly manifested during the Great Patriotic War. It was the inner convictions and mental spirit that became the reason for the heroic behavior of the nation. The creation of the presidential Chuvash Republic and the organization of the world Chuvash National Congress (1992) became a new milestone in the development of self-awareness and spiritual and moral consolidation of the people.

Each generation of an ethnic group, over time, develops its own version of mentality, allowing an individual and the population as a whole to adapt and function optimally in the current environment. It can no longer be said that the core qualities, fundamental values, and mental attitudes have remained unchanged. First and foremost social setting for the Chuvash people - the belief in the correctness of the ancestral covenant (“vattisem kalani”), a rigid set of rules of behavior and laws of ethnic existence - has lost its relevance in youth environment, unable to withstand competition with the polyvariance and diversity of existence social networks Internet.

The process of erosion of the traditional mentality of the Chuvash and other small peoples is obvious. Afghan and Chechen wars, perestroika in society and state 1985-1986. entailed serious metamorphoses in various spheres of modern Russian life. Even the “dead” Chuvash village has undergone global changes in its socio-cultural appearance before our eyes. The historically established and geographically determined everyday orientations of the Chuvash were supplanted by Western television norms. Chuvash youth, through the media and the Internet, borrow foreign ways of behavior and communication.

Not only the lifestyle, but also the attitude towards the world, worldview, and mentality have changed dramatically. On the one hand, the modernization of living conditions and mental attitudes is beneficial: the new generation of Chuvash is learning to be bolder, more self-confident, more sociable, and is gradually getting rid of the inferiority complex inherited from their “foreign” ancestors. On the other hand, the absence of complexes and remnants of the past is equated to the eradication of moral and ethical taboos in a person. As a result, massive deviations from norms of behavior become a new standard of life.

At present, some positive qualities have been preserved in the mentality of the Chuvash nation. There is no ethnic fanaticism or ambition in the Chuvash environment today. Despite the noticeable poverty of living conditions, the Chuvash are strong in their adherence to traditions, and have not lost their enviable quality of tolerance, “aptramanlah” (inflexibility, survival, resilience) and exceptional respect for other peoples.

Ethnonihilism, very characteristic of the Chuvash mentality of the second half of the 20th century, is now not so clearly expressed. There is no obvious disregard for native history and culture, rituals and ceremonies, feelings of ethnic inferiority, disadvantage, or shame for representatives of the native ethnic group; a positive national identity becomes normal for the Chuvash. This is confirmed by the real demand among the Chuvash population for studying the Chuvash language and culture in kindergartens, schools, and universities of the republic.

A generalized list of the main features of the Chuvash mentality at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. is found in one of the first experiments specifically devoted to the characteristics of the mentality of the Chuvash - the material of T. N. Ivanova (Ivanova, 2001), collected during many years of work at retraining courses for teachers at the Chuvash Republican Institute of Education in 2001:

- hard work;

- patriarchal, traditional;

- patience, patience;

- respect for rank, high power distance, law-abidingness;

- envy;

— prestige of education;

— collectivism;

- peacefulness, good neighborliness, tolerance;

- persistence in achieving goals;

- low self-esteem;

- touchiness, resentment;

- stubbornness;

— modesty, the desire to “keep a low profile”;

- respect for wealth, stinginess.

Teachers noted that on the issue of national self-esteem, the dualistic Chuvash mentality is characterized by “a combination of two extremes: aggravated national identity among the elite and the erosion of national traits among the common people.”

How much of this list remains ten years later? The Chuvash mentality, as before, is not characterized by the desire to destroy everything to the ground and then build again from scratch. On the contrary, it is preferable to build on what is available; even better - next to the previous one. Such a trait as immensity is not typical. Is moderation in everything (in deeds and thoughts, behavior and communication) the basis of the Chuvash character (“Don’t jump ahead of others: don’t lag behind the people”)? Of the three components - feelings, will, reason - reason and will predominate in the structure of the Chuvash national consciousness. It would seem that the poetic and musical nature of the Chuvash should be based on a sensual-contemplative principle, but observations show the opposite. Apparently, the experience of previous centuries of joyless existence, deeply stored in the memory of the people, makes itself felt, and reason and the rational nature of comprehending the world come to the fore.

Psychologist E. L. Nikolaev and teacher I. N. Afanasyev based on comparative analysis personality profiles of typical Chuvash and typical Russians conclude that the Chuvash ethnic group is characterized by modesty, isolation, dependence, suspicion, naivety, conservatism, conformity, impulsiveness, tension (Nikolaev, Afanasyev, 2004: 90). The Chuvash do not recognize any exceptional merits for themselves (although they possess them); they voluntarily submit themselves to the requirements of general discipline. Chuvash children are taught to limit their own needs in accordance with the existing material conditions of life, treat all people with respect, show the necessary tolerance for the minor shortcomings of others, and at the same time be critical of their own merits and shortcomings.

In educational practice, the dominant attitude is that man, as a natural being, is frail, but as a social being, he is strong by belonging to his people, therefore modesty is a form of individual awareness of his responsibilities to the people around him. From childhood, tactfulness is purposefully cultivated in the Chuvash - the ability, which has grown into a habit, to observe moderation in communication, avoiding actions and words that may be unpleasant to the interlocutor or people around him, especially older people.

However, the generally recognized positive distinctive characteristics of the Chuvash, such as hard work (gendarmerie Colonel Maslov), kind soul and honesty (A. M. Gorky), thoroughness (L. N. Tolstoy), hospitality, cordiality and modesty (N. A. Ismukov), are killed by the pragmatic demands of capitalist times, these spiritual qualities become unnecessary in a consumer society.

From time immemorial the special attitude of the Chuvash to military service has been famous. There are legends about the fighting qualities of the Chuvash warrior ancestors during the times of the commanders Mode and Attila. “The Chuvash folk character has wonderful properties that are especially important for society: the Chuvash diligently fulfills a duty once accepted. There were no examples of a Chuvash soldier escaping or fugitives hiding in a Chuvash village with the knowledge of the residents” (Otechestvovedenie…, 1869: 388).

Loyalty to the oath is an outstanding feature of the Chuvash mentality, which has survived to this day and deserves close attention when forming units of modern Russian army. It was not for nothing that I.V. Stalin, during a conversation with the Yugoslav delegation on April 19, 1947, noted this feature of the character of the Chuvash people.

"IN. Popovic (Ambassador of Yugoslavia to the USSR):

— Albanians are very brave and loyal people.

I. Stalin:

— Our Chuvash were so loyal. Russian tsars took them as personal guards" (Girenko, 1991) .

In a curious way, two specific traditional worldviews responded in the mentality of modern Chuvashs - the recognition by Chuvash elders of just revenge through one of the types of suicide “tipshar” and the cult of virginity, which distinguished the Chuvash in the past and still distinguishes them from other, even neighboring peoples.

The Chuvash “tipshar” belongs to the category of personal revenge, an everyday form of passive punishment of a scoundrel fellow tribesman through one’s own death. “Tipshar” is the defense of name and honor at the cost of one’s life, which corresponds to the teachings of the Sardash ethnoreligion. In its pure form in the 21st century. Among the Chuvash it is extremely rare, remaining only as a personal trial of crimes in the sphere of intimate relationships between girls and men.

Manifestations of “tipshara” with other motivations are found among adolescents and men mature age. In addition to social reasons, in our opinion, shortcomings in the educational process partly affected this. Chuvash philologists were mistaken when the course of Chuvash literature studied in high school, built on examples of self-sacrifice. The literary heroines Varussi Y.V. Turkhan, Narspi K.V. Ivanov, Ulkki I.N. Yurkin commit suicide, the poems of M.K. Sespel, N.I. Shelebi, M.D. Uipa, the story of L. Y. Agakova “Song”, story “Jaguar” by D. A. Kibek.

Turning to suicide is also closely related to a person’s gender, age, and marital status. However, all other things being equal, social diseases, primarily alcoholism, play a fatal role. Chuvash doctors explain the increase in the number of suicides by difficult living conditions, bureaucratic oppression, and unsettled everyday life (the situation is very similar to the situation of the Chuvash in the 19th century, as written by S. M. Mikhailov and the Simbirsk gendarme Maslov), the consequence of which is strained relationships in the family, alcoholism , drug addiction.

Suicides are rare among Chuvash women. Chuvash women are infinitely patient with financial and everyday difficulties, feel more acutely the responsibility for children and family, and try to get out of trouble by any means. This is a manifestation of ethnomentality: the role of wife and mother in the Chuvash family, as before, is incredibly high.

The problem of suicide is closely intertwined with the problem of preserving virginity before marriage and gender relations: girls with violated honor, who have experienced deception and hypocrisy on the part of men, often resorted to “tipshar”. Until the 20th century The Chuvash believed that the loss of a girl’s honor before marriage is a tragedy that promises nothing other than shame and general condemnation and lifelong ordeal. Life for the girl was losing value, there were no prospects for respect, for finding a normal, healthy family, which every Chuvash woman aspired to have.

For a long time, family-tribal relations among the Chuvash were effective means containment negative factors in their gender consciousness and behavior. This is precisely what can explain the rare cases of abandonment of a born child or the developed practice among the Chuvash of guardianship over orphaned children even by distant relatives. However, today the tradition of public attention to the relationship between girls and boys and their sex education is being replaced by social and ethical indifference on the part of elders: personal freedom, freedom of speech and active protection of property rights have turned into permissiveness and individualism. Oddly enough, Chuvash literature of the 21st century. praises precisely the boundless disorder and anarchy in relationships and in life.

Among the negative character traits of the Chuvash, spiritual isolation, secrecy, and envy remain - these qualities, which developed during the tragic periods of the history of the people and were consolidated in the harsh conditions of being surrounded by warlike peoples, over the centuries and especially now, under neoliberalism, are strengthened by unemployment and poor material security of the greater part of the region's inhabitants.

In general, in studies of the early 2000s. (Samsonova, Tolstova, 2003; Rodionov, 2000; Fedotov, 2003; Nikitin, 2002; Ismukov, 2001; Shabunin, 1999) it was noted that the mentality of the Chuvash at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. characterized by almost the same basic features as the mentality of the Chuvash in the 17th-19th centuries. The focus of Chuvash youth on a healthy family life remains, and women, as before, take responsibility for the well-being of home and family. Despite the wild laws of the market, the natural tolerance of the Chuvash, the desire for accuracy and good morals, has not disappeared. The attitude “don’t get ahead of people, don’t lag behind the people” is relevant: Chuvash youth are inferior to Russians in their attitude to an active life position, in terms of the level of self-confidence and independence.

Judging by new sociological and statistical data (Chuvash Republic..., 2011: 63-65, 73, 79), at present the mental characteristics of the Chuvash people are based on basic values ​​of a universal human nature, but at the same time ethnic characteristics are preserved. The majority of the population of the Chuvash Republic, regardless of nationality, supports traditional values: life, health, law and order, work, family, respect for established customs and traditions. However, values ​​such as initiative and independence are less popular in Chuvashia than in Russia as a whole. The Chuvash, more than the Russians, have a noticeable orientation toward settlement and regional identity (“for 60.4% of the Chuvash, the inhabitants of their settlement are their own, while for Russians this figure is 47.6%”).

Among rural residents of the republic, according to the presence of persons with postgraduate, higher and incomplete higher education The Chuvash are ahead of three other ethnic groups (Russians, Tatars, Mordovians). The Chuvash (86%) are characterized by the most pronounced positive attitude towards interethnic marriage (Mordovians - 83%, Russians - 60%, Tatars - 46%). In Chuvashia as a whole, there are no preconditions that could in the future lead to increased interethnic tension. Traditionally, the Chuvash are tolerant of representatives of other faiths, they are distinguished by a restrained expression of their religious feelings, and they have historically been characterized by an external, superficial perception of Orthodoxy.

There is no particular difference in mentality between rural and urban Chuvash. Although it is believed that in rural areas traditional folk culture is better and longer preserved in its original form, without generally losing archaic elements and national specifics; in the context of the Chuvash province, the “city-village” border is considered conditional by some researchers (Vovina, 2001: 42). Despite the strong processes of urbanization and the recent increase in migration flows to the cities, many Chuvash city dwellers maintain connections with the village not only through family relations, but also through spiritual aspirations and ideas about the origins and roots of their family, ties with their native land.

Thus, the main features of the mentality of modern Chuvash are: a developed sense of patriotism, trust in their relatives, recognition of the equality of all before the law, adherence to traditions, non-conflict and peacefulness. It is obvious that the core mental characteristics of the Chuvash people have changed little, contrary to the process of leveling out national cultures observed in the modern world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Prepared by E. V. Nikitina

Tretyakov P. N.

The question of the origin of the Chuvash people in the light of archaeological data* // Soviet ethnography. - 1950. - Issue. 3. - pp. 44-53.

One of the most complex and undeveloped questions of the ancient and early medieval history of the USSR is the question of the origin of the peoples of our country. Bourgeois science, which proceeded from racist ideas and nationalist tendencies when solving ethnogonic issues, greatly complicated and confused this issue. Soviet historical science is solving it completely anew, accumulating relevant factual materials and considering them in the light of Marxism-Leninism, in the light of the works of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin on the theory of the national question.

Soviet science proceeds from the basic theoretical position that the process of formation of nationalities and nationalities is a historical process. It is determined primarily by internal socio-economic conditions and depends on their level of development.

The nature of the ethnogonic process also depends on the specific historical situation. Together with ethnic traditions, the importance of which should not be downplayed, specific historical conditions largely determine the specific (national) form of culture of a particular people, of a particular nationality.

Of outstanding importance for research in the field of the origin of nationalities and nations are the works of J. V. Stalin, devoted to issues of language and linguistics, which were a major new contribution to the theory of historical materialism. In these works, J.V. Stalin showed that the views of Academician. N. Ya. Marr’s view of language as a superstructure, as a phenomenon of class order, his views on the development of language, which have become widespread among not only Soviet linguists, but also representatives of historical disciplines, have nothing to do with Marxism. In his work, J.V. Stalin widely revealed the foundations of the Marxist theory of language as a tool of communication between people, a social phenomenon directly related to the production and other activities of people in society, but not generated by this or that economic system of society, not by this or that stage public life. “Language is not generated by this or that basis, the old

* The studies published here on the ethnogenesis of the Chuvash people are reports read by the authors at a session of the Department of History and Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Chuvash Research Institute of Language, Literature and History on January 30-31, 1950. The articles were already in the set when they were published the works of I.V. Stalin “Concerning Marxism in Linguistics”, “On Some Questions of Linguistics” and “Answer to Comrades”, the most valuable instructions of which the authors tried to take into account.

or a new basis, within a given society, but through the entire course of the history of society and the history of bases over the centuries. It was created not by just one class, but by the whole society, all classes of society, through the efforts of hundreds of generations.”

It is known that language is one of the most important features that define a tribe, nationality, and nation. It constitutes the national form of their culture. Therefore, N. Ya. Marr’s views on the development of language, uncritically accepted by historians and archaeologists dealing with the origins of the peoples of our country, led to a number of erroneous constructions in this area. A typical example is the question of the origin of the Chuvash people, which was considered N.Ya. Marrom, as a people who are basically Japhetic, retaining in their language the features of the Japhetic stage.

J. V. Stalin showed that the “theory” of the staged development of language, from which N. Ya. Marr proceeded, does not correspond to the actual course of language development and is a non-Marxist theory. Thus, clarity was brought to the question of the origin of the Chuvash people, and broad scientific prospects opened up for research in this area.

1

The theory of the origin of the Chuvash people, currently accepted by the majority of Soviet historians and linguists, represents the complete opposite of the previously existing bourgeois concepts. According to the latter, the Chuvash people were considered as a fragment of the once allegedly existing Turkic world. His immediate ancestors, according to bourgeois scientists (A. A. Kunik, A. A. Shakhmatov, N. I. Ashmarin, etc.), were the Volga Bulgarians, a people who came to the Volga from the Azov steppes and founded Volga or Kama Bulgaria. The mentioned scientists proceeded from the fact that among modern peoples living within the territory of Volga Bulgaria, only the Chuvash people reveal ancient Turkic features in their language. Another argument in favor of the Bulgarian theory was several individual Chuvash words and names found in Bulgarian gravestones with Arabic inscriptions. Bourgeois science did not have any other data in favor of the Bulgarian theory.

The fragility of the evidence on which the Bulgarian theory was based is quite obvious. In the light of the news of ancient authors, it is indisputable that Volga Bulgaria was no different from all other states of antiquity - it was not a national state at all, but included within its borders a number of different tribes.

Volga Bulgaria was undoubtedly only a minor step forward compared to the states of Caesar or Charlemagne, which J.V. Stalin characterizes as “military-administrative associations”, “a conglomerate of tribes and nationalities that lived their own lives and had their own languages” 2. Volga Bulgaria included both local and alien tribes, and in the Bulgarian cities the sound different speech. The Bulgarians themselves, that is, the population that came to the Volga-Kama region from the Azov steppes, also did not constitute a single ethnic group. Based mainly on archaeological as well as historical data, it is now established that the population of the Eastern European steppes in the second half of the first millennium AD. e. was a very ethnically complex formation. Its basis was made up of various Sarmatian-Alan tribes, mixed with Turkic elements represented by

1 I. Stalin. Regarding Marxism in linguistics, Ed. "Pravda", M., 1950, p. 5.

2 Ibid., p. 11.

firstly, in the Hunnic hordes of the 4th-5th centuries AD. e. and, secondly, in the Avar hordes that penetrated Europe in the 6th century AD. e. This combination of Sarmatian-Alanian and Turkic elements is perfectly revealed from the materials of the North Caucasus, Don and Donetsk (Saltovo-Mayatsk) settlements and burial grounds. The same exactly mixed Sarmatian-Alan-Turkic material culture was brought by the Bulgarians Asparukh to the Danube, where, judging by the materials of excavations in the ancient Bulgarian cities of Pliska and Preslav, it was preserved for two or three generations before dissolving into the local Slavic environment.

Thus, the question of the origin of the Chuvash people was by no means resolved by the Bulgarian theory. The statement that the Chuvash are Bulgarians was tantamount to trying to construct an equation from two equally unknown quantities.

When characterizing the Bulgarian theory of the origin of the Chuvash people, one cannot, however, limit ourselves to pointing out the weakness of its factual basis and theoretical depravity. This theory arose and became widely circulated, first of all, as a nationalist theory, meeting the interests of pan-Turkists, on the one hand, and Chuvash nationalists, on the other. The Bulgarian theory was an integral part of the pan-Turkic legend about the ancient Turkic people, who allegedly played an exceptional role in historical process; this myth is about the great state of the Bulgarian-Chuvash, dominating all other peoples of the Volga region. No wonder enemies Soviet people in the first years after October, this theory was widely propagated, trying to sow national discord between the Turkic-speaking peoples and the great Russian people, between the Chuvash people and other peoples of the Volga region.

2

It is known that almost all the peoples of the Volga region consist of two or more parts. These are the two main groups of the Mordovian people - Moksha and Erzya, to which are added the Tyuryuhans, Karatai and Shoksha. The Mari have retained a clear division into mountain and meadow peoples. The Chuvash people also consist of two main parts, differing from each other in language and material culture. We are talking about the upland Chuvash - “viryal”, occupying the northwestern part of Chuvashia, and the Lower Chuvash - “anatri”, living in the southwestern half of the Chuvash land. The third Chuvash group - “anat-enchi”, located between the first and second, is considered by most ethnographers not as independent part Chuvash people, and as a result of mixing Viryal and Anatri. It must be assumed that in the complex composition of the peoples of the Volga region traces of ancient tribes are preserved; their study can shed light bright light to questions of ethnogony. It is especially interesting that this division of the Chuvash people into two parts has a long prehistory, dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. e.

To characterize the ancient tribes of northwestern Chuvashia, we currently have the following archaeological material.

1. Near Kozlovka, near the village of Balanovo, an extensive burial ground 3 was discovered and explored, and in the Yadrinsky district near the village of Atlikasy - mound 4, dating back to the middle of the second millennium BC. e. and belonging to the group of archaeological monuments widespread in the Upper Volga region and received the name Fatyanovo

3 O. N. Bader, Burial ground in the Karabay tract near the village of Balanovo in Chuvashia, “Soviet Archaeology”, vol. VI, 1940.

4 P. N. Tretyakov, From the materials of the Middle Volga expedition, State Communications. acad. History of Material Culture, 1931, No. 3.

named after a burial ground near the village of Fatyanovo, Yaroslavl region. The Fatyanovo tribes were the first cattle-breeding tribes in the Upper Volga region, perhaps also familiar with agriculture. These were the first tribes in these places to become acquainted with metal - copper and bronze. T. A. Trofimova’s assumption about the southern, Caucasian origin of the population who left the Balanovsky burial ground 5, which still requires verification, even if it turns out to be true, does not change the essence of the matter. The culture of the Balanovo people - their economy and way of life - had a distinct northern, forest character.

2. In the same part of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, numerous mounds of the second half of the second millennium BC are known. e., called Abashevo after the name of s. Abashevo, Tsivilsky district of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where they were first studied in 1925 by V.F. Smolin 6. As studies of subsequent years have shown, the Abashev tribes lived not only in the northern and central regions of Chuvashia, but also far beyond their borders (in the northern, northwestern and northeastern direction). The Abashevo mounds are known on the Lower Oka near Murom 7, in the Upper Oka basin near the village. Ogubi 8 and on the shore of Lake Pleshcheevo 9. In the form of a treasure, characteristic Abashevo items - bronze tools and jewelry made of bronze and silver were found in the Urals near Upper Kizil. There are also known places of ancient settlements that, it is believed, belonged to either the Abashevites or tribes close to them in culture 10 .

3. Within the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, along the banks of the Volga and Sura, several ancient settlements of the first millennium BC are known. e., characterized by the so-called “mesh” or “textile” ceramics, the same as those known from numerous. settlements and settlements in the Oka and Upper Volga basin.

4. Near the village. Ivankovo ​​on Nizhnyaya Sura 11 and near the village of Kriushi on the banks of the Volga at the mouth of the river. Anish 12, burial grounds of the beginning and middle of the first millennium AD were explored. e., close to the well-known ancient Mordovian, Murom, Mari and Meryan burial grounds of the same time. Near the village Yandashevo in the lower reaches of the river. Tsivil found bronze jewelry of the Pyanoborsky appearance 13, common at the turn and at the beginning of our era among the tribes of the Kama region and Povetluga region.

5. In the same northern and northwestern regions of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, belonging to the Viryal Chuvash, several dozen settlements of the middle and second half of the first millennium AD are known. e. 14 Fortifications are miniature fortifications, usually located on capes of a high coast. During excavations, pottery was found on them, fashioned without the help of a potter's wheel, sinkers from nets and livestock bones. In terms of their general appearance, these settlements and the finds made on them closely resemble similar monuments of the neighboring Mordovian land.

6. Finally, one should point out the numerous kivĕ-çăva - languages

5 See T. A. Trofimova, On the issue of anthropological connections in the era of Fatyanovo culture, “Soviet ethnography”, 1949, No. 3.

6 V. F. Smolin, Abashevsky burial ground in the Chuvash Republic, Cheboksary,

7 Excavations by B. A. Kuftin. State Hermitage Museum.

8 Excavations by V.I. Gorodtsov. State Historical Museum.

10 "Archaeological research in the RSFSR 1934-1936", 1941, pp. 131-136.

11 See P. P. Efimenko, Middle Volga expedition 1925-1927, State reports. Academy of the History of Material Culture, vol. II, 1929.

12 See P. N. Tretyakov, Monuments of the ancient history of the Chuvash Volga region, Cheboksary, 1948, pp. 55-56.

13 See ibid., p. 53.

14 See ibid., pp. 46 et seq., 65 et seq.

cemeteries of the 16th-18th centuries, known everywhere in the land of the Chuvash-Viryal. Study of remains women's suit, originating from kivĕ-çăva, reveals some features that bring together ancient costume Viryal with Mari. Such a detail of the costume is, in particular, a brush made of thick woolen cords, studded with bronze tubes, suspended from the back of the headdress. According to T. A. Kryukova, one such Chuvash headdress is in the collections of the State Ethnographic Museum in Leningrad. A well-known parallel with the ancient monuments of the Mari are also the numerous Chuvash “keremets” of the 16th-18th centuries, as well as the kivĕ-çăva, known everywhere in the land of the Chuvash-Viryal.

As a result of the above review of archaeological monuments of the northwestern part of the Chuvash land, we can conclude that in this part of Chuvashia, since ancient times, there lived tribes closely related in their material culture to the neighboring, more northern, western and eastern Volga population - the population of the forest spaces of the Middle and Upper Volga region. It can also be argued that This population is genetically associated with that part of the Chuvash people called “viryal” and which to this day has retained in its way of life many features similar to the culture of the neighboring Mari, and partly the Mordovian and Udmurt peoples. It is not possible to give a more definite picture of the ethnogonic process in this part of Chuvashia given the current state of the sources. We do not know in what relation to each other stood the tribes that left the groups of archaeological monuments listed above - whether they formed a continuous chain of autochthonous development or whether they were tribes of different origins that replaced each other on the territory of Chuvashia. It is also likely that not all groups of archaeological sites in northwestern Chuvashia have currently been identified and studied by us. However, it is difficult to allow future discoveries to shake the main conclusion is the conclusion about the local origin of the Chuvash tribes that are part of the Chuvash-Viryal, and that their ancestors were closely related to other forest tribes.

3

The archaeological monuments of the southern part of the Chuvash Republic, which belongs to the Anatri Chuvash, are much less well known than the antiquities in the area of ​​the Viryal Chuvash. However, the little that we have at the present time allows us to assert that, starting from the distant past, here lived a population markedly different from that described above. Tribes associated with the more southern regions, with the steppe Middle Volga region, have long lived here.

At a time when in the second millennium BC. e. in the northern part of the Chuvash territory lived the Abashev tribes; in the south there were tribes with a different culture, well known from research carried out by Soviet archaeologists in the Kuibyshev and Saratov regions and received the name Khvalyn 15. Two such Khvalyn burial mounds were explored by P. P. Efimenko in 1927 in the village. Baybatyrevo Yalchik district on the bank of the river. Bula. One of them contained 16 graves containing burials accompanied by characteristic pottery and other objects, the other contained one grave 16. Unlike the Abashevsky mounds, the Khvalynsky mounds have

15 P. S. Rykov, On the issue of Bronze Age cultures in the Lower Volga region, “Izv. Institute of Local Lore at the Saratov Institute", vol. II, 1927.

16 P. N. Tretyakov, Monuments of the ancient history of the Chuvash Volga region, p. 40.

They are large in size, have vague outlines, and do not form large groups. Such mounds are known at a number of points along the Bula, Kubna and other rivers of southern Chuvashia. Near the mounds in the territory of southern Chuvashia there are remains of settlements of the Khvalyn tribes. One of them, located in the Vetkhva-Syrmi tract near the village. Baybatyrev, was subjected to small studies in 1927, during which fragments of pottery and bones of domestic animals were found: cows, horses, sheep and pigs.

Research in recent years, carried out in various parts of the Middle Volga region, has shown that the Khvalyn tribes, who occupied in the second millennium BC. e. a huge area on both sides of the Middle and partly Lower Volga, should be considered as the ancestors of two large population groups known in the Volga region in the subsequent time - in the first millennium BC. e. One of them was settled pastoral and agricultural tribes who left the Khvalyn, Saratov and Kuibyshev settlements. They are usually considered as the oldest Mordovian, and perhaps Burtas, tribes. The other troupe consisted Savromatian-Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoral population, which arose in the steppe Volga region on the basis of local tribes of the Bronze Age in conditions of widespread contact with the population living east of the Volga.

It is still unknown what path the ethnogonic process took in the territory of southern Chuvashia during this period, since there are no archaeological monuments of the first millennium BC. e. not found there. It seems, however, indisputable that the Sarmatization process closely affected the population of the Chuvash Volga region.

This question acquires special interest due to the fact that Sarmatian-Alanian tribes of the Eastern European steppes in the middle of the first millennium AD. e., as is known, were subject to Turkization. This happened as a result of the penetration of first the Hunnic nomadic hordes into Europe, then the Avars and others. Most of them were the nomadic population of the territory of modern Kazakhstan, related to the European Sarmatian tribes. They carried with them, however, the Turkic language, which during this period - the period of military democracy, tribal unions and the “great migration of peoples” - turned into the dominant language of the nomadic population of the Eurasian steppes.

From this we can make the assumption that the Turkization of some tribes of the Volga-Kama region is a very old phenomenon, which began in the middle of the first millennium AD. e. Bulgarians who appeared in the Volga-Kama region in the 7th-8th centuries. n. e. and representing the Turkified Sarmatian-Alan population of the Azov region, were by no means an ethnic group completely alien to many local tribes. Their arrival probably did not cause fundamental changes in the course of the ethnogonic process in the Volga-Kama region, but only strengthened and completed what had begun much earlier.

This, apparently, explains the difference in the fate of the Bulgarian tribes - the tribes of the conquerors - in Danube and Volga Bulgaria. On the Danube, the Bulgarians of Asparukh very soon dissolved and disappeared without a trace, along with their language, in the local Slavic environment. On the Volga, where, as on the Danube, they were undoubtedly a minority compared to the local population, the Turkic language won. It happened, firstly, because the process of Turkization had already affected the tribes of the Volga region, and, secondly, because here the Bulgarians met with a number of different tribes, whereas on the Danube they found themselves in a homogeneous Slavic environment, standing at a higher stage of historical development.

The emergence of a number of large trade and craft cities in the Volga-Kama region, connecting Eastern Europe with the countries of the Middle

Asia. It was at this stage of the historical life of the Volga region tribes that both the process of Turkization and the process of consolidation of ancient tribes into larger ethnic formations should have been completed.

It is interesting to note that the culture characteristic of the Bulgarian kingdom was not represented on the territory of the entire Chuvashia, but mainly in its southern part - in the land of the Anatri Chuvash. There, in the river basin. Bula and Kubni, Bulgarian settlements are known - the remains of large cities surrounded by high ramparts and small but strongly fortified castles. An example of a settlement of the first type is the huge Bulgarian fortification near the village of Deusheva on Sviyag, which has a circumference of about two kilometers. The feudal castles were a settlement near the village of Bolshaya Toyaba on the river. Bule, a settlement near the village of Tigishevo on the river. Bolshoy Bule, Yaponchino settlement in the lower reaches of the river. Kubni, etc. Numerous rural settlements of the Bulgarian era are known around them. In these same places, connecting ancient settlements and rural settlements into a single system, powerful earthen ramparts stretch along the rivers for tens of kilometers, the same as in other places in Volga Bulgaria. They were intended to protect the possessions of the Bulgarian nobility from enemy invasions 17.

In the northern regions of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the remains of the Bulgarian culture are almost unknown. At present, it is possible to name only two points - a small rural settlement at the mouth of the river. Anish near Kozlovka, where characteristic Bulgarian dishes and some other things of the 10th-13th centuries were found. 18, and the city of Cheboksary, where similar finds were discovered. There are no settlements of a Bulgarian nature or ramparts on the land of the Chuvash-Viryal. At the same time, there are settlements of a completely different nature, noted above when listing the archaeological monuments of northwestern Chuvashia under point 5.

From this we can conclude that in Bulgarian times the Chuvash people had not yet emerged as a single whole. The ancient differences between the northern and southern populations were still quite strong. There is no doubt, however, that the Bulgarian time, with its class society and statehood, with city life, trade relations and other unique features of the economy and way of life, should have created favorable conditions for the cultural and ethnic rapprochement of individual parts of the Volga-Kama population.

One might think that the subsequent XIV-XVI centuries were the time when the process of formation of the peoples of the Volga-Kama region, including the Chuvash people, in its main features reached its completion. The ancient differences did not disappear without a trace; they were preserved in both language and material culture, and they are preserved to this day. But they have long since faded into the background, overshadowed by those cultural phenomena that became common to everything. Chuvash population. This is how the Chuvash language, territory and cultural community gradually developed - elements of the Chuvash nation.

“Of course, the elements of a nation - language, territory, cultural community, etc. - did not fall from the sky, but were created gradually, even in the pre-capitalist period,” points out Comrade Stalin. “But these elements were in their infancy and in best case scenario represented only potential in the sense of the possibility of forming a nation in the future under certain favorable conditions” 19.

Subsequently, the history of the Chuvash people proceeded in close

17 See P. N Tretyakov, Monuments of the ancient history of the Chuvash Volga region, pp. 58-61.

18 See ibid., p. 62.

19 J. V. Stalin, The National Question and Leninism, Works, vol. 11, p. 336.

interaction with the history of the Russian people. What is meant here is pre-revolutionary time, When economic life The Chuvash people, one of the oppressed nationalities of Tsarist Russia, developed within the framework of the all-Russian economy, which was facilitated by the location of Chuvashia on the banks of the Volga - the most important economic artery of the country. Especially here we mean the years of the Great October Socialist Revolution, when the Chuvash people, together with the great Russian people, rose up against a common enemy, and the Soviet era, when, as a result of the victory of socialism in the USSR, the Chuvash people formed into a socialist nation.

4

The question of the origin of the Chuvash people can receive a satisfactory solution only if it is considered in inseparable connection with the question of the origin of all other peoples of the Volga-Kama region and, first of all, with the question of the origin Tatar people.

As a result of the work of Soviet archaeologists, ethnographers, anthropologists and linguists, it has now been established that the paths of ethnogenesis of the Kazan Tatars were basically the same as the paths of Chuvash ethnogenesis. The Tatar people emerged as a result of the long development of local tribes and their mixing with Turkic-speaking Bulgarian elements that penetrated the Volga-Kama region in the last quarter of the first millennium AD. e. The Tatar-Mongol conquest, especially the formation of the Kazan Khanate on the ruins of Volga Bulgaria, undoubtedly also played a well-known role in Tatar ethnogenesis. During this period, Kipchak (Polovtsian) elements penetrated into the local environment, constituting the bulk of the population of the European part of the Golden Horde 20 .

Having established the significant commonality of the ethnogonic destinies of the Chuvash and Tatar peoples, it is necessary to answer another question: how should the differences between these peoples be explained, why in the Volga-Kama region, in the place of the Bulgarian state, not one Turkic-speaking people, but two - Chuvash and Tatar - emerged? The resolution of this issue goes far beyond the scope of archaeological data and can be given mainly on the basis of ethnographic and linguistic materials. Therefore, we do not at all pretend to solve this issue and dwell on it only because there has been a certain tendency here that cannot be reconciled with.

We are talking about attempts by some researchers to turn the Bulgarian inheritance into an object of division between the Tatar and Chuvash peoples, while it is obvious that it is the same common property of both peoples as the inheritance Kievan Rus for the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples. These attempts took place, in particular, at a scientific session devoted to the origins of the Tatar people, held in Moscow in 1946.

Thus, A.P. Smirnov, who, based on archaeological data, gave a very convincing picture of the ethnogenesis of the Tatar people in the above plan, sees the difference between the Tatars and the Chuvash in the fact that Tatars are descendants of supposedly Bulgarians themselves, while Chuvash are descendants of the Bulgarian Suvar tribe 21. This conclusion, supported by some other researchers, is, however, in conflict with the concept of A.P. Smirnov himself. This contradiction concludes

20 Collection. “The origin of the Kazan Tatars”, Kazan, 1948.

21 See ibid., p. 148.

It is not only that the newcomers - the Bulgarians - again turn out to be the main ancestor of the Tatar and Chuvash peoples, which does not correspond to the actual data, but also that the Bulgarians themselves are portrayed in essence as two monolithic ethnic groups, which in reality was not the case . As mentioned above, the Bulgarian tribes of the Azov region were ethnically a very diverse formation. It is, of course, not necessary to assume that within Volga Bulgaria with its busy trading life there existed Bulgarians and Suvars as two different ethnic groups.

One cannot help but dwell on the attempts of some Tatar linguists to consider the Tatar people as direct descendants of the Volga Bulgarians, and the Chuvash as only one of the tribes that were part of the state of Volga Bulgaria. “The Kazan Tatar language is a direct continuation of the Bulgarian language,” says A. B. Bulatov. “It is impossible to conclude,” he declares here, “about the Chuvash, that they are direct descendants of the Bulgarians” 22. Archaeological data strongly protests against ideas of this kind. We saw above that on the territory of Chuvashia there were Bulgarian cities, powerful earthen ramparts stretching for tens of kilometers, and castles of the Bulgarian nobility. In southern Chuvashia there was the center of one of the Bulgarian principalities; this was by no means a remote province of Volga Bulgaria. On the territory of Tataria there were also similar urban and rural feudal centers, where the local population mixed with the Bulgarian. In some regions of Tataria, as well as in the north of Chuvashia, there are places where there were no Bulgarian cities and feudal possessions. The population living here undoubtedly retained their ancient specific cultural features for a long time. What is the basis for placing the Chuvash people in a different relationship to the Bulgarian heritage than the Tatar people?

According to Turkologists, the Chuvash language is the oldest among the Turkic languages ​​23 . On this basis, some linguists draw conclusions about some special antiquity of the Chuvash people. According to R.M. Raimov, the Chuvash are a remnant of some ancient people, Bulgarians are descendants of the Chuvash, and Tatars are descendants of Bulgarians. As an argument in favor of this fantastic view, R. /L. Raimov provides ethnographic data. The culture, life and language of the Chuvash people of the post-Bulgarian period, in his opinion, were supposedly at a lower stage of development than the culture, life and language of Volga Bulgaria 24.

All this is undoubtedly deeply erroneous and theoretically untenable. There were and could not be any ancient Chuvash people who preceded Volga Bulgaria in the era of the primitive communal system. It is impossible to compare the culture of the Chuvash village of the post-Bulgarian period with the culture of the Bulgarian trading cities, as well as with the culture of the feudal Bulgarian nobility and on this basis conclude that the Chuvash stood at a lower cultural level than the Bulgarians. When R. M. Raimov says that the Chuvash could be considered as descendants of the Bulgarians only if “the level of culture that was achieved in the Bulgar period was preserved among the Chuvash people,” he is completely captive of the notorious theory of a single stream and idealizes the Bulgarian past. What little we know about the village of Bulgarian times testifies to a very primitive patriarchal life, the level of which was incomparably lower than the ancient Chuvash life, which allows us

22 Collection. “The origin of the Kazan Tatars”, Kazan, 1948, p. 142.

23 See ibid., p. 117.

24 See ibid., p. 144.

restore archaeology, ethnography and folkloristics. When discussing the issue of the origin of the Tatar people, Sh. P. Tipeev was absolutely right when he said the following: “The Bulgarian state was cultural state in past. I believe in this conditionally. Yes, the old Bulgar and the new Bulgar-Kazan were cultural centers in the Volga region. But was all of Bulgaria a cultural center?... I think Bulgaria was not a culturally integral entity. Old Bulgar and new Bulgar (Kazan), predominantly with a population of Bulgar tribes, stood out as magnificently developed trading centers among the barbarian tribes that were part of this state” 25.

How is it possible to explain the difference between the culture and language of the Chuvash and Tatar peoples? Why did two Turkic-speaking peoples arise in the Volga-Kama region, and not one? Our assumptions regarding this issue, in the briefest terms, boil down to the following.

In the middle of the first millennium AD. e. in the Volga-Kama, on the border of the forest and steppe zones, various tribes lived, the southern (conditionally Sarmatian) group of which began to undergo Turkization. In Bulgarian times, when the inhabitants of the steppe Azov region penetrated here, when a class society and statehood arose here and trading cities associated with the East appeared, the process of Turkization intensified significantly, capturing a wider (not only conventionally Sarmatian) circle of local tribes. Linguistically and ethnically, all the Volga-Kama tribes developed during this period in a general direction, to a certain extent similar to how during the era of Kievan Rus all East Slavic tribes developed in a general direction.

Local tribes, which later became part of the Tatar people and lived lower along the Volga than the ancestors of the Chuvash, have long been much more connected with the world of the steppes than the latter. The process of Turkification could not but develop more energetically here. And while among the ancestors of the Chuvash people this process did not go further than the level that was achieved in the era of Volga Bulgaria, among the ancestors of the Tatar people it continued subsequently. Even in the era of Volga Bulgaria, Pecheneg-Oguz and Kipchak (Polovtsian) elements penetrated here. During Tatar-Mongol conquest and during the period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate in the Volga-Kama region, the influx of Kipchak elements dominating the European part of the Golden Horde could not but continue. Kipchak elements almost did not penetrate into the environment of the ancestors of the Chuvash people. Their language developed on local and old Turkic foundations. This circumstance, apparently, explains why not one Turkic-speaking people, but two, were formed in the Volga-Kama region - Chuvash and Tatar.

CHUVASH, Chavash (self-designated)- people in the Russian Federation, the titular nation of the Chuvash Republic. They also live in a number of republics and regions of the Ural-Volga region - Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Saratov, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk regions. Significant groups of Chuvash are settled in Siberia - Tyumen, Kemerovo regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory, etc. (see table). They live in the CIS and Baltic states. 1637.1 thousand live in the Russian Federation, incl. in the Chuvash Republic 889.3 thousand people. (see Resettlement of the Chuvash)

On June 24, 1920, the Chuvash Autonomous Region was formed, and since 1925 it has been an autonomous republic. Since 1990 – Chuvash SSR, since 1992 – Chuvash Republic.

There are various hypotheses about the origin of the Chuvash, which boil down to the following concepts:

1) the Chuvash ethnos was formed on the basis of the agricultural Bulgarian population who did not convert to Islam, who settled on the right bank of the Volga in the Prisviyazhye, Pritsivilye, Prianishye and on the left bank in Prikazanye and Zakazanye, partially assimilating the Finno-Ugric peoples in the north of Chuvashia. Supporters of the theory of the Bulgarian origin of the Chuvash are numerous (N. I. Ashmarin, N. A. Baskakov, D. M. Iskhakov, N. F. Katanov, A. P. Kovalevsky, I. Koev, R. G. Kuzeev, S. E. Malov, N. N. Poppe, A. Rona-Tash, B. A. Serebrennikov, A. A. Trofimov, N. I. Egorov, V. P. Ivanov, etc.), although they adhere to different hypotheses about the Bulgarians -Turkic continuity. Much evidence has also been found of ancient connections between the ancestors of the Chuvash and the Indo-Iranian cultural area;

2) supporters of another concept believe that the basis of the Chuvash ethnos was the Finno-Ugric (Mari) population, which experienced a strong cultural, especially linguistic, influence of the Bulgarians (N. I. Vorobyov, V. V. Radlov, N. A. Firsov, etc. );

3) Kazan scientists M.Z. Zakiev, A.Kh. Khalikov, N.N. Starostin and others put forward a hypothesis about the pre-Bulgarian Turkization of the Middle Volga region, about the beginning of the formation of the Chuvash ethnic group on the basis of the Turkic-speaking carriers of the culture of the Piseral-Andreevsky mounds of the 2nd–3rd centuries . AD At different times, various other hypotheses appeared, incl. about the origin of the Chuvash from the Huns (V.V. Bartold), from the Sumerians (N.Ya. Marr), etc.

Ethnographic groups of the Chuvash:

1) viryal, or turi (mountain). One of ethnographic groups Chuvash people, settled in the northern regions of the republic. As part of a group or subgroup, they are found among the Anat-Enchi, Anatri, as well as in the diaspora (Ulyanovsk, Samara, Orenburg regions, the Republic of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan). Education is associated with socio-economic, political changes in the life of the peoples of the Middle Volga region and Russia as a whole in the historical past, and the beginning of the process of emergence dates back to the period of Volga Bulgaria. Viryal differ from the grassroots and middle grassroots in their specific features (dialect - Okanye, folk oral tradition, costume, musical folklore etc.). Folk culture, including rituals, ancient beliefs, is closer to the mountain Mari (Republic of Mari El), its basis belongs to the Finno-Ugric layer, but at the same time ancient Suvaro-Bulgarian elements can be traced in it. From the environment Viryal back in the 18th century. scientist and educator E.I. Rozhansky came out at the beginning of the 19th century. - historian, ethnographer and writer S. M. Mikhailov-Yandush, the first professor from the Chuvash. In the life of the nation, the Viryal folk culture, like Anatri and Anat Enchi, appears with a rich arsenal. Their dialect, being a historical phenomenon in its development, contributes to the enrichment literary language. In the second half of the 20th century. The dialect is gradually disappearing.

2) anatri (grassroots). They are distinguished by their specific features: dialect, folk costume, musical folklore, oral folk art, rituals, etc. Anatri are settled in the south and southeast of the Chuvash Republic and in the diaspora - various republics and regions of the Russian Federation and the CIS. The main factors in the formation of anatri were socio-economic and political changes both in the Chuvash region and in the Russian Empire. The main reasons turned out to be flight from forced Christianization and the search for fertile lands (16-18 centuries). Among the grassroots there are the so-called local (Zakama) i.e. not subject to major migration processes. On their territory there are “islands” of Viryal, Anat Enchi, as well as subgroups of Anatri. The concept of “anatri” is associated not so much with geographical division, but with the type of people, their character, type of culture and history. The term “anatri” was established at the beginning of the 20th century. The Anatri language formed the basis of the Chuvash literary language, developed by the creators of the new Chuvash written language (V.A. Belilin, S.N. Timryasov, A.V. Rekeev, D.F. Filimonov). On the territory of Anatri, ancient monuments of Chuvash runic writing, works of small and monumental sculpture have been preserved. Among the unbaptized Chuvash of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg regions, the traditions of the ancient religion—traces of Zoroastrianism—live to this day.

3) anat enchi (mid-lower). Settled in the north and northeast of Chuvashia, they are also found in the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Republic of Tatarstan, Ulyanovsk, Orenburg regions, most of all in the Penza, Samara and Saratov regions. The study of the dialect of the language remains problematic: some believe that the dialect of the middle Chuvash is independent, and according to others, it is transitional between the Viryal and Anatri dialects. At the same time, folklore, especially folk art, testifies that the middle Chuvashes have preserved ancient forms of culture: folk costume, dating from the 18th century, elaborate breast decorations. Archaeological and historical monuments (tombstones, jewelry, rings) confirm that Anat Enchi even in the 17-18 centuries. used runic writings and high level There was such a rare art form as jewelry chasing on non-ferrous metal. The process of erasing the Anat-Enchi dialect is much faster than the dialect of the horsemen. Folk art, music, folklore, choreography, being the ancient heritage of the people, serve as a rich arsenal for the development of modern culture.

Lit.: Ashmarin N.I. Dictionary of the Chuvash language. Vol. 1–17. Ch., 1928–1950; Ilyukhin Yu. A. Musical culture Chuvashia. Ch., 1961; Sirotkin M. Ya. Chuvash folklore. Ch., 1965; Kakhovsky V.F. Origin of the Chuvash people. Ch., 1965; History of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. T. 1. Ch., 1983; Trofimov A. A. Chuvash folk cult sculpture. Ch., 1993; Culture of the Chuvash region. Part 1. Ch., 1994; Salmin A.K. Folk rituals of the Chuvash. Ch., 1994; Chuvash. Ethnographic research. Parts 1 and 2. Parts, 1956, 1970; Ethnic history and culture of the Chuvash of the Volga region and the Urals. Ch., 1993; Ivanov V.P. Chuvash. Ethnic history and traditional culture. M., 2000.

Chuvash are one of the most numerous nationalities living on the territory of the Russian Federation. Of the approximately 1.5 million people, more than 70% are settled on the territory of the Chuvash Republic, the rest in neighboring regions. Within the group there is a division into upper (viryal) and lower (anatri) Chuvash, differing in traditions, customs and dialect. The capital of the republic is the city of Cheboksary.

History of appearance

The first mention of the name Chuvash appears in the 16th century. However, numerous studies indicate that the Chuvash people are direct descendants of the inhabitants ancient state Volga Bulgaria, which existed on the territory of the middle Volga in the period from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Scientists also find traces of Chuvash culture dating back to the beginning of our era on the Black Sea coast and in the foothills of the Caucasus.

The data obtained indicate the movement of the ancestors of the Chuvash during the Great Migration of Peoples to the territory of the Volga region occupied at that time by Finno-Ugric tribes. Written sources have not preserved information about the date of the appearance of the first Bulgarian state formation. The earliest mention of the existence of Great Bulgaria dates back to 632. In the 7th century, after the collapse of the state, part of the tribes moved to the northeast, where they soon settled near the Kama and the middle Volga. In the 10th century, Volga Bulgaria was a fairly strong state, the exact borders of which are unknown. The population was at least 1-1.5 million people and was a multinational mixture, where, along with the Bulgarians, Slavs, Maris, Mordovians, Armenians and many other nationalities also lived.

The Bulgarian tribes are characterized primarily as peaceful nomads and farmers, but during their almost four hundred year history they had to periodically encounter conflicts with the armies of the Slavs, the Khazar tribes and the Mongols. In 1236, the Mongol invasion completely destroyed the Bulgarian state. Later, the Chuvash and Tatar peoples were able to partially recover, forming the Kazan Khanate. The final inclusion into the Russian lands occurred as a result of the campaign of Ivan the Terrible in 1552. Being in actual subordination to Tatar Kazan, and then to Rus', the Chuvash were able to maintain their ethnic isolation, unique language and customs. In the period from the 16th to the 17th centuries, the Chuvash, being predominantly peasants, participated in popular uprisings that engulfed Russian Empire. In the 20th century, the lands occupied by these people received autonomy and became part of the RSFSR in the form of a republic.

Religion and customs

Modern Chuvash are Orthodox Christians; only in exceptional cases are there Muslims among them. Traditional Beliefs represent a unique type of paganism, where against the background of polytheism it stands out supreme god Tura, patron of the sky. From the point of view of the structure of the world, national beliefs were initially close to Christianity, so even close proximity to the Tatars did not affect the spread of Islam.

Worship of the forces of nature and their deification led to the emergence large quantity religious customs, traditions and holidays associated with the cult of the tree of life, the change of seasons (Surkhuri, Savarni), sowing (Akatuy and Simek) and harvesting. Many of the festivities remained unchanged or were mixed with Christian celebrations, and are therefore celebrated to this day. A striking example of the preservation of ancient traditions is the Chuvash wedding, which is still worn today. National costumes and perform complex rituals.

Appearance and folk costume

The external Caucasian type with some features of the Mongoloid race of the Chuvash is not much different from the inhabitants of central Russia. The general facial features are a straight, neat nose with a low bridge, a rounded face with pronounced cheekbones and a small mouth. The color type varies from light-eyed and fair-haired to dark-haired and brown-eyed. The height of most Chuvash people does not exceed the average.

The national costume is generally similar to the clothing of the peoples of the middle zone. The basis of a woman’s outfit is an embroidered shirt, complemented by a robe, apron and belts. A headdress (tukhya or hushpu) and jewelry generously decorated with coins are required. The men's suit was as simple as possible and consisted of a shirt, pants and a belt. Shoes were onuchi, bast shoes and boots. Classic Chuvash embroidery is geometric pattern and a symbolic image of the tree of life.

Language and writing

The Chuvash language belongs to the Turkic linguistic group and is considered the only surviving language of the Bulgar branch. Within the nationality, it is divided into two dialects, distinguished depending on the territory of residence of its speakers.

It is believed that in ancient times the Chuvash language had its own runic writing. The modern alphabet was created in 1873 thanks to the efforts of the famous educator and teacher I.Ya. Yakovleva. Along with the Cyrillic alphabet, the alphabet contains several unique letters that reflect the phonetic differences between languages. The Chuvash language is considered the second official language after Russian and is included in compulsory program training on the territory of the republic and is actively used by the local population.

Remarkable

1. The main values ​​that determined the way of life were hard work and modesty.
2. The non-conflict nature of the Chuvash is reflected in the fact that in the language of neighboring peoples its name is translated or associated with the words “quiet” and “calm.”
3. The second wife of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky was the Chuvash princess Bolgarbi.
4. The bride's value was determined not by her appearance, but by her hard work and the number of skills, so her attractiveness only grew with age.
5. Traditionally, upon marriage, the wife had to be several years older than her husband. Raising a young husband was one of the woman's responsibilities. Husband and wife had equal rights.
6. Despite the worship of fire, the ancient pagan religion of the Chuvash did not provide for sacrifices.