In the 9th and 3rd centuries the Mari were subjects. History, customs, rituals and beliefs of the Mari people (14 photos)

Posted Thu, 20/02/2014 - 07:53 by Cap

Mari (Mar. Mari, Mary, Mare, Mӓrӹ; formerly: Russian Cheremisy, Turkic Chirmysh, Tatar: Marilar) - Finno-Ugric people in Russia, mainly in the Mari El Republic. It is home to about half of all Mari, numbering 604 thousand people (2002). The remaining Mari are scattered across many regions and republics of the Volga region and the Urals.
The main territory of residence is between the Volga and Vetluga rivers.
There are three groups of Mari: mountainous (they live on the right and partially left banks of the Volga in the west of Mari El and in neighboring regions), meadow (they make up the majority of the Mari people, occupy the Volga-Vyatka interfluve), eastern (they formed from settlers from the meadow side of the Volga to Bashkiria and the Urals ) - the last two groups, due to historical and linguistic proximity, are combined into a generalized meadow-eastern Mari. They speak Mari (Meadow-Eastern Mari) and Mountain Mari languages ​​of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic family. They profess Orthodoxy. The Mari traditional religion, which is a combination of paganism and monotheism, has also long been widespread.

Mari hut, kudo, Mari's home

Ethnogenesis
In the Early Iron Age, the Ananyin archaeological culture (8th-3rd centuries BC) developed in the Volga-Kama region, the bearers of which were the distant ancestors of the Komi-Zyryans, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts and Mari. The beginning of the formation of these peoples dates back to the first half of the 1st millennium.
The area of ​​formation of the Mari tribes is the right bank of the Volga between the mouths of the Sura and Tsivil and the opposite left bank along with the lower Povetluga region. The basis of the Mari were the descendants of the Ananyians, who experienced the ethnic and cultural influence of the Late Gorodets tribes (ancestors of the Mordovians).
From this area, the Mari settled eastward all the way to the river. Vyatka and in the south to the river. Kazankas.

______________________MARI HOLIDAY SHORYKYOL

Ancient Mari culture (Meadow Mar. Akret Mari cultures) is an archaeological culture of the 6th-11th centuries, marking the early periods of the formation and ethnogenesis of the Mari ethnos.
Formed in the middle of the VI-VII centuries. based on the Finnish-speaking West Volga population living between the mouths of the Oka and Vetluga rivers. The main monuments of this time (Younger Akhmylovsky, Bezvodninsky burial grounds, Chorotovo, Bogorodskoye, Odoevskoye, Somovsky I, II, Vasilsurskoye II, Kubashevskoye and other settlements) are located in the Nizhny Novgorod-Mari Volga region, Lower and Middle Povetluzhie, and the basins of the Bolshaya and Malaya Kokshaga rivers. In the 8th-11th centuries, judging by the burial grounds (Dubovsky, Veselovsky, Kocherginsky, Cheremissky cemetery, Nizhnyaya Strelka, Yumsky, Lopyalsky), fortified settlements (Vasilsurskoye V, Izhevskoye, Emanaevskoye, etc.), settlements (Galankina Gora, etc.) , the ancient Mari tribes occupied the Middle Volga region between the mouths of the Sura and Kazanka rivers, the Lower and Middle Povetluga region, and the right bank of the Middle Vyatka.
During this period, the final formation of a single culture and the beginning of the consolidation of the Mari people took place. The culture is characterized by a unique funeral rite, combining the deposition of a corpse and the burning of a corpse on the side, sacrificial complexes in the form of sets of jewelry placed in birch bark boxes or wrapped in clothes.
Typically there is an abundance of weapons (iron swords, axes, spearheads, darts, arrows). There are tools of labor and everyday life (iron celt axes, knives, chairs, clay flat-bottomed unornamented pot-shaped and jar-shaped vessels, spindle whorls, dolls, copper and iron kettles).
Characterized by a rich set of jewelry (various hryvnias, brooches, plaques, bracelets, temple rings, earrings, ridge pendants, “noisy” pendants, trepezoidal pendants, “mustached” rings, stacked belts, head chains, etc.).

map of the settlement of the Mari and Finno-Ugric tribes

Story
The ancestors of modern Mari interacted with the Goths between the 5th and 8th centuries, and later with the Khazars and Volga Bulgaria. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the Mari were part of the Golden Horde and the Kazan Khanate. During the hostilities between the Moscow state and the Kazan Khanate, the Mari fought both on the side of the Russians and on the side of the Kazan people. After the conquest of the Kazan Khanate in 1552, the Mari lands that had previously depended on it became part of the Russian state. On October 4, 1920, the Mari Autonomous Okrug was proclaimed within the RSFSR, and on December 5, 1936, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
Joining the Moscow state was extremely bloody. Three uprisings are known - the so-called Cheremis Wars of 1552-1557, 1571-1574 and 1581-1585.
The Second Cheremis War was of a national liberation and anti-feudal nature. The Mari managed to raise neighboring peoples, and even neighboring states. All the peoples of the Volga and Urals regions took part in the war, and there were raids from the Crimean and Siberian Khanates, the Nogai Horde and even Turkey. The Second Cheremis War began immediately after the campaign of the Crimean Khan Davlet-Girey, which ended with the capture and burning of Moscow.

Sernur folklore Mari group

The Malmyzh principality is the largest and most famous Mari proto-feudal formation.
Its history dates back to the founders, the Mari princes Altybai, Ursa and Yamshan (1st half-middle of the 14th century), who colonized these places after arriving from Middle Vyatka. The heyday of the principality was during the reign of Prince Boltush (1st quarter of the 16th century). In cooperation with the neighboring principalities of Kityaka and Porek, it offered the greatest resistance to Russian troops during the Cheremis Wars.
After the fall of Malmyzh, its inhabitants, under the leadership of Prince Toktaush, Boltush’s brother, descended down the Vyatka and founded new settlements Mari-Malmyzh and Usa (Usola)-Malmyzhka. Descendants of Toktaush still live there. The principality broke up into several independent minor fiefs, including Burtek.
In its heyday, it included Pizhmari, Ardayal, Adorim, Postnikov, Burtek (Mari-Malmyzh), Russian and Mari Babino, Satnur, Chetai, Shishiner, Yangulovo, Salauev, Baltasy, Arbor and Siziner. By the 1540s, the areas of Baltasy, Yangulovo, Arbor and Siziner were captured by the Tatars.

The Izhmarinsky principality (Pizhansky principality; meadow mar. Izh Mari kugyzhanysh, Pyzhanyu kugyzhanysh) is one of the largest Mari proto-feudal formations.
Formed by the Northwestern Mari on the Udmurt lands conquered as a result of the Mari-Udmurt wars in the 13th century. The original center was the Izhevsk settlement, when the borders reached the Pizhma River in the north. In the XIV-XV centuries, the Mari were pushed out of the north by Russian colonialists. With the fall of the geopolitical counterweight to the influence of Russia, the Khanate of Kazan and the advent of the Russian administration, the principality ceased to exist. The northern part became part of the Izhmarinskaya volost of the Yaransky district, the southern part - as the Izhmarinskaya volost of the Alat road of the Kazan district. Part of the Mari population in the current Pizhansky district still exists to the west of Pizhanka, grouping around the national center of the village of Mari-Oshaevo. Among the local population, rich folklore from the period of the existence of the principality has been recorded - in particular, about local princes and the hero Shaev.
It included lands in the basins of the Izh, Pizhanka and Shuda rivers, with an area of ​​about 1 thousand km². The capital is Pizhanka (known in Russian written sources only from the moment the church was built, in 1693).

Mari (Mari people)

Ethnic groups
Mountain Mari (Mountain Mari language)
Forest Mari
Meadow-Eastern Mari (Meadow-Eastern Mari (Mari) language)
Meadow Mari
Eastern Mari
Pribel Mari
Ural Mari
Kungur, or Sylven, Mari
Upper Ufa, or Krasnoufimsky, Mari
Northwestern Mari
Kostroma Mari

Mountain Mari, Kuryk Mari

Mountain Mari language is the language of the mountain Mari, a literary language based on the mountain dialect of the Mari language. The number of speakers is 36,822 (2002 census). Distributed in the Gornomariysky, Yurinsky and Kilemarsky districts of Mari El, as well as in the Voskresensky district of the Nizhny Novgorod and Yaransky districts of the Kirov regions. Occupies the western regions of distribution of the Mari languages.
The Mountain Mari language, along with the Meadow-Eastern Mari and Russian languages, is one of the official languages ​​of the Republic of Mari El.
The newspapers “Zhero” and “Yomdoli!” are published in the Mountain Mari language, the literary magazine “U Sem” is broadcast, and the Mountain Mari radio broadcasts.

Sergei Chavain, founder of Mari literature

Meadow-Eastern Mari is a generalized name for the ethnic group of Mari, which includes the historically established ethnic groups of Meadow and Eastern Mari, who speak a single Meadow-Eastern Mari language with their own regional characteristics, in contrast to the Mountain Mari, who speak their own Mountain Mari language.
Meadow-Eastern Mari make up the majority of the Mari people. The number is, according to some estimates, about 580 thousand people out of more than 700 thousand Mari.
According to the All-Russian Population Census of 2002, a total of 56,119 people (including 52,696 in Mari El) out of 604,298 Mari (or 9% of them) in Russia identified themselves as Meadow-Eastern Mari, of whom as “Meadow Mari” (Olyk Mari) - 52,410 people, as the “Meadow-Eastern Mari” proper - 3,333 people, as the “Eastern Mari” (Eastern (Ural) Mari) - 255 people, which speaks in general about the established tradition (commitment) to call themselves under the single name of the people - “Mari”.

Eastern (Ural) Mari

Kungur, or Sylven, Mari (Mar. Köҥgyr Mari, Suliy Mari) are an ethnographic group of Mari in the southeastern part of the Perm region of Russia. The Kungur Mari are part of the Ural Mari, who in turn are part of the Eastern Mari. The group received its name from the former Kungur district of the Perm province, which until the 1780s included the territory where the Mari had settled since the 16th century. In 1678-1679 In the Kungur district there were already 100 Mari yurts with a male population of 311 people. In the 16th-17th centuries, Mari settlements appeared along the Sylva and Iren rivers. Some of the Mari were then assimilated by the more numerous Russians and Tatars (for example, the village of Oshmarina of the Nasadsky village council of the Kungur region, former Mari villages along the upper reaches of the Ireni, etc.). The Kungur Mari took part in the formation of the Tatars of the Suksun, Kishert and Kungur regions of the region.

Funeral ritual among the Mari people __________________

Mari (Mari people)
Northwestern Mari- an ethnographic group of Mari who traditionally live in the southern regions of the Kirov region, in the northeastern regions of Nizhny Novgorod: Tonshaevsky, Tonkinsky, Shakhunsky, Voskresensky and Sharangsky. The overwhelming majority underwent strong Russification and Christianization. At the same time, near the village of Bolshaya Yuronga in the Voskresensky district, the village of Bolshie Ashkaty in Tonshaevsky and some other Mari villages, Mari sacred groves have been preserved.

at the grave of the Mari hero Akpatyr

The Northwestern Mari are presumably a group of Mari, whom the Russians called Merya from the local self-name Märӹ, in contrast to the self-name of the meadow Mari - Mari, who appeared in the chronicles as Cheremis - from the Turkic chirmesh.
The northwestern dialect of the Mari language differs significantly from the meadow dialect, which is why literature in the Mari language published in Yoshkar-Ola is poorly understood by the northwestern Mari.
In the village of Sharanga, Nizhny Novgorod region, there is a center of Mari culture. In addition, in the regional museums of the northern regions of the Nizhny Novgorod region, tools and household items of the northwestern Mari are widely represented.

in the sacred Mari grove

Settlement
The bulk of the Mari live in the Republic of Mari El (324.4 thousand people). A significant part lives in the Mari territories of the Kirov and Nizhny Novgorod regions. The largest Mari diaspora is in the Republic of Bashkortostan (105 thousand people). Also, the Mari live compactly in Tatarstan (19.5 thousand people), Udmurtia (9.5 thousand people), Sverdlovsk (28 thousand people) and Perm (5.4 thousand people) regions, Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, Chelyabinsk and Tomsk regions. They also live in Kazakhstan (4 thousand, 2009 and 12 thousand, 1989), in Ukraine (4 thousand, 2001 and 7 thousand, 1989), in Uzbekistan (3 thousand, 1989 G.).

Mari (Mari people)

Kirov region
2002: number of shares (in the region)
Kilmezsky 2 thousand 8%
Kiknursky 4 thousand 20%
Lebyazhsky 1.5 thousand 9%
Malmyzhsky 5 thousand 24%
Pizhansky 4.5 thousand 23%
Sanchursky 1.8 thousand 10%
Tuzhinsky 1.4 thousand 9%
Urzhumsky 7.5 thousand 26%
Number (Kirov region): 2002 - 38,390, 2010 - 29,598.

Anthropological type
The Mari belong to the Sub-Ural anthropological type, which differs from the classical variants of the Ural race in a noticeably larger proportion of the Mongoloid component.

Marie hunting at the end of the 19th century

Festive performance among the Mari people______

Language
The Mari languages ​​belong to the Finno-Volga group of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic languages.
In Russia, according to the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, 487,855 people speak Mari languages, including Mari (meadow-eastern Mari) - 451,033 people (92.5%) and Mountain Mari - 36,822 people (7.5%). Among the 604,298 Mari in Russia, 464,341 people (76.8%) speak Mari languages, 587,452 people (97.2%) speak Russian, that is, Mari-Russian bilingualism is widespread. Among the 312,195 Mari in Mari El, 262,976 people (84.2%) speak Mari languages, including Mari (meadow-eastern Mari) - 245,151 people (93.2%) and Mountain Mari - 17,825 people (6 ,8 %); Russians - 302,719 people (97.0%, 2002).

Mari funeral rite

The Mari language (or Meadow-Eastern Mari) is one of the Finno-Ugric languages. Distributed among the Mari, mainly in the Republic of Mari El and Bashkortostan. The old name is “Cheremis language”.
Belongs to the Finno-Perm group of these languages ​​(along with the Baltic-Finnish, Sami, Mordovian, Udmurt and Komi languages). In addition to Mari El, it is also distributed in the Vyatka River basin and further east, to the Urals. In the Mari (meadow-eastern Mari) language, several dialects and dialects are distinguished: meadow, widespread exclusively on the meadow shore (near Yoshkar-Ola); as well as those adjacent to the so-called meadow. eastern (Ural) dialects (in Bashkortostan, Sverdlovsk region, Udmurtia, etc.); The northwestern dialect of the Meadow Mari language is spoken in Nizhny Novgorod and some areas of the Kirov and Kostroma regions. The Mountain Mari language stands out separately, widespread mainly on the mountainous right bank of the Volga (near Kozmodemyansk) and partly on its meadow left bank - in the west of Mari El.
The Meadow-Eastern Mari language, along with the Mountain Mari and Russian languages, is one of the official languages ​​of the Republic of Mari El.

Traditional Mari clothing

The main clothing of the Mari was a tunic-shaped shirt (tuvir), trousers (yolash), as well as a caftan (shovyr), all clothes were girded with a waist towel (solyk), and sometimes with a belt (ÿshto).
Men could wear a felt hat with a brim, a cap and a mosquito net. Shoes were leather boots, and later felt boots and bast shoes (borrowed from Russian costume). To work in swampy areas, wooden platforms (ketyrma) were attached to shoes.
Women had common waist pendants - decorations made of beads, cowrie shells, coins, clasps, etc. There were also three types of women's headdresses: a cone-shaped cap with an occipital blade; soroka (borrowed from the Russians), sharpan - a head towel with a headband. Similar to the Mordovian and Udmurt headdress is the shurka.

Public works among the Mari people__________

Mari prayer, Surem holiday

Religion
In addition to Orthodoxy, the Mari have their own pagan traditional religion, which retains a certain role in spiritual culture today. The Mari's commitment to their traditional faith is of keen interest to journalists from Europe and Russia. The Mari are even called “the last pagans of Europe.”
In the 19th century, paganism among the Mari was persecuted. For example, in 1830, on the instructions of the Minister of Internal Affairs, who received an appeal from the Holy Synod, the place of prayer - Chumbylat Kuryk - was blown up, however, interestingly, the destruction of the Chumbylat stone did not have the desired effect on morals, because the Cheremis worshiped not the stone, but the inhabitant here to the deity.

Mari (Mari people)
Mari traditional religion (Mar. Chimarii yula, Mari (marla) faith, Mariy yula, Marla kumaltysh, Oshmariy-Chimariy and other local and historical variants of names) is the folk religion of the Mari, based on Mari mythology, modified under the influence of monotheism. According to some researchers, in recent times, with the exception of rural areas, it has a neo-pagan character. Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been organizational formation and registration as several local and uniting regional centralized religious organizations of the Republic of Mari El. For the first time, a single confessional name, Mari Traditional Religion (Mar. Mari Yumiyula) was officially established.

Holiday among the Mari people _________________

The Mari religion is based on faith in the forces of nature, which man must honor and respect. Before the spread of monotheistic teachings, the Mari revered many gods known as Yumo, while recognizing the primacy of the Supreme God (Kugu-Yumo). In the 19th century, pagan beliefs, under the influence of the monotheistic views of their neighbors, changed and the image of the One God Tÿҥ Osh Poro Kugu Yumo (One Bright Good Great God) was created.
Followers of the Mari traditional religion carry out religious rituals, mass prayers, and conduct charitable, cultural and educational events. They teach and educate the younger generation, publish and distribute religious literature. Currently, four district religious organizations are registered.
Prayer meetings and mass prayers are held according to the traditional calendar, always taking into account the positions of the moon and sun. Public prayers usually take place in sacred groves (kusoto). The prayer is led by onaeҥ, kart (kart kugyz).
G. Yakovlev points out that the meadow Mari have 140 gods, and the mountain Mari have about 70. However, some of these gods probably arose due to incorrect translation.
The main god is Kugu-Yumo - the Supreme God who lives in the sky, heads all the heavenly and lower gods. According to legend, the wind is his breath, the rainbow is his bow. Also mentioned is Kugurak - “elder” - sometimes also revered as the supreme god:

Mari archer on the hunt - late 19th century

Other gods and spirits among the Mari include:
Purysho is the god of fate, the spellcaster and creator of the future fate of all people.
Azyren - (mar. “death”) - according to legend, appeared in the form of a strong man who approached the dying man with the words: “Your time has come!” There are many legends and tales of how people tried to outwit him.
Shudyr-Shamych Yumo - god of the stars
Tunya Yumo - god of the universe
Tul he Kugu Yumo - the god of fire (perhaps just an attribute of Kugu-Yumo), also Surt Kugu Yumo - the "god" of the hearth, Saksa Kugu Yumo - the "god" of fertility, Tutyra Kugu Yumo - the "god" of fog and others - rather In all, these are simply attributes of the supreme god.
Tylmache - speaker and lackey of the divine will
Tylze-Yumo - god of the moon
Uzhara-Yumo - god of the dawn
In modern times, prayers are made to the gods:
Poro Osh Kugu Yumo is the supreme, most important god.
Shochinava is the goddess of birth.
Tuniambal sergalysh.

Many researchers consider Keremetya to be the antipode of Kugo-Yumo. It should be noted that the places for sacrifices at Kugo-Yumo and Keremet are separate. Places of worship of deities are called Yumo-oto (“god’s island” or “divine grove”):
Mer-oto is a public place of worship where the whole community prays
Tukym-oto - family and ancestral place of worship

The nature of prayer also differs into:
random prayers (for example, for rain)
community - major holidays (Semyk, Agavayrem, Surem, etc.)
private (family) - wedding, birth of children, funeral, etc.

Settlements and dwellings of the Mari people

The Mari have long developed a riverine-ravine type of settlement. Their ancient habitats were located along the banks of large rivers - the Volga, Vetluga, Sura, Vyatka and their tributaries. Early settlements, according to archaeological data, existed in the form of fortified settlements (karman, or) and unfortified settlements (ilem, surt), connected by family ties. The settlements were small, which is typical for the forest belt. Until the middle of the 19th century. The layout of Mari settlements was dominated by cumulus, disorderly forms, inheriting early forms of settlement by family-patronymic groups. The transition from cumulus forms to an ordinary street layout of streets occurred gradually in the middle - second half of the 19th century.
The interior of the house was simple but functional; there were wide benches along the side walls from the red corner and the table. On the walls there were shelves for dishes and utensils, crossbars for clothes, and there were several chairs in the house. The living space was conventionally divided into the female half, where the stove was located, and the male half - from the front door to the red corner. Gradually, the interior changed - the number of rooms increased, furniture began to appear in the form of beds, cupboards, mirrors, clocks, stools, chairs, and framed photographs.

folklore Mari wedding in Sernur

Mari economy
Already by the end of the 1st - beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. was complex in nature, but the main thing was agriculture. In the IX-XI centuries. The Mari switched to arable farming. The steam three-field with manured fallows became established among the Mari peasants in the 18th century. Along with the three-field farming system until the end of the 19th century. slash-and-burn and fallow cultivation were maintained. The Mari cultivated grains (oats, buckwheat, barley, wheat, spelt, millet), legumes (peas, vetch), and industrial crops (hemp, flax). Sometimes in the fields, in addition to the vegetable gardens on the estate, they planted potatoes and grew hops. Vegetable gardening and horticulture were of a consumer nature. The traditional set of garden crops included: onions, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, pumpkins, turnips, radishes, rutabaga, and beets. Potatoes began to be cultivated in the first half of the 19th century. Tomatoes began to be grown in Soviet times.
Gardening has become widespread since the mid-19th century. on the right bank of the Volga among the mountain Mari, where there were favorable climatic conditions. Gardening was of commercial value to them.

Folk calendar Mari holidays

The original basis of the holiday calendar was the labor practice of people, primarily agricultural, therefore the calendar ritual of the Mari was of an agricultural nature. Calendar holidays were closely related to the cyclical nature of nature and the corresponding stages of agricultural work.
Christianity had a significant impact on the calendar holidays of the Mari. With the introduction of the church calendar, folk holidays were closer in timing to Orthodox holidays: Shorykyol (New Year, Christmastide) - for Christmas, Kugeche (Great Day) - for Easter, Sÿrem (feast of the summer sacrifice) - for Peter's Day, Uginda (new bread) - for Elijah’s day, etc. Despite this, ancient traditions were not forgotten, they coexisted with Christian ones, preserving their original meaning and structure. The dates of arrival of individual holidays continued to be calculated in the old way, using the lunisolar calendar.

Names
From time immemorial, the Mari had national names. When interacting with the Tatars, Turkic-Arabic names penetrated the Mari, and with the adoption of Christianity - Christian ones. Currently, Christian names are being used more, and a return to national (Mari) names is also gaining popularity. Examples of names: Akchas, Altynbikya, Aivet, Aymurza, Bikbai, Emysh, Izikai, Kumchas, Kysylvika, Mengylvika, Malika, Nastalche, Payralche, Shymavika.

Mari holiday Semyk

Wedding traditions
One of the main attributes of a wedding is the wedding whip “Sÿan lupsh”, a talisman that protects the “road” of life along which the newlyweds will have to walk together.

Mari people of Bashkortostan
Bashkortostan is the second region of Russia after Mari El in terms of the number of Mari residents. There are 105,829 Mari living on the territory of Bashkortostan (2002), a third of the Mari of Bashkortostan live in cities.
The resettlement of the Mari to the Urals took place in the 15th-19th centuries and was caused by their forced Christianization in the Middle Volga. The Mari of Bashkortostan for the most part retained traditional pagan beliefs.
Education in the Mari language is available in national schools, secondary specialized and higher educational institutions in Birsk and Blagoveshchensk. The Mari public association “Mari Ushem” operates in Ufa.

Famous Mari
Abukaev-Emgak, Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich - journalist, playwright
Bykov, Vyacheslav Arkadyevich - hockey player, coach of the Russian national hockey team
Vasikova, Lidia Petrovna - the first Mari woman professor, Doctor of Philology
Vasiliev, Valerian Mikhailovich - linguist, ethnographer, folklorist, writer
Kim Vasin - writer
Grigoriev, Alexander Vladimirovich - artist
Efimov, Izmail Varsonofevich - artist, king of arms
Efremov, Tikhon Efremovich - educator
Efrush, Georgy Zakharovich - writer
Zotin, Vladislav Maksimovich - 1st President of Mari El
Ivanov, Mikhail Maksimovich - poet
Ignatiev, Nikon Vasilievich - writer
Iskandarov, Alexey Iskandarovitch - composer, choirmaster
Kazakov, Miklai - poet
Kislitsyn, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich - 2nd President of Mari El
Columbus, Valentin Khristoforovich - poet
Konakov, Alexander Fedorovich - playwright
Kirla, Yivan - poet, film actor, film Start to Life

Lekain, Nikandr Sergeevich - writer
Luppov, Anatoly Borisovich - composer
Makarova, Nina Vladimirovna - Soviet composer
Mikay, Mikhail Stepanovich - poet and fabulist
Molotov, Ivan N. - composer
Mosolov, Vasily Petrovich - agronomist, academician
Mukhin, Nikolai Semenovich - poet, translator
Sergei Nikolaevich Nikolaev - playwright
Olyk Ipay - poet
Orai, Dmitry Fedorovich - writer
Palantay, Ivan Stepanovich - composer, folklorist, teacher
Prokhorov, Zinon Filippovich - guard lieutenant, Hero of the Soviet Union.
Pet Pershut - poet
Regezh-Gorokhov, Vasily Mikhailovich - writer, translator, People's Artist of the MASSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR
Savi, Vladimir Alekseevich - writer
Sapaev, Erik Nikitich - composer
Smirnov, Ivan Nikolaevich (historian) - historian, ethnographer
Taktarov, Oleg Nikolaevich - actor, athlete
Toidemar, Pavel S. - musician
Tynysh, Osyp - playwright
Shabdar, Osyp - writer
Shadt, Bulat - poet, prose writer, playwright
Shketan, Yakov Pavlovich - writer
Chavain, Sergei Grigorievich - poet and playwright
Cheremisinova, Anastasia Sergeevna - poetess
Chetkarev, Ksenophon Arkhipovich - ethnographer, folklorist, writer, organizer of science
Eleksein, Yakov Alekseevich - prose writer
Elmar, Vasily Sergeevich - poet
Eshkinin, Andrey Karpovich - writer
Eshpai, Andrey Andreevich - film director, screenwriter, producer
Eshpai, Andrey Yakovlevich - Soviet composer
Eshpai, Yakov Andreevich - ethnographer and composer
Yuzykain, Alexander Mikhailovich - writer
Yuksern, Vasily Stepanovich - writer
Yalkain, Yanysh Yalkaevich - writer, critic, ethnographer
Yamberdov, Ivan Mikhailovich - artist

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Source of information and photos:
Team Nomads.
Peoples of Russia: pictorial album, St. Petersburg, printing house of the Public Benefit Partnership, December 3, 1877, art. 161
MariUver - Independent portal about the Mari, Mari El in four languages: Mari, Russian, Estonian and English
Dictionary of Mari mythology.
Mari // Peoples of Russia. Ch. ed. V. A. Tishkov M.: BRE 1994 p.230
The Last Pagans of Europe
S.K. Kuznetsov. A trip to the ancient Cheremis shrine, known since the time of Olearius. Ethnographic review. 1905, No. 1, p. 129—157
Wikipedia website.
http://aboutmari.com/
http://www.mariuver.info/
http://www.finnougoria.ru/

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Origin of the Mari people

The question of the origin of the Mari people is still controversial. For the first time, a scientifically substantiated theory of the ethnogenesis of the Mari was expressed in 1845 by the famous Finnish linguist M. Castren. He tried to identify the Mari with the chronicle measures. This point of view was supported and developed by T.S. Semenov, I.N. Smirnov, S.K. Kuznetsov, A.A. Spitsyn, D.K. Zelenin, M.N. Yantemir, F.E. Egorov and many others researchers of the 2nd half of the 19th – 1st half of the 20th centuries. A new hypothesis was made in 1949 by the prominent Soviet archaeologist A.P. Smirnov, who came to the conclusion about the Gorodets (close to the Mordovians) basis; other archaeologists O.N. Bader and V.F. Gening at the same time defended the thesis about Dyakovsky (close to measure) origin of the Mari. Nevertheless, archaeologists were already able to convincingly prove that the Merya and Mari, although related to each other, are not the same people. At the end of the 1950s, when the permanent Mari archaeological expedition began to operate, its leaders A.Kh. Khalikov and G.A. Arkhipov developed a theory about the mixed Gorodets-Azelinsky (Volga-Finnish-Permian) basis of the Mari people. Subsequently, G.A. Arkhipov, developing this hypothesis further, during the discovery and study of new archaeological sites, proved that the mixed basis of the Mari was dominated by the Gorodets-Dyakovo (Volga-Finnish) component and the formation of the Mari ethnos, which began in the first half of the 1st millennium AD , generally ended in the 9th – 11th centuries, and even then the Mari ethnos began to be divided into two main groups - the mountain and meadow Mari (the latter, compared to the former, were more strongly influenced by the Azelin (Perm-speaking) tribes). This theory is generally supported by the majority of archaeological scientists working on this problem. Mari archaeologist V.S. Patrushev put forward a different assumption, according to which the formation of the ethnic foundations of the Mari, as well as the Meri and Muroms, took place on the basis of the Akhmylov-type population. Linguists (I.S. Galkin, D.E. Kazantsev), who rely on language data, believe that the territory of formation of the Mari people should be sought not in the Vetluzh-Vyatka interfluve, as archaeologists believe, but to the southwest, between the Oka and Suroy. Scientist-archaeologist T.B. Nikitina, taking into account data not only from archeology, but also from linguistics, came to the conclusion that the ancestral home of the Mari is located in the Volga part of the Oka-Sura interfluve and in Povetluzhie, and the advance to the east, to Vyatka, occurred in VIII - XI centuries, during which contact and mixing took place with the Azelin (Perm-speaking) tribes.

The question of the origin of the ethnonyms “Mari” and “Cheremis” also remains complex and unclear. The meaning of the word “Mari”, the self-name of the Mari people, is derived by many linguists from the Indo-European term “mar”, “mer” in various sound variations (translated as “man”, “husband”). The word “Cheremis” (as the Russians called the Mari, and in a slightly different, but phonetically similar vowel, many other peoples) has a large number of different interpretations. The first written mention of this ethnonym (in the original “ts-r-mis”) is found in a letter from the Khazar Kagan Joseph to the dignitary of the Cordoba Caliph Hasdai ibn-Shaprut (960s). D.E. Kazantsev, following the historian of the 19th century. G.I. Peretyatkovich came to the conclusion that the name “Cheremis” was given to the Mari by the Mordovian tribes, and translated this word means “a person living on the sunny side, in the east.” According to I.G. Ivanov, “Cheremis” is “a person from the Chera or Chora tribe,” in other words, neighboring peoples subsequently extended the name of one of the Mari tribes to the entire ethnic group. The version of the Mari local historians of the 1920s and early 1930s, F.E. Egorov and M.N. Yantemir, is widely popular, who suggested that this ethnonym goes back to the Turkic term “warlike person.” F.I. Gordeev, as well as I.S. Galkin, who supported his version, defend the hypothesis about the origin of the word “Cheremis” from the ethnonym “Sarmatian” through the mediation of Turkic languages. A number of other versions were also expressed. The problem of the etymology of the word “Cheremis” is further complicated by the fact that in the Middle Ages (up to the 17th – 18th centuries) this was the name in a number of cases not only for the Mari, but also for their neighbors – the Chuvash and Udmurts.

Mari in the 9th – 11th centuries.

In the 9th – 11th centuries. In general, the formation of the Mari ethnic group was completed. At the time in questionMarisettled over a vast territory within the Middle Volga region: south of the Vetluga and Yuga watershed and the Pizhma River; north of the Piana River, the upper reaches of Tsivil; east of the Unzha River, the mouth of the Oka; west of Ileti and the mouth of the Kilmezi River.

Farm Mari was complex (agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, gathering, beekeeping, crafts and other activities related to the processing of raw materials at home). Direct evidence of the widespread spread of agriculture in Mari no, there is only indirect evidence indicating the development of slash-and-burn agriculture among them, and there is reason to believe that in the 11th century. the transition to arable farming began.
Mari in the 9th – 11th centuries. almost all grains, legumes and industrial crops cultivated in the forest belt of Eastern Europe at the present time were known. Swidden farming was combined with cattle breeding; Stall housing of livestock in combination with free grazing predominated (mainly the same types of domestic animals and birds were bred as now).
Hunting was a significant help in the economy Mari, while in the 9th – 11th centuries. fur production began to have a commercial character. Hunting tools were bows and arrows; various traps, snares and snares were used.
Mari the population was engaged in fishing (near rivers and lakes), accordingly, river navigation developed, while natural conditions (dense network of rivers, difficult forest and swampy terrain) dictated the priority development of river rather than land routes of communication.
Fishing, as well as gathering (primarily forest products) were focused exclusively on domestic consumption. Significant spread and development in Mari beekeeping was introduced; they even put signs of ownership on the bean trees - “tiste”. Along with furs, honey was the main item of Mari export.
U Mari there were no cities, only village crafts were developed. Metallurgy, due to the lack of a local raw material base, developed through the processing of imported semi-finished and finished products. Nevertheless, blacksmithing in the 9th – 11th centuries. at Mari had already emerged as a special specialty, while non-ferrous metallurgy (mainly blacksmithing and jewelry - making copper, bronze, and silver jewelry) was predominantly carried out by women.
The production of clothing, shoes, utensils, and some types of agricultural implements was carried out on each farm in the time free from agriculture and livestock raising. Weaving and leatherworking were in first place among the domestic industries. Flax and hemp were used as raw materials for weaving. The most common leather product was shoes.

In the 9th – 11th centuries. Mari conducted barter trade with neighboring peoples - the Udmurts, Meryas, Vesya, Mordovians, Muroma, Meshchera and other Finno-Ugric tribes. Trade relations with the Bulgars and Khazars, who were at a relatively high level of development, went beyond natural exchange; there were elements of commodity-money relations (many Arab dirhams were found in the ancient Mari burial grounds of that time). In the area where they lived Mari, the Bulgars even founded trading posts like the Mari-Lugovsky settlement. The greatest activity of Bulgarian merchants occurred at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th centuries. There are no clear signs of close and regular connections between the Mari and the Eastern Slavs in the 9th – 11th centuries. has not yet been discovered, things of Slavic-Russian origin are rare in the Mari archaeological sites of that time.

Based on the totality of available information, it is difficult to judge the nature of contacts Mari in the 9th – 11th centuries. with their Volga-Finnish neighbors - Merya, Meshchera, Mordovians, Muroma. However, according to numerous folklore works, tense relations between Mari developed with the Udmurts: as a result of a number of battles and minor skirmishes, the latter were forced to leave the Vetluga-Vyatka interfluve, retreating east, to the left bank of the Vyatka. At the same time, among the available archaeological material there are no traces of armed conflicts between Mari and the Udmurts were not found.

Relationship Mari with the Volga Bulgars, apparently, they were not limited to trade. At least part of the Mari population, bordering the Volga-Kama Bulgaria, paid tribute to this country (kharaj) - initially as a vassal-intermediary of the Khazar Kagan (it is known that in the 10th century both Bulgars and Mari- ts-r-mis - were subjects of Kagan Joseph, however, the former were in a more privileged position as part of the Khazar Kaganate), then as an independent state and a kind of legal successor to the Kaganate.

The Mari and their neighbors in the 12th – early 13th centuries.

From the 12th century in some Mari lands the transition to fallow farming begins. Funeral rites were unifiedMari, cremation has disappeared. If previously in useMarimen often encountered swords and spears, but now they have been replaced everywhere by bows, arrows, axes, knives and other types of light bladed weapons. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the new neighborsMarithere were more numerous, better armed and organized peoples (Slavic-Russians, Bulgars), with whom it was possible to fight only by partisan methods.

XII – early XIII centuries. were marked by a noticeable growth of the Slavic-Russian and the decline of the Bulgar influence on Mari(especially in Povetluzhie). At this time, Russian settlers appeared in the area between the Unzha and Vetluga rivers (Gorodets Radilov, first mentioned in chronicles in 1171, settlements and settlements on Uzol, Linda, Vezlom, Vatom), where settlements were still found Mari and eastern Merya, as well as in the Upper and Middle Vyatka (the cities of Khlynov, Kotelnich, settlements on Pizhma) - on the Udmurt and Mari lands.
Settlement area Mari, compared with the 9th – 11th centuries, did not undergo significant changes, however, its gradual shift to the east continued, which was largely due to the advance from the west of the Slavic-Russian tribes and the Slavicizing Finno-Ugric peoples (primarily the Merya) and, possibly , the ongoing Mari-Udmurt confrontation. The movement of the Meryan tribes to the east took place in small families or their groups, and the settlers who reached Povetluga most likely mixed with related Mari tribes, completely dissolving in this environment.

Material culture came under strong Slavic-Russian influence (obviously through the mediation of the Meryan tribes) Mari. In particular, according to archaeological research, instead of traditional local molded ceramics comes dishes made on a potter's wheel (Slavic and “Slavonic” ceramics); under Slavic influence, the appearance of Mari jewelry, household items, and tools changed. At the same time, among the Mari antiquities of the 12th – early 13th centuries, there are much fewer Bulgar items.

No later than the beginning of the 12th century. The inclusion of the Mari lands into the system of ancient Russian statehood begins. According to the Tale of Bygone Years and the Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land, the Cheremis (probably the western groups of the Mari population) were already paying tribute to the Russian princes. In 1120, after a series of Bulgar attacks on Russian cities in Volga-Ochye, which took place in the second half of the 11th century, a series of retaliatory campaigns began by the Vladimir-Suzdal princes and their allies from other Russian principalities. The Russian-Bulgar conflict, as is commonly believed, flared up due to the collection of tribute from the local population, and in this struggle the advantage steadily leaned towards the feudal lords of North-Eastern Rus'. Reliable information about direct participation Mari in the Russian-Bulgar wars, no, although the troops of both warring sides repeatedly passed through the Mari lands.

Mari as part of the Golden Horde

In 1236 - 1242 Eastern Europe was subjected to a powerful Mongol-Tatar invasion; a significant part of it, including the entire Volga region, came under the rule of the conquerors. At the same time, the BulgarsMari, Mordovians and other peoples of the Middle Volga region were included in the Ulus of Jochi or Golden Horde, an empire founded by Batu Khan. Written sources do not report a direct invasion of the Mongol-Tatars in the 30s and 40s. XIII century to the territory where they livedMari. Most likely, the invasion affected the Mari settlements located near the areas that suffered the most severe devastation (Volga-Kama Bulgaria, Mordovia) - these are the Right Bank of the Volga and the left bank Mari lands adjacent to Bulgaria.

Mari submitted to the Golden Horde through the Bulgar feudal lords and khan's darugs. The bulk of the population was divided into administrative-territorial and tax-paying units - uluses, hundreds and tens, which were led by centurions and foremen - representatives of the local nobility - accountable to the khan's administration. Mari, like many other peoples subject to the Golden Horde Khan, had to pay yasak, a number of other taxes, and bear various duties, including military. They mainly supplied furs, honey, and wax. At the same time, the Mari lands were located on the forested northwestern periphery of the empire, far from the steppe zone; it did not have a developed economy, so strict military and police control was not established here, and in the most inaccessible and remote area - in Povetluzhye and the adjacent territory - the power of the khan was only nominal.

This circumstance contributed to the continuation of Russian colonization of the Mari lands. More Russian settlements appeared in Pizhma and Middle Vyatka, the development of Povetluzhye, the Oka-Sura interfluve, and then Lower Sura began. In Povetluzhie, Russian influence was especially strong. Judging by the “Vetluga Chronicler” and other Trans-Volga Russian chronicles of late origin, many local semi-mythical princes (Kuguz) (Kai, Kodzha-Yaraltem, Bai-Boroda, Keldibek) were baptized, were in vassal dependence on the Galician princes, sometimes concluding military wars against them alliances with the Golden Horde. Apparently, a similar situation was in Vyatka, where contacts between the local Mari population and the Vyatka Land and the Golden Horde developed.
The strong influence of both the Russians and the Bulgars was felt in the Volga region, especially in its mountainous part (in the Malo-Sundyrskoye settlement, Yulyalsky, Noselskoye, Krasnoselishchenskoye settlements). However, here Russian influence gradually grew, and the Bulgar-Golden Horde weakened. By the beginning of the 15th century. the interfluve of the Volga and Sura actually became part of the Moscow Grand Duchy (before that - Nizhny Novgorod), back in 1374 the Kurmysh fortress was founded on the Lower Sura. Relations between the Russians and the Mari were complex: peaceful contacts were combined with periods of war (mutual raids, campaigns of Russian princes against Bulgaria through the Mari lands from the 70s of the 14th century, attacks by the Ushkuiniks in the second half of the 14th - early 15th centuries, participation of the Mari in military actions of the Golden Horde against Rus', for example, in the Battle of Kulikovo).

Mass relocations continued Mari. As a result of the Mongol-Tatar invasion and subsequent raids by steppe warriors, many Mari, who lived on the right bank of the Volga, moved to the safer left bank. At the end of the XIV - beginning of the XV centuries. The left-bank Mari, who lived in the basin of the Mesha, Kazanka, and Ashit rivers, were forced to move to more northern regions and to the east, since the Kama Bulgars rushed here, fleeing the troops of Timur (Tamerlane), then from the Nogai warriors. The eastern direction of the resettlement of the Mari in the 14th – 15th centuries. was also due to Russian colonization. Assimilation processes also took place in the zone of contact between the Mari and the Russians and Bulgaro-Tatars.

Economic and socio-political situation of the Mari as part of the Kazan Khanate

The Kazan Khanate arose during the collapse of the Golden Horde - as a result of the appearance in the 30s and 40s. XV century in the Middle Volga region, the Golden Horde Khan Ulu-Muhammad, his court and combat-ready troops, who together played the role of a powerful catalyst in the consolidation of the local population and the creation of a state entity equivalent to the still decentralized Rus'.

Mari were not included in the Kazan Khanate by force; dependence on Kazan arose due to the desire to prevent armed struggle with the aim of jointly opposing the Russian state and, in accordance with the established tradition, paying tribute to the Bulgar and Golden Horde government officials. Allied, confederal relations were established between the Mari and the Kazan government. At the same time, there were noticeable differences in the position of the mountain, meadow and northwestern Mari within the Khanate.

At the main part Mari the economy was complex, with a developed agricultural basis. Only in the northwestern Mari Due to natural conditions (they lived in an area of ​​almost continuous swamps and forests), agriculture played a secondary role compared to forestry and cattle breeding. In general, the main features of the economic life of the Mari in the 15th – 16th centuries. have not undergone significant changes compared to the previous time.

Mountain Mari, who, like the Chuvash, Eastern Mordovians and Sviyazhsk Tatars, lived on the Mountain side of the Kazan Khanate, stood out for their active participation in contacts with the Russian population, the relative weakness of ties with the central regions of the Khanate, from which they were separated by the large Volga River. At the same time, the Mountain Side was under fairly strict military and police control, which was due to the high level of its economic development, the intermediate position between the Russian lands and Kazan, and the growing influence of Russia in this part of the Khanate. The Right Bank (due to its special strategic position and high economic development) was invaded somewhat more often by foreign troops - not only Russian warriors, but also steppe warriors. The situation of the mountain people was complicated by the presence of main water and land roads to Rus' and the Crimea, since permanent conscription was very heavy and burdensome.

Meadow Mari Unlike the mountain people, they did not have close and regular contacts with the Russian state; they were more connected with Kazan and the Kazan Tatars politically, economically, and culturally. According to the level of their economic development, meadows Mari were not inferior to the mountain ones. Moreover, the economy of the Left Bank on the eve of the fall of Kazan developed in a relatively stable, calm and less harsh military-political environment, therefore contemporaries (A.M. Kurbsky, author of “Kazan History”) describe the well-being of the population of the Lugovaya and especially the Arsk side most enthusiastically and colorfully. The amounts of taxes paid by the population of the Mountain and Meadow sides also did not differ much. If on the Mountain Side the burden of regular service was felt more strongly, then on Lugovaya - construction: it was the population of the Left Bank that erected and maintained in proper condition the powerful fortifications of Kazan, Arsk, various forts, and abatis.

Northwestern (Vetluga and Kokshay) Mari were relatively weakly drawn into the orbit of the khan’s power due to their distance from the center and due to relatively low economic development; at the same time, the Kazan government, fearing Russian military campaigns from the north (from Vyatka) and north-west (from Galich and Ustyug), sought allied relations with the Vetluga, Kokshai, Pizhansky, Yaran Mari leaders, who also saw benefits in supporting the aggressive actions of the Tatars in relation to the outlying Russian lands.

"Military democracy" of the medieval Mari.

In the XV - XVI centuries. Mari, like other peoples of the Kazan Khanate, except for the Tatars, were at a transitional stage of development of society from primitive to early feudal. On the one hand, individual family property was allocated within the land-kinship union (neighborhood community), parcel labor flourished, property differentiation grew, and on the other, the class structure of society did not acquire its clear outlines.

Mari patriarchal families were united into patronymic groups (nasyl, tukym, urlyk), and those into larger land unions (tiste). Their unity was based not on consanguineous ties, but on the principle of neighborhood, and, to a lesser extent, on economic ties, which were expressed in various kinds of mutual “help” (“voma”), joint ownership of common lands. Land unions were, among other things, unions of mutual military assistance. Perhaps the Tiste were territorially compatible with the hundreds and uluses of the Kazan Khanate period. Hundreds, uluses, and dozens were led by centurions or centurion princes (“shÿdövuy”, “puddle”), foremen (“luvuy”). The centurions appropriated for themselves some part of the yasak they collected in favor of the khan's treasury from the subordinate ordinary members of the community, but at the same time they enjoyed authority among them as intelligent and courageous people, as skillful organizers and military leaders. Centurions and foremen in the 15th – 16th centuries. They had not yet managed to break with primitive democracy, but at the same time the power of the representatives of the nobility increasingly acquired a hereditary character.

The feudalization of Mari society accelerated thanks to the Turkic-Mari synthesis. In relation to the Kazan Khanate, ordinary community members acted as a feudal-dependent population (in fact, they were personally free people and were part of a kind of semi-service class), and the nobility acted as service vassals. Among the Mari, representatives of the nobility began to stand out as a special military class - Mamichi (imildashi), bogatyrs (batyrs), who probably already had some relation to the feudal hierarchy of the Kazan Khanate; on the lands with the Mari population, feudal estates began to appear - belyaki (administrative tax districts given by the Kazan khans as a reward for service with the right to collect yasak from land and various fishing grounds that were in the collective use of the Mari population).

The dominance of military-democratic orders in medieval Mari society was the environment where the immanent impulses for raids were laid. War, which was once waged only to avenge attacks or to expand territory, now becomes a permanent trade. The property stratification of ordinary community members, whose economic activities were hampered by insufficiently favorable natural conditions and the low level of development of productive forces, led to the fact that many of them began to increasingly turn outside their community in search of means to satisfy their material needs and in an effort to raise their status in society. The feudalized nobility, which gravitated towards a further increase in wealth and its socio-political weight, also sought outside the community to find new sources of enrichment and strengthening of its power. As a result, solidarity arose between two different layers of community members, between whom a “military alliance” was formed for the purpose of expansion. Therefore, the power of the Mari “princes,” along with the interests of the nobility, still continued to reflect general tribal interests.

The greatest activity in raids among all groups of the Mari population was shown by the northwestern Mari. This was due to their relatively low level of socio-economic development. Meadow and mountain Mari those engaged in agricultural labor took a less active part in military campaigns, moreover, the local proto-feudal elite had other ways than the military to strengthen their power and further enrich themselves (primarily through strengthening ties with Kazan)

Annexation of the Mountain Mari to the Russian State

Entry Mariinto the Russian state was a multi-stage process, and the first to be annexed were the mountainousMari. Together with the rest of the population of the Mountain Side, they were interested in peaceful relations with the Russian state, while in the spring of 1545 a series of large campaigns of Russian troops against Kazan began. At the end of 1546, the mountain people (Tugai, Atachik) attempted to establish a military alliance with Russia and, together with political emigrants from among the Kazan feudal lords, sought the overthrow of Khan Safa-Girey and the installation of the Moscow vassal Shah-Ali on the throne, thereby preventing new invasions Russian troops and put an end to the despotic pro-Crimean internal policy of the khan. However, Moscow at this time had already set a course for the final annexation of the Khanate - Ivan IV was crowned king (this indicates that the Russian sovereign was putting forward his claim to the Kazan throne and other residences of the Golden Horde kings). Nevertheless, the Moscow government failed to take advantage of the successful rebellion of the Kazan feudal lords led by Prince Kadysh against Safa-Girey, and the help offered by the mountain people was rejected by the Russian governors. The mountainous side continued to be considered by Moscow as enemy territory even after the winter of 1546/47. (campaigns to Kazan in the winter of 1547/48 and in the winter of 1549/50).

By 1551, a plan had matured in Moscow government circles to annex the Kazan Khanate to Russia, which provided for the separation of the Mountain Side and its subsequent transformation into a support base for the capture of the rest of the Khanate. In the summer of 1551, when a powerful military outpost was erected at the mouth of Sviyaga (Sviyazhsk fortress), it was possible to annex the Mountain Side to the Russian state.

Reasons for the inclusion of mountain Mari and the rest of the population of the Mountain Side, apparently, became part of Russia: 1) the introduction of a large contingent of Russian troops, the construction of the fortified city of Sviyazhsk; 2) the flight to Kazan of a local anti-Moscow group of feudal lords, which could organize resistance; 3) the fatigue of the population of the Mountain Side from the devastating invasions of Russian troops, their desire to establish peaceful relations by restoring the Moscow protectorate; 4) the use by Russian diplomacy of the anti-Crimean and pro-Moscow sentiments of the mountain people for the purpose of directly including the Mountain Side into Russia (the actions of the population of the Mountain Side were seriously influenced by the arrival of the former Kazan Khan Shah-Ali in Sviyaga together with the Russian governors, accompanied by five hundred Tatar feudal lords who entered the Russian service); 5) bribery of local nobility and ordinary militia soldiers, exemption of mountain people from taxes for three years; 6) relatively close ties of the peoples of the Mountain Side with Russia in the years preceding the annexation.

There is no consensus among historians regarding the nature of the annexation of the Mountain Side to the Russian state. Some scientists believe that the peoples of the Mountain Side joined Russia voluntarily, others argue that it was a violent seizure, and still others adhere to the version about the peaceful, but forced nature of the annexation. Obviously, in the annexation of the Mountain Side to the Russian state, both reasons and circumstances of a military, violent, and peaceful, non-violent nature played a role. These factors complemented each other, giving the entry of the mountain Mari and other peoples of the Mountain Side into Russia an exceptional uniqueness.

Annexation of the left-bank Mari to Russia. Cheremis War 1552 – 1557

Summer 1551 – spring 1552 The Russian state exerted powerful military-political pressure on Kazan, and the implementation of a plan for the gradual liquidation of the Khanate through the establishment of a Kazan governorship began. However, anti-Russian sentiment was too strong in Kazan, probably growing as pressure from Moscow increased. As a result, on March 9, 1552, the Kazan people refused to allow the Russian governor and the troops accompanying him into the city, and the entire plan for the bloodless annexation of the Khanate to Russia collapsed overnight.

In the spring of 1552, an anti-Moscow uprising broke out on the Mountain Side, as a result of which the territorial integrity of the Khanate was actually restored. The reasons for the uprising of the mountain people were: the weakening of the Russian military presence on the territory of the Mountain Side, the active offensive actions of the left-bank Kazan residents in the absence of retaliatory measures from the Russians, the violent nature of the accession of the Mountain Side to the Russian state, the departure of Shah-Ali outside the Khanate, to Kasimov. As a result of large-scale punitive campaigns by Russian troops, the uprising was suppressed; in June-July 1552, the mountain people again swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar. Thus, in the summer of 1552, the mountain Mari finally became part of the Russian state. The results of the uprising convinced the mountain people of the futility of further resistance. The mountainous side, being the most vulnerable and at the same time important part of the Kazan Khanate in military-strategic terms, could not become a powerful center of the people's liberation struggle. Obviously, such factors as privileges and all kinds of gifts granted by the Moscow government to the mountain people in 1551, the experience of multilateral peaceful relations between the local population and the Russians, and the complex, contradictory nature of relations with Kazan in previous years also played a significant role. Due to these reasons, most mountain people during the events of 1552 - 1557. remained loyal to the power of the Russian sovereign.

During the Kazan War 1545 - 1552. Crimean and Turkish diplomats were actively working to create an anti-Moscow union of Turkic-Muslim states to counter the powerful Russian expansion in the eastern direction. However, the unification policy failed due to the pro-Moscow and anti-Crimean position of many influential Nogai Murzas.

In the battle for Kazan in August - October 1552, a huge number of troops took part on both sides, while the number of besiegers outnumbered the besieged at the initial stage by 2 - 2.5 times, and before the decisive assault - by 4 - 5 times. In addition, the troops of the Russian state were better prepared in military-technical and military-engineering terms; The army of Ivan IV also managed to defeat the Kazan troops piecemeal. October 2, 1552 Kazan fell.

In the first days after the capture of Kazan, Ivan IV and his entourage took measures to organize the administration of the conquered country. Within 8 days (from October 2 to October 10), the Prikazan Meadow Mari and Tatars were sworn in. However, the majority of the left-bank Mari did not show submission, and already in November 1552, the Mari of the Lugovaya Side rose up to fight for their freedom. The anti-Moscow armed uprisings of the peoples of the Middle Volga region after the fall of Kazan are usually called the Cheremis Wars, since the Mari showed the greatest activity in them, at the same time, the insurgent movement in the Middle Volga region in 1552 - 1557. is, in essence, a continuation of the Kazan War, and the main goal of its participants was the restoration of the Kazan Khanate. People's liberation movement 1552 – 1557 in the Middle Volga region was caused by the following reasons: 1) defending one’s independence, freedom, and the right to live in one’s own way; 2) the struggle of the local nobility to restore the order that existed in the Kazan Khanate; 3) religious confrontation (the Volga peoples - Muslims and pagans - seriously feared for the future of their religions and culture as a whole, since immediately after the capture of Kazan, Ivan IV began to destroy mosques, build Orthodox churches in their place, destroy the Muslim clergy and pursue a policy of forced baptism ). The degree of influence of the Turkic-Muslim states on the course of events in the Middle Volga region during this period was negligible; in some cases, potential allies even interfered with the rebels.

Resistance movement 1552 – 1557 or the First Cheremis War developed in waves. The first wave – November – December 1552 (separate outbreaks of armed uprisings on the Volga and near Kazan); second – winter 1552/53 – beginning of 1554. (the most powerful stage, covering the entire Left Bank and part of the Mountain Side); third – July – October 1554 (the beginning of the decline of the resistance movement, a split among the rebels from the Arsk and Coastal sides); fourth – end of 1554 – March 1555. (participation in anti-Moscow armed protests only by the left-bank Mari, the beginning of the leadership of the rebels by the centurion from the Lugovaya Strand, Mamich-Berdei); fifth - end of 1555 - summer of 1556. (rebellion movement led by Mamich-Berdei, his support by Arsk and coastal people - Tatars and southern Udmurts, captivity of Mamich-Berdey); sixth, last – end of 1556 – May 1557. (universal cessation of resistance). All waves received their impetus on the Meadow Side, while the left bank (Meadow and northwestern) Maris showed themselves to be the most active, uncompromising and consistent participants in the resistance movement.

The Kazan Tatars also took an active part in the war of 1552 - 1557, fighting for the restoration of the sovereignty and independence of their state. But still, their role in the insurgency, with the exception of some of its stages, was not the main one. This was due to several factors. Firstly, the Tatars in the 16th century. were experiencing a period of feudal relations, they were differentiated by class and they no longer had the kind of solidarity that was observed among the left-bank Mari, who did not know class contradictions (largely because of this, the participation of the lower classes of Tatar society in the anti-Moscow insurgent movement was not stable). Secondly, within the class of feudal lords there was a struggle between clans, which was caused by the influx of foreign (Horde, Crimean, Siberian, Nogai) nobility and the weakness of the central government in the Kazan Khanate, and the Russian state successfully took advantage of this, which was able to win over a significant group to its side Tatar feudal lords even before the fall of Kazan. Thirdly, the proximity of the socio-political systems of the Russian state and the Kazan Khanate facilitated the transition of the feudal nobility of the Khanate to the feudal hierarchy of the Russian state, while the Mari proto-feudal elite had weak ties with the feudal structure of both states. Fourthly, the settlements of the Tatars, unlike the majority of the left-bank Mari, were located in relative proximity to Kazan, large rivers and other strategically important routes of communication, in an area where there were few natural barriers that could seriously complicate the movements of punitive troops; moreover, these were, as a rule, economically developed areas, attractive for feudal exploitation. Fifthly, as a result of the fall of Kazan in October 1552, perhaps the bulk of the most combat-ready part of the Tatar troops was destroyed; the armed detachments of the left bank Mari then suffered to a much lesser extent.

The resistance movement was suppressed as a result of large-scale punitive operations by the troops of Ivan IV. In a number of episodes, insurrectionary actions took the form of civil war and class struggle, but the main motive remained the struggle for the liberation of one’s land. The resistance movement ceased due to several factors: 1) continuous armed clashes with the tsarist troops, which brought countless casualties and destruction to the local population; 2) mass famine and plague epidemic that came from the Volga steppes; 3) the left bank Mari lost the support of their former allies - the Tatars and southern Udmurts. In May 1557, representatives of almost all groups of meadow and northwestern Mari took the oath to the Russian Tsar.

Cheremis wars of 1571 - 1574 and 1581 - 1585. Consequences of the annexation of the Mari to the Russian state

After the uprising of 1552 - 1557 The tsarist administration began to establish strict administrative and police control over the peoples of the Middle Volga region, but at first this was only possible on the Mountain Side and in the immediate vicinity of Kazan, while in most of the Meadow Side the power of the administration was nominal. The dependence of the local left-bank Mari population was expressed only in the fact that it paid a symbolic tribute and fielded soldiers from its midst who were sent to the Livonian War (1558 - 1583). Moreover, the meadow and northwestern Mari continued to raid Russian lands, and local leaders actively established contacts with the Crimean Khan with the aim of concluding an anti-Moscow military alliance. It is no coincidence that the Second Cheremis War of 1571 - 1574. began immediately after the campaign of the Crimean Khan Davlet-Girey, which ended with the capture and burning of Moscow. The causes of the Second Cheremis War were, on the one hand, the same factors that prompted the Volga peoples to start an anti-Moscow insurgency shortly after the fall of Kazan, on the other hand, the population, which was under the strictest control of the tsarist administration, was dissatisfied with the increase in the volume of duties, abuses and shameless arbitrariness of officials, as well as a streak of failures in the protracted Livonian War. Thus, in the second major uprising of the peoples of the Middle Volga region, national liberation and anti-feudal motives were intertwined. Another difference between the Second Cheremis War and the First was the relatively active intervention of foreign states - the Crimean and Siberian Khanates, the Nogai Horde and even Turkey. In addition, the uprising spread to neighboring regions, which by that time had already become part of Russia - the Lower Volga region and the Urals. With the help of a whole set of measures (peaceful negotiations with a compromise with representatives of the moderate wing of the rebels, bribery, isolation of the rebels from their foreign allies, punitive campaigns, construction of fortresses (in 1574, at the mouth of the Bolshaya and Malaya Kokshag, Kokshaysk was built, the first city in the territory modern Republic of Mari El)) the government of Ivan IV the Terrible managed to first split the rebel movement and then suppress it.

The next armed uprising of the peoples of the Volga and Urals region, which began in 1581, was caused by the same reasons as the previous one. What was new was that strict administrative and police supervision began to extend to the Lugovaya Side (the assignment of heads (“watchmen”) to the local population - Russian servicemen who exercised control, partial disarmament, confiscation of horses). The uprising began in the Urals in the summer of 1581 (an attack by the Tatars, Khanty and Mansi on the Stroganovs' possessions), then the unrest spread to the left-bank Mari, soon joined by the mountain Mari, Kazan Tatars, Udmurts, Chuvash and Bashkirs. The rebels blocked Kazan, Sviyazhsk and Cheboksary, made long campaigns deep into Russian territory - to Nizhny Novgorod, Khlynov, Galich. The Russian government was forced to urgently end the Livonian War, concluding a truce with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1582) and Sweden (1583), and devote significant forces to pacifying the Volga population. The main methods of fighting against the rebels were punitive campaigns, the construction of fortresses (Kozmodemyansk was built in 1583, Tsarevokokshaisk in 1584, Tsarevosanchursk in 1585), as well as peace negotiations, during which Ivan IV, and after his death the actual Russian ruler Boris Godunov promised amnesty and gifts to those who wanted to stop resistance. As a result, in the spring of 1585, “they finished off the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of all Rus' with a centuries-old peace.”

The entry of the Mari people into the Russian state cannot be unambiguously characterized as evil or good. Both negative and positive consequences of entering Mari into the system of Russian statehood, closely intertwined with each other, began to manifest themselves in almost all spheres of social development. However Mari and other peoples of the Middle Volga region faced a generally pragmatic, restrained and even soft (compared to Western European) imperial policy of the Russian state.
This was due not only to fierce resistance, but also to the insignificant geographical, historical, cultural and religious distance between the Russians and the peoples of the Volga region, as well as the traditions of multinational symbiosis dating back to the early Middle Ages, the development of which later led to what is usually called the friendship of peoples. The main thing is that, despite all the terrible shocks, Mari nevertheless survived as an ethnic group and became an organic part of the mosaic of the unique Russian super-ethnic group.

Materials used - Svechnikov S.K. Methodical manual "History of the Mari people of the 9th-16th centuries"

Yoshkar-Ola: GOU DPO (PK) With "Mari Institute of Education", 2005

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This Finno-Ugric people believes in spirits, worships trees and is wary of Ovda. The story of Marie originated on another planet, where a duck flew and laid two eggs, from which two brothers emerged - good and evil. This is how life on earth began. The Mari believe in this. Their rituals are unique, the memory of their ancestors never fades, and the life of this people is imbued with respect for the gods of nature.

It is correct to say marI and not mari - this is very important, the wrong emphasis - and there will be a story about an ancient ruined city. And ours is about the ancient and unusual people of the Mari, who are very careful about all living things, even plants. The grove is a sacred place for them.

History of the Mari people

Legends say that the history of the Mari began far from earth on another planet. A duck flew from the constellation of the Nest to the blue planet, laid two eggs, from which two brothers emerged - good and evil. This is how life on earth began. The Mari still call the stars and planets in their own way: the Big Dipper - the constellation Elk, the Milky Way - the Star Road along which God walks, the Pleiades - the constellation Nest.

Sacred groves of the Mari – Kusoto

In autumn, hundreds of Maris come to the large grove. Each family brings a duck or goose - this is a purlyk, a sacrificial animal for all-Mary prayers. Only healthy, beautiful and well-fed birds are selected for the ceremony. The Mari line up to the cards - the priests. They check whether the bird is suitable for sacrifice, and then ask for its forgiveness and sanctify it with smoke. It turns out that this is how the Mari express respect for the spirit of fire, and it burns bad words and thoughts, clearing the space for cosmic energy.

The Mari consider themselves a child of nature, and our religion is such that we pray in the forest, in specially designated places that we call groves,” says consultant Vladimir Kozlov. – By turning to a tree, we thereby turn to the cosmos and a connection between the worshipers and the cosmos arises. We do not have any churches or other buildings where the Mari would pray. In nature, we feel like we are part of it, and communication with God passes through the tree and through sacrifices.

No one planted sacred groves on purpose; they have existed since ancient times. The ancestors of the Mari chose groves for prayers. It is believed that these places have very strong energy.

The groves were chosen for a reason; first they looked at the sun, stars and comets,” says Arkady Fedorov, a mapmaker.

Sacred groves are called Kusoto in Mari; they are tribal, village-wide and all-Mari. In some Kusoto, prayers can be held several times a year, while in others - once every 5-7 years. In total, more than 300 sacred groves have been preserved in the Mari El Republic.

In sacred groves you cannot swear, sing or make noise. Tremendous power resides in these sacred places. The Mari prefer nature, and nature is God. They address nature as a mother: vud ava (mother of water), mlande ava (mother of earth).

The most beautiful and tall tree in the grove is the main one. It is dedicated to the one supreme God Yumo or his divine assistants. Rituals are held around this tree.

The sacred groves are so important to the Mari that for five centuries they fought to preserve them and defended their right to their own faith. First they opposed Christianization and then Soviet power. In order to divert the attention of the church from the sacred groves, the Mari formally converted to Orthodoxy. People went to church services, and then secretly performed Mari rituals. As a result, a mixture of religions occurred - many Christian symbols and traditions entered the Mari faith.

The sacred grove is perhaps the only place where women relax more than work. They only pluck and dress the birds. The men do everything else: they light fires, install cauldrons, cook broths and porridges, and arrange Onapa, which is the name of the sacred trees. Special tabletops are installed next to the tree, which are first covered with spruce branches symbolizing hands, then they are covered with towels and only then the gifts are laid out. Near Onapu there are signs with the names of the gods, the main one is Tun Osh Kugo Yumo - the One Light Great God. Those who come to prayers decide which of the deities they present bread, kvass, honey, pancakes to. They also hang gift towels and scarves. The Mari will take some things home after the ceremony, but some will remain hanging in the grove.

Legends about Ovda

...Once upon a time there lived an obstinate Mari beauty, but she angered the celestials and God turned her into a terrible creature, Ovda, with large breasts that could be thrown over her shoulder, with black hair and feet with her heels turned forward. People tried not to meet her and, although Ovda could help a person, more often she caused damage. Sometimes she cursed entire villages.

According to legend, Ovda lived on the outskirts of villages in the forest and ravines. In the old days, residents often met with her, but in the 21st century no one has seen the terrible woman. However, people still try not to go to the remote places where she lived alone. Rumor has it that she hid in caves. There is a place called Odo-Kuryk (Ovdy Mountain). In the depths of the forest lie megaliths - huge rectangular boulders. They are very similar to man-made blocks. The stones have smooth edges, and they are arranged in such a way that they form a jagged fence. Megaliths are huge, but they are not so easy to spot. They seem to be skillfully disguised, but for what? One version of the appearance of megaliths is a man-made defensive structure. Probably in the old days the local population defended itself at the expense of this mountain. And this fortress was built by hand in the form of ramparts. The sharp descent was accompanied by an ascent. It was very difficult for enemies to run along these ramparts, but the locals knew the paths and could hide and shoot with arrows. There is an assumption that the Mari could have fought with the Udmurts for land. But what kind of power did you need to have to process the megaliths and install them? Even a few people will not be able to move these boulders. Only mystical creatures can move them. According to legends, it was Ovda who could have installed stones to hide the entrance to her cave, and therefore they say there is a special energy in these places.

Psychics come to the megaliths, trying to find the entrance to the cave, a source of energy. But the Mari prefer not to disturb Ovda, because her character is like a natural element - unpredictable and uncontrollable.

For the artist Ivan Yamberdov, Ovda is the feminine principle in nature, a powerful energy that came from space. Ivan Mikhailovich often rewrites paintings dedicated to Ovda, but each time the results are not copies, but originals, or the composition will change, or the image will suddenly take on a different shape. “It cannot be otherwise,” the author admits, “after all, Ovda is natural energy that is constantly changing.

Although no one has seen the mystical woman for a long time, the Mari believe in her existence and often call healers Ovda. After all, whisperers, soothsayers, herbalists, in fact, are conductors of that same unpredictable natural energy. But only healers, unlike ordinary people, know how to control it and thereby evoke fear and respect among the people.

Mari healers

Each healer chooses the element that is close to him in spirit. Healer Valentina Maksimova works with water, and in the bathhouse, according to her, the water element gains additional strength, so that any disease can be treated. When performing rituals in the bathhouse, Valentina Ivanovna always remembers that this is the territory of bathhouse spirits and they must be treated with respect. And leave the shelves clean and be sure to thank them.

Yuri Yambatov is the most famous healer in the Kuzhenersky district of Mari El. His element is the energy of trees. The appointment for it was made a month in advance. It accepts one day a week and only 10 people. First of all, Yuri checks the compatibility of energy fields. If the patient’s palm remains motionless, then there is no contact, you will have to work hard to establish it with the help of a sincere conversation. Before starting treatment, Yuri studied the secrets of hypnosis, observed healers, and tested his strength for several years. Of course, he does not reveal the secrets of treatment.

During the session, the healer himself loses a lot of energy. By the end of the day, Yuri simply has no strength; it will take a week to restore it. According to Yuri, diseases come to a person from a wrong life, bad thoughts, bad deeds and insults. Therefore, one cannot rely only on healers; a person himself must make efforts and correct his mistakes in order to achieve harmony with nature.

Mari girl's outfit

Mari women love to dress up, so that the costume is multi-layered and has more decorations. Thirty-five kilograms of silver is just right. Putting on a costume is like a ritual. The outfit is so complex that it is impossible to wear it alone. Previously, in every village there were vestment craftswomen. In an outfit, each element has its own meaning. For example, in a headdress - shrapan - three layers must be observed, symbolizing the trinity of the world. A woman's set of silver jewelry could weigh 35 kilograms. It was passed down from generation to generation. The woman bequeathed the jewelry to her daughter, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, or could leave it to her home. In this case, any woman living in it had the right to wear a set for the holidays. In the old days, craftswomen competed to see whose costume would retain its appearance until the evening.

Mari wedding

...The mountain Mari have cheerful weddings: the gates are locked, the bride is locked up, matchmakers are not allowed in so easily. The girlfriends do not despair - they will still receive their ransom, otherwise the groom will not see the bride. At a Mountain Mari wedding, they hide the bride in such a way that the groom spends a long time looking for her, but if he doesn’t find her, the wedding will be upset. Mountain Mari live in the Kozmodemyansk region of the Mari El Republic. They differ from the Meadow Mari in language, clothing and traditions. The Mountain Mari themselves believe that they are more musical than the Meadow Mari.

The whip is a very important element at a Mountain Mari wedding. It is constantly flipped around the bride. And in the old days they say that even a girl got it. It turns out that this is done so that the jealous spirits of her ancestors do not spoil the newlyweds and the groom’s relatives, so that the bride is released in peace to another family.

Mari bagpipe - shuvir

...In a jar of porridge, a salted cow's bladder will ferment for two weeks, from which they will then make a magical shuvir. A tube and a horn will be attached to the soft bladder and you will get a Mari bagpipe. Each element of the shuvir gives the instrument its own power. While playing, Shuvirzo understands the voices of animals and birds, and listeners fall into a trance, and there are even cases of healing. Shuvyr music also opens a passage to the world of spirits.

Veneration of deceased ancestors among the Mari

Every Thursday, residents of one of the Mari villages invite their deceased ancestors to visit. To do this, they usually don’t go to the cemetery; souls hear the invitation from afar.

Nowadays there are wooden blocks with names on Mari graves, but in the old days there were no identification marks in cemeteries. According to Mari beliefs, a person lives well in heaven, but he still misses the earth very much. And if in the world of the living no one remembers the soul, then it can become embittered and begin to harm the living. That's why deceased relatives are invited to dinner.

Invisible guests are received as if they were alive, and a separate table is set for them. Porridge, pancakes, eggs, salad, vegetables - the housewife should put a portion of each dish she prepared here. After the meal, treats from this table will be given to the pets.

Gathered relatives have dinner at another table, discuss problems, and ask the souls of their ancestors for help in solving difficult issues.

For our dear guests, the bathhouse is heated in the evenings. Especially for them, a birch broom is steamed and heated. The owners can take a steam bath with the souls of the dead themselves, but usually come a little later. The invisible guests are seen off until the village goes to bed. It is believed that in this way souls quickly find their way to their world.

Mari Bear – Mask

Legend has it that in ancient times the bear was a man, a bad man. Strong, accurate, but cunning and cruel. His name was hunter Mask. He killed animals for fun, did not listen to old people, and even laughed at God. For this, Yumo turned him into a beast. The Mask cried, promised to improve, asked to return his human form, but Yumo ordered him to wear a fur coat and keep order in the forest. And if he performs his service properly, then in his next life he will be born again as a hunter.

Beekeeping in the Mari culture

According to Mari legends, bees were one of the last to appear on Earth. They came here not even from the Pleiades constellation, but from another galaxy, otherwise how can one explain the unique properties of everything that bees produce - honey, wax, beebread, propolis. Alexander Tanygin is the supreme kart; according to Mari laws, every priest must keep an apiary. Alexander has been studying bees since childhood and has studied their habits. As he himself says, he understands them at a glance. Beekeeping is one of the oldest occupations of the Mari. In the old days, people paid taxes with honey, beebread and wax.

In modern villages there are beehives in almost every yard. Honey is one of the main ways to earn money. The top of the hive is covered with old things, this is insulation.

Mari signs associated with bread

Once a year, the Mari take out the museum millstones to prepare bread from the new harvest. The flour for the first loaf is ground by hand. When the hostess kneads the dough, she whispers good wishes for those who will get a piece of this loaf. The Mari have many superstitions associated with bread. When sending household members on a long journey, specially baked bread is placed on the table and is not removed until the departed person returns.

Bread is an integral part of all rituals. And even if the housewife prefers to buy it in the store, for the holidays she will definitely bake the loaf herself.

Kugeche - Mari Easter

The stove in a Mari house is not for heating, but for cooking. While the wood is burning in the oven, housewives bake multi-layer pancakes. This is an old national Mari dish. The first layer is ordinary pancake dough, and the second is porridge, it is placed on a browned pancake and the frying pan is again sent closer to the fire. After the pancakes are baked, the coals are removed, and pies with porridge are placed in the hot oven. All these dishes are intended to celebrate Easter, or rather Kugeche. Kugeche is an ancient Mari holiday dedicated to the renewal of nature and the remembrance of the dead. It always coincides with Christian Easter. Homemade candles are a mandatory attribute of the holiday; they are made only by cards with their helpers. The Maries believe that wax absorbs the power of nature, and when it melts, it strengthens prayers.

Over several centuries, the traditions of the two religions have become so mixed that in some Mari houses there is a red corner and on holidays homemade candles are lit in front of the icons.

Kugeche is celebrated for several days. Loaf, pancake and cottage cheese symbolize the trinity of the world. Kvass or beer is usually poured into a special ladle - a symbol of fertility. After prayer, this drink is given to all women to drink. And on Kugeche you are supposed to eat a colored egg. The Mari smash him against the wall. At the same time, they try to raise their hand higher. This is done so that the hens lay in the right place, but if the egg is broken below, the hens will not know their place. The Mari also roll colored eggs. At the edge of the forest they lay out boards and throw eggs, while making a wish. And the further the egg rolls, the greater the likelihood of the plan being fulfilled.

In the village of Petyaly, near the St. Guryev Church, there are two springs. One of them appeared at the beginning of the last century, when the icon of the Smolensk Mother of God was brought here from the Kazan Mother of God hermitage. A font was installed near him. And the second source has been known since time immemorial. Even before the adoption of Christianity, these places were sacred for the Mari. Sacred trees still grow here. So both baptized Mari and unbaptized ones come to the springs. Everyone turns to their God and receives peace, hope and even healing. In fact, this place has become a symbol of the reconciliation of two religions - the ancient Mari and Christian.

Films about the Mari

Marie live in the Russian outback, but the whole world knows about them thanks to the creative union of Denis Osokin and Alexey Fedorchenko. The film “Heavenly Wives of the Meadow Mari” about the fabulous culture of a small people conquered the Rome Film Festival. In 2013, Oleg Irkabaev shot the first feature film about the Mari people, “A Pair of Swans Above the Village.” Mari through the eyes of Mari - the movie turned out to be kind, poetic and musical, just like the Mari people themselves.

Rituals in the Mari sacred grove

...At the beginning of the card prayer, candles are lit. In the old days, only homemade candles were brought into the grove; church candles were prohibited. Nowadays there are no such strict rules; in the grove no one is asked what faith he professes. Since a person came here, it means he considers himself part of nature, and this is the main thing. So during prayers you can also see Mari being baptized. The Mari harp is the only musical instrument that is allowed to be played in the grove. It is believed that the music of the gusli is the voice of nature itself. Hitting the blade of an ax with a knife resembles the ringing of a bell - this is a rite of purification by sound. It is believed that vibration in the air drives away evil, and nothing prevents a person from being saturated with pure cosmic energy. Those same personalized gifts, along with the tablets, are thrown into the fire, and kvass is poured on top. The Mari believe that the smoke from burnt food is the food of the Gods. The prayer does not last long, after which comes perhaps the most pleasant moment - a treat. The Mari put first selected seeds into bowls, symbolizing the rebirth of all living things. There is almost no meat on them, but this does not matter - the bones are sacred and will transfer this energy to any dish.

No matter how many people come to the grove, there will be enough food for everyone. The porridge will also be taken home to treat those who could not come here.

In the grove, all the attributes of prayer are very simple, no frills. This is done to emphasize that everyone is equal before God. The most valuable things in this world are human thoughts and actions. And the sacred grove is an open portal of cosmic energy, the center of the Universe, therefore, with whatever attitude the Mari enters the sacred grove, it will reward him with such energy.

When everyone has left, the cards and assistants will remain to restore order. They will come here the next day to complete the ceremony. After such large prayers, the sacred grove must rest for five to seven years. No one will come here and disturb Kusomo's peace. The grove will be charged with cosmic energy, which in a few years during prayers it will again give to the Mari in order to strengthen their faith in the one bright God, nature and the cosmos.

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Faces of Russia". Mari. "Mari El Republic. From Shorunzhi with love"", 2011

MARIANS, Mari, Mari (self-name - “man”, “man”, “husband”), Cheremis (outdated Russian name), people in Russia. Number of people: 644 thousand people. The Mari are the indigenous population of the Republic of Mari El (324.4 thousand people (290.8 thousand people according to the 2010 census)). The Mari also live in the neighboring regions of the Volga region and the Urals. They live compactly in Bashkiria (105.7 thousand people), Tataria (19.5 thousand people), Udmurtia (9.5 thousand people), Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Sverdlovsk and Perm regions. They also live in Kazakhstan (12 thousand), Ukraine (7 thousand), and Uzbekistan (3 thousand). The total number is 671 thousand people.

According to the 2002 Census, the number of Mari living in Russia is 605 thousand people, according to the 2010 census. - 547 thousand 605 people.

They are divided into 3 main subethnic groups: mountainous, meadow and eastern. Mountain Mari inhabit the right bank of the Volga, meadow Mari inhabit the Vetluzh-Vyatka interfluve, eastern Mari live east of the Vyatka River, mainly in the territory of Bashkiria, where they moved in the 16-18 centuries. They speak the Mari language of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic family. The following dialects are distinguished: mountainous, meadow, eastern and northwestern. Writing based on the Russian alphabet. About 464 thousand (or 77%) Mari speak the Mari language, the majority (97%) speak Russian. Mari-Russian bilingualism is widespread. The Mari's writing is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

Believers are predominantly Orthodox and adherents of the “Mari faith” (Marla Vera), combining Christianity with traditional beliefs. The Eastern Mari mostly adhere to traditional beliefs.

The first written mention of the Mari (Cheremis) is found in the Gothic historian Jordan in the 6th century. They are also mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years. The core of the ancient Mari ethnic group that formed in the 1st millennium AD in the Volga-Vyatka interfluve were the Finno-Ugric tribes. Close ethnocultural ties with the Turkic peoples (Volga-Kama Bulgarians, Chuvash, Tatars) played a major role in the formation and development of the ethnos. The cultural and everyday similarities with the Chuvash are especially noticeable.

The main traditional occupation is arable farming. The main field crops are rye, oats, barley, millet, spelt, buckwheat, hemp, flax; garden vegetables - onions, cabbage, radishes, carrots, hops, potatoes. Turnips were sown in the field. Of auxiliary importance were the breeding of horses, cattle and sheep, hunting, forestry (harvesting and rafting of wood, tar smoking, etc.), beekeeping (later apiary beekeeping), and fishing. Artistic crafts - embroidery, wood carving, jewelry (silver women's jewelry). There was otkhodnichestvo for timber processing enterprises.

The scattered layout of villages in the 2nd half of the 19th century began to give way to street layouts: the Northern Great Russian type of layout began to predominate. The dwelling is a log hut with a gable roof, two-partitioned (hut-canopy) or three-partitioned (hut-canopy-cage, hut-canopy-hut). A small stove with a built-in boiler was often located near the Russian stove, the kitchen was separated by partitions, benches were placed along the front and side walls, in the front corner there was a table with a wooden chair for the head of the family, shelves for icons and dishes, on the side of the front door there was a wooden bed or bunks, There are embroidered towels above the windows. Among the eastern Mari, especially in the Kama region, the interior was close to Tatar (wide bunks at the front wall, curtains instead of partitions, etc.).

In the summer, the Mari moved to live in a summer kitchen (kudo) - a log building with an earthen floor, no ceiling, and a gable or pitched roof, in which cracks were left for smoke to escape. In the middle of the kudo there was an open hearth with a hanging boiler. The estate also included a cellar, a cellar, a barn, a barn, a carriage house, and a bathhouse. Characteristic are two-story storage rooms with a gallery-balcony on the second floor.

Traditional clothing - a tunic-style shirt, trousers, an open summer caftan, a hemp canvas waist towel, and a belt. Men's headwear - a felt hat with a small brim and a cap; For hunting and working in the forest, a mosquito net type device was used. Shoes - bast shoes, leather boots, felt boots. To work in swampy areas, wooden platforms were attached to shoes.

A woman's costume is characterized by an apron, waist pendants, chest, neck, and ear jewelry made of beads, cowrie shells, sparkles, coins, silver clasps, bracelets, and rings. There were 3 types of headdresses for married women: shymaksh - a cone-shaped cap with an occipital blade, worn on a birch bark frame; a magpie, borrowed from the Russians, and a sharpan - a head towel with a headband. A tall women's headdress - shurka (on a birch bark frame, reminiscent of Mordovian and Udmurt headdresses) fell out of use in the 19th century. Outerwear was straight and gathered kaftans made of black or white cloth and fur coats.

Traditional types of clothing are partly common among the older generation and are used in wedding rituals. Modernized types of national clothing are widespread - a shirt made of white and an apron made of multi-colored fabric, decorated with embroidery and ribbons, belts woven from multi-colored threads, caftans made of black and green fabric.

Rural communities usually included several villages. There were ethnically mixed, mainly Mari-Russian, Mari-Chuvash communities. Families were predominantly small and monogamous. There were also large undivided families. Marriage is patrilocal. Upon marriage, the bride's parents were paid a ransom, and they gave a dowry (including livestock) for their daughter. The modern family is small. Traditional features come to life in wedding rituals (songs, national costumes with decorations, a wedding train, the presence of everyone).

The Mari developed traditional medicine, based on ideas about cosmic life force, the will of the gods, damage, the evil eye, evil spirits, and the souls of the dead. In the “Mari faith” and paganism, there are cults of ancestors and gods (the supreme god Kugu Yumo, the gods of the sky, the mother of life, the mother of water, etc.).

Archaic features of the cult of ancestors were burial in winter clothes (in a winter hat and mittens), taking the body to the cemetery in a sleigh (even in the summer). The traditional burial reflected ideas about the afterlife: nails collected during life were buried with the deceased (during the transition to the next world, they are needed to overcome mountains, clinging to rocks), rosehip branches (to ward off snakes and a dog guarding the entrance to the kingdom of the dead), a piece of canvas (on which, like a bridge, the soul crosses an abyss into the afterlife), etc.

The Mari have many holidays, like any people with a centuries-old history. There is, for example, an ancient ritual holiday called “Sheep's Foot” (Shorykyol). It begins to be celebrated on the winter solstice (December 22) after the birth of the new moon. During the holiday, a magical action is performed: pulling sheep by the legs so that more sheep will be born in the new year. A whole set of superstitions and beliefs was dedicated to the first day of this holiday. The weather on the first day was used to judge what spring and summer would be like, and predictions were made about the harvest.

The "Mari faith" and traditional beliefs have been revived in recent years. Within the framework of the public organization "Oshmari-Chimari", which claims to be the Mari national religious association, prayers began to be held in groves; in the city of Yoshkar-Ola it owns the "Oak Grove". The Kugu Sorta (Big Candle) sect, active in the 19th and early 20th centuries, has now merged with the “Mari faith.”

The development of national self-awareness and political activity of the Mari people is promoted by the Mari national public organization "Mari Ushem" (it was created as the Mari Union in 1917, banned in 1918, resumed activity in 1990).

V.N. Petrov

Expensive ax of a lost ax

How do people become wise? Thanks to life experience. Well, that's a very long time. And if you need to quickly, quickly gain intelligence? Well, then you need to listen and read some folk proverbs. For example, the Mari.

But first, some quick information. The Mari are a people living in Russia. The indigenous population of the Republic of Mari El is 312 thousand people. The Mari also live in the neighboring regions of the Volga region and the Urals. In total, there are 604 thousand Mari in the Russian Federation (2002 census data). The Mari are divided into three territorial groups: mountainous, meadow (forest) and eastern. Mountain Mari live on the right bank of the Volga, meadow Mari - on the left, eastern - in Bashkiria and the Sverdlovsk region. They speak the Mari language, which is part of the Volga subgroup of the Finnish group of the Finno-Ugric family of languages. The Mari have a written language based on the Cyrillic alphabet. The faith is Orthodox, but there is also its own, the Mari faith (Marla faith) - this is a combination of Christianity with traditional beliefs.

As for Mari folk wisdom, it is carefully collected into proverbs and sayings.

The ax of a lost ax is precious.

At first glance, this is a strange proverb. If you really regret the lost axe, then regret it as a whole, and not about its individual parts. But folk wisdom is a subtle matter, not always immediately perceptible. Yes, of course, the ax is also a pity, but the ax handle is more pity. Because it is more dear, we take it with our hands. The hand gets used to it. That's why it's more expensive. And it’s easy to draw conclusions from this proverb. And it's better to do it yourself.

Here are some more interesting Mari proverbs, supported by centuries of folk experience.

A young tree cannot grow under an old tree.

A word will give birth, a song will give birth to tears.

There is a forest - there is a bear, there is a village - there is an evil man.

If you talk a lot, your thoughts will spread. (Very useful advice!)

And now, having gained a little Mari wisdom, let’s listen to a Mari fairy tale. More precisely, a fairy tale. It is called:

Three brothers were chopping wood in the forest. It's time for lunch. The brothers began to cook dinner: they filled the pot with water, built a fire, but there was nothing to light the fire with. As luck would have it, not one of them took any flint or matches with them from home. They looked around and saw: a fire was burning behind the trees and an old man was sitting near the fire.

The elder brother went to the old man and asked:

- Grandfather, give me a light!

“Tell forty-one fables, I’ll give you,” answered the old man.

The elder brother stood and stood, and didn’t come up with a single tale. So he returned with nothing. The middle brother went to the old man.

- Give me a light, grandfather!

“I’ll give you money if you tell forty-one fables,” the old man replied.

The middle brother scratched his head - he didn’t come up with a single fable and also returned to his brothers without fire. The younger brother went to the old man.

“Grandfather,” says the younger brother to the old man, “my brothers and I got ready to cook dinner, but there is no fire.” Give us fire.

“If you tell forty-one tales,” says the old man, “I will give you fire and, in addition, a cauldron and a fat duck that is boiling in the cauldron.”

“Okay,” agreed the younger brother, “I’ll tell you forty-one fables.” Just don't be angry.

- Who gets angry at fables!

- Okay, listen. Three brothers were born to our father and mother. We died one after another, and there were only seven of us left. Of the seven brothers, one was deaf, another was blind, the third was lame, and the fourth was armless. And the fifth one was naked, he didn’t have a scrap of clothing on him.

One day we got together and went to catch hares. They entangled one grove with threads, but the deaf brother already heard.

“There, there, there’s a rustling noise!” - shouted the deaf man.

And then the blind man saw the hare: “Catch it!” He ran into the ravine!”

The lame man ran after the hare - he was about to catch it... Only the armless man had already grabbed the hare.

The naked brother of the hare put it in his hem and brought it home.

We killed a hare and made a pound of lard from it.

I started to crawl back out, but the rope broke, and I fell back into the ground. I’m sitting, sitting in a hole, and then spring has come. The crane built a nest for itself and brought out the baby cranes. The fox got into the habit of climbing after crane babies: today he will drag one away, tomorrow another, the day after tomorrow he comes for the third. I once crept up to a fox and grabbed it by the tail!

The fox ran and dragged me along with it. At the exit I got stuck, and the fox rushed - and the tail came off.

I brought home a fox tail, cut it open, and inside there was a piece of paper. I unfolded the piece of paper, and there it was written: “The old man who is now cooking a fat duck and listening to tall tales owes your father ten pounds of rye.”

- Lies! - the old man got angry. - Fable!

“And you asked for tall tales,” answered the younger brother.

There was nothing for the old man to do; he had to give up both the boiler and the duck.

A wonderful fable! And mind you, not a lie, not a lie, but a story about something that did not happen.

And now about what happened, but in the depths of history.

The first written mention of the Mari (Cheremis) is found in the Gothic historian Jordan in the century. They are also mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years. Close ties with the Turkic peoples played a major role in the development of the Mari ethnic group.

The formation of the ancient Mari people takes place in centuries.

For centuries, the Mari were under the economic and cultural influence of the Volga-Kama Bulgaria. In the 1230s, their territory was captured by the Mongol-Tatars. Since the century, the Volga Mari were part of the Kazan Khanate, and the northwestern Mari, the Vetluga Mari, were part of the northeastern Russian principalities.

In 1551-52, after the defeat of the Kazan Khanate, the Mari became part of the Russian state. In the century, the Christianization of the Mari began. However, the Eastern Mari and some of the Meadow Mari did not accept Christianity; they retained pre-Christian beliefs for centuries, especially the cult of ancestors. At the end of the century, the resettlement of the Mari in the Cis-Urals began, which intensified in the 18th century. The Mari took part in the peasant wars under the leadership of Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev.

The main occupation of the Mari was arable farming. Of secondary importance were gardening, livestock breeding, hunting, forestry, beekeeping, and fishing.

Traditional clothing of the Mari: a richly embroidered shirt, an open summer caftan, a hemp canvas waist towel, a belt, a felt hat, bast shoes with onuchas, leather boots, felt boots. A woman's costume is characterized by an apron, caftans made of cloth, fur coats, headdresses - cone-shaped caps and an abundance of jewelry made of beads, sparkles, coins, and silver clasps.

Traditional Mari cuisine - dumplings stuffed with meat or cottage cheese, puff pancakes, cheesecakes, drinks - beer, buttermilk, strong mead. Mari families are predominantly small. The woman in the family enjoyed economic and legal independence.

Folk art includes wood carving, embroidery, patterned weaving, and birch bark weaving.

Mari music is distinguished by its richness of forms and melody. Folk instruments include: kusle (harp), shuvyr (bagpipe), tumyr (drum), shiyaltish (pipe), kovyzh (two-string violin), shushpyk (whistle). Mainly dance tunes are performed on folk instruments. Among the folklore genres, songs stand out, especially “songs of sadness,” as well as fairy tales and legends.

It's time to tell another Mari tale. If I may say so, magically musical.

One cheerful bagpiper was walking at the festival. He went on such a spree that he didn’t even make it home—the drunkenness knocked his quick legs down. He fell under a birch tree and fell asleep. So I slept until midnight.

Suddenly, through his sleep, he hears someone wakes him up: “Get up, get up, Toidemar!” The wedding is in full swing, but there is no one to play. Help me out, my dear.

The bagpiper rubbed his eyes: in front of him was a man in a rich caftan, a hat, and soft goatskin boots. And next to him is a dun stallion harnessed to a black lacquered carriage.

We sat down. The man whistled, whooped and off we went. And here is the wedding: big, rich, guests, apparently and invisible. Yes, the guests are all playful and cheerful - just play, bagpiper!

Toydemar is sweating from such a game, and asks his friend: “Give me, savush, that towel that’s hanging on the wall, I’ll wash my face in the morning.”

And the friend answers:

“Don’t take it, I’d rather give you something else.”

“Why doesn’t he allow you to wipe yourself off with this? - the bagpiper thinks. - Well, I’ll try. At least I’ll wipe one eye.”

He wiped his eye - and what does he see? He sits on a stump in the middle of the swamp, and tailed and horned animals are jumping around him.

“So this is the kind of wedding I ended up at! - thinks. “We need to clean up quickly.”

“Hey, dear,” he turns to the main devil. “I need to get home before the roosters.” In the morning, people were invited to a holiday in a neighboring village.

“Don’t bother,” the devil answers. - We'll deliver it right away. You play excellently, the guests are happy, and so are the hosts. Let's go now.

The devil whistled - a trio of dun ones and a varnished carriage rolled up. This is how a drugged eye sees, but a clean eye sees something else: three black crows and a gnarled stump.

Landed and flew. Before we had time to look around, there was the house. The bagpiper came quickly at the door, and the roosters were just crowing - the tailed ones ran away.

Relatives to him:

- Where have you been?

- At the wedding.

- What kind of weddings are these days? There wasn't one in the area. You were hiding here somewhere. We were just looking out into the street, you weren’t there, and now you showed up.

— I drove up in a wheelchair.

- Well, show me!

— It’s standing on the street there.

We went outside and there was a huge spruce stump.

Since then, the Mari have said: a drunk can get home on a tree stump.

The Mari have many holidays. Like any nation with a centuries-old history. There is, for example, an ancient ritual holiday called “Sheep's Foot” (Shorykyol). It begins to be celebrated on the day of the winter solstice (from December 22) after the birth of the new moon. Why such a strange name - “Sheep's Foot”? But the fact is that during the holiday a magical action is performed: pulling the sheep by the legs. So that more sheep are born in the new year.

In the past, the Mari associated the well-being of their household and family, and changes in life, with this day. The first day of the holiday was especially important. Getting up early in the morning, the whole family went out to the winter field and made small piles of snow, reminiscent of stacks and stacks of bread. They tried to make as many of them as possible, but always in odd numbers. Rye ears were stuck into the stacks, and some peasants buried pancakes in them. In the garden they shook branches and trunks of fruit trees and bushes in order to collect a rich harvest of fruits and berries in the new year.

On this day, the girls went from house to house, always went into the sheepfolds and pulled the sheep by the legs. Such actions associated with the “magic of the first day” were supposed to ensure fertility and well-being in the household and family.

A whole set of superstitions and beliefs was dedicated to the first day of the holiday. Based on the weather on the first day, they judged what spring and summer would be like, and predicted the harvest: “If the snow pile swept into Shorykyol is covered with snow, there will be a harvest.” “There will be snow in Shorykyol - there will be vegetables.”

Fortune-telling occupied a large place, and the peasants attached great importance to its implementation. Fortune telling was mainly associated with predicting fate. Girls of marriageable age wondered about marriage - whether they would get married in the new year, what kind of life awaited them in marriage. The older generation tried to find out about the future of the family, sought to determine the fertility of the harvest, how prosperous their farm would be.

An integral part of the Shorykyol holiday is the procession of mummers led by the main characters - Old Man Vasily and the Old Woman (Vasli kuva-kugyza, Shorykyol kuva-kugyza). They are perceived by the Mari as harbingers of the future, since the mummers foretell to householders a good harvest, an increase in the number of livestock in the farmstead, and a happy family life. Old Man Vasily and the Old Woman communicate with good and evil gods and can tell people that whatever the harvest is, such will be life for each person. The owners of the house try to welcome the mummers as best as possible. They are treated to beer and nuts so that there are no complaints about stinginess.

To demonstrate their skill and hard work, the Mari display their work - woven bast shoes, embroidered towels and spun threads. Having treated themselves, Old Man Vasily and his Old Woman scatter grains of rye or oats on the floor, wishing the generous host an abundance of bread. Among the mummers there are often Bear, Horse, Goose, Crane, Goat and other animals. Interestingly, in the past there were other characters depicting a soldier with an accordion, government officials and priests - a priest and a deacon.

Especially for the holiday, hazelnuts are preserved and treated to the mummers. Dumplings with meat are often prepared. According to custom, a coin, pieces of bast and coal are placed in some of them. Depending on who gets what while eating, they predict their fate for the year. During the holiday, some prohibitions are observed: you cannot wash clothes, sew or embroider, or do heavy work.

Ritual food plays a significant role on this day. A hearty lunch at Shorykyol should ensure food abundance for the coming year. Lamb's head is considered a mandatory dish. In addition to it, traditional drinks and foods are prepared: beer (pura) from rye malt and hops, pancakes (melna), unleavened oat bread (sherginde), cheesecakes stuffed with hemp seeds (katlama), pies with hare or bear meat (merang ale mask shil kogylyo), baked from rye or oatmeal unleavened dough “nuts” (shorykyol pyaks).

It seems to us that the expression “to dance from the stove” came into the Russian language from the Mari! From the stove holiday!

And, I tell you, he still makes bloody sacrifices to God.

At the invitation of the organizers of the international conference on languages ​​in computers, I visited the capital of Mari El - Yoshkar Ola.

Yoshkar is red, and ola, I already forgot what it means, since the city in Finno-Ugric languages ​​is just “kar” (in the words Syktyvkar, Kudymkar, for example, or Shupashkar - Cheboksary).

And the Mari are Finno-Ugrians, i.e. related in language to the Hungarians, Nenets, Khanty, Udmurts, Estonians and, of course, Finns. Hundreds of years of living together with the Turks also played a role - there are many borrowings, for example, in his welcoming speech, a high-ranking official called the enthusiastic founders of the only radio broadcasting in the Mari language radio batyrs.

The Mari are very proud of the fact that they showed stubborn resistance to the troops of Ivan the Terrible. One of the brightest Mari, oppositionist Laid Shemyer (Vladimir Kozlov) even wrote a book about the Mari’s defense of Kazan.

We had something to lose, unlike some of the Tatars, who were related to Ivan the Terrible, and actually exchanged one khan for another,” he says (according to some versions, Wardaakh Uibaan did not even know the Russian language).

This is how Mari El appears from the train window. Swamps and mari.

There is snow here and there.

This is my Buryat colleague and I in the first minutes of entering the Mari land. Zhargal Badagarov is a participant in the conference in Yakutsk, which took place in 2008.

We are looking at the monument to the famous Mari - Yyvan Kyrla. Remember Mustafa from the first Soviet sound film? He was a poet and actor. Repressed in 1937 on charges of bourgeois nationalism. The reason was a fight in a restaurant with drunken students.

He died in one of the Ural camps from starvation in 1943.

At the monument he rides a handcar. And sings a Mari song about a marten.

And this is where the owners greet us. The fifth one from the left is a legendary figure. That same radio batyr - Chemyshev Andrey. He is famous for once writing a letter to Bill Gates.

“How naive I was then, I didn’t know a lot, I didn’t understand a lot of things...,” he says, “but there was no end to the journalists, I already started to pick and choose - again the first channel, don’t you have a BBC there...”

After rest we were taken to the museum. Which was opened especially for us. By the way, in the letter the radio batyr wrote: “Dear Bill Gates, by purchasing the Windows license package, we paid you, so we ask you to include five Mari letters in the standard fonts.”

It’s surprising that there are Mari inscriptions everywhere. Although no special carrot-and-sticks were invented, and the owners do not bear any responsibility for the fact that they did not write the sign in the second state language. Employees of the Ministry of Culture say that they simply have heart-to-heart conversations with them. Well, they secretly said that the chief architect of the city plays a big role in this matter.

This is Aivika. In fact, I don’t know the name of the charming tour guide, but the most popular female name among the Mari is Aivika. The emphasis is on the last syllable. And also Salika. There is even a TV movie in Mari, with Russian and English subtitles, with the same name. I brought one of these as a gift to a Yakut Mari man - his aunt asked.

The excursion is structured in an interesting way - you can get acquainted with the life and culture of the Mari people by tracing the fate of a Mari girl. Of course her name is Aivika))). Birth.

Here Aivika seemed to be in a cradle (not visible).

This is a holiday with mummers, like carols.

The “bear” also has a mask made of birch bark.

Do you see Aivika blowing the trumpet? It is she who announces to the district that she has become a girl and it’s time for her to get married. A kind of initiation rite. Some hot Finno-Ugric guys))) immediately also wanted to notify the area about their readiness... But they were told that the pipe was in a different place))).

Traditional three-layer pancakes. Baking for a wedding.

Pay attention to the bride's monists.

It turns out that, having conquered the Cheremis, Ivan the Terrible forbade blacksmithing to foreigners - so that they would not forge weapons. And the Mari had to make jewelry from coins.

One of the traditional activities is fishing.

Beekeeping - collecting honey from wild bees - is also an ancient occupation of the Mari.

Animal husbandry.

Here are the Finno-Ugric people: in a sleeveless jacket a representative of the Mansi people (taking photographs), in a suit - a man from the Komi Republic, behind him a fair-haired Estonian.

End of life.

Pay attention to the bird on the perch - the cuckoo. A link between the worlds of the living and the dead.

This is where our “cuckoo, cuckoo, how long do I have left?”

And this is a priest in a sacred birch grove. Cards or maps. Until now, they say, about 500 sacred groves - a kind of temples - have been preserved. Where the Mari sacrifice to their gods. Bloody. Usually chicken, goose or lamb.

An employee of the Udmurt Institute for Advanced Training of Teachers, administrator of the Udmurt Wikipedia Denis Sakharnykh. As a true scientist, Denis is a supporter of a scientific, non-sneaky approach to promoting languages ​​on the Internet.

As you can see, the Mari make up 43% of the population. Second in number after Russians, of whom 47.5%.

The Mari are mainly divided by language into mountainous and meadow. Mountain people live on the right bank of the Volga (towards Chuvashia and Mordovia). The languages ​​are so different that there are two Wikipedias - in the Mountain Mari and Meadow Mari languages.

Questions about the Cheremis wars (30-year resistance) are asked by a Bashkir colleague. The girl in white in the background is an employee of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who calls her area of ​​scientific interest - what do you think? - identity of the Ilimpiy Evenks. This summer he is going to Tours in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and maybe even stop by the village of Essey. We wish good luck to the fragile city girl in mastering the polar expanses, which are difficult even in summer.

Picture next to the museum.

After the museum, while waiting for the meeting to start, we walked around the city center.

This slogan is extremely popular.

The city center is being actively rebuilt by the current head of the republic. And in the same style. Pseudo-Byzantine.

They even built a mini-Kremlin. Which, they say, is almost always closed.

On the main square, on one side there is a monument to the saint, on the other - to the conqueror. City guests chuckle.

Here is another attraction - a clock with a donkey (or mule?).

Mariyka talks about the donkey and how it became the unofficial symbol of the city.

Soon three o'clock will strike and the donkey will come out.

We admire the donkey. As you understand, the donkey is not an ordinary one - he brought Christ to Jerusalem.

Participant from Kalmykia.

And this is the same “conqueror”. First imperial commander.

UPD: Pay attention to the coat of arms of Yoshkar-Ola - they say it will be removed soon. Someone on the City Council decided to make the elk antlered. But maybe this is idle talk.

UPD2: The coat of arms and flag of the Republic have already been changed. Markelov - and no one doubts that it was him, although parliament voted - replaced the Mari cross with a bear with a sword. The sword faces down and is sheathed. Symbolic, right? In the picture - the old Mari coat of arms has not yet been removed.

This is where the plenary session of the conference took place. No, the sign is in honor of another event)))

A curious thing. In Russian and Mari;-) In fact, on the other signs everything was correct. Street in Mari - Urem.

Shop - kevyt.

As one colleague, who once visited us, sarcastically remarked, the landscape is reminiscent of Yakutsk. It’s sad that our hometown appears to guests in such a guise.

A language is alive if it is in demand.

But we also need to provide the technical side - the ability to print.

Our wiki is among the first in Russia.

An absolutely correct remark by Mr. Leonid Soames, CEO of Linux-Ink (St. Petersburg): the state does not seem to notice the problem. By the way, Linux Inc. is developing a browser, spell checker and office for independent Abkhazia. Naturally in the Abkhazian language.

In fact, the conference participants tried to answer this sacramental question.

Pay attention to the amounts. This is for creating from scratch. For the whole republic - a mere trifle.

An employee of the Bashkir Institute for Humanitarian Research reports. I know our Vasily Migalkin. Linguists of Bashkortostan began to approach the so-called. language corpus - a comprehensive codification of the language.

And on the presidium sits the main organizer of the action, an employee of the Mari Ministry of Culture, Eric Yuzykain. Speaks fluent Estonian and Finnish. He mastered his native language as an adult, largely, he admits, thanks to his wife. Now she teaches the language to her children.

DJ "Radio Mari El", admin of the Meadow Mari wiki.

Representative of the Slovo Foundation. A very promising Russian foundation that is ready to support projects for minority languages.

Wikimedists.

And these are the same new buildings in a quasi-Italian style.

It was the Muscovites who began to build casinos, but a decree banning them arrived just in time.

In general, when asked who finances the entire “Byzantium”, they answer that it is the budget.

If we talk about the economy, there were (and probably are) military factories in the republic producing the legendary S-300 missiles. Because of this, Yoshkar-Ola used to even be a closed territory. Like our Tiksi.