– numerous Finno-Ugric people, which inhabits the central part of modern Russia. Representatives of this nationality are the indigenous people of central Russia and one of the most ancient aboriginal ethnic groups Eastern Europe. The total number of representatives of the people is approximately 800 thousand. About 30% of Mordovians live in Mordovia, but the rest are settled in other regions of Russia, especially in the Tambov, Samara, Ryazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Penza regions. This people arose at the end of the 1st millennium BC. e. - beginning of the 1st millennium AD e.

Moksha girl, Erzya girl, Mordvinian family

Subgroups of Mordovians (subethnic groups).

The Mordovian people are divided into two subgroups: Erzya And moksha. Moksha, for the most part, lives in the west and south of the Mordovians, and Erzya - in the east. Erzya, in turn, are divided into Shokshan and Teryukhan. This means that the customs of the Mordovians are very different from different representatives this culture.

Mordovian language.

To this day, the Mordovian language has not lost its everyday relevance for at least a third of the population of all Mordovia, but the majority of the population speaks Russian. The main religion of the population is Orthodoxy, but there are still Molokans, Lutherans And Old Believers.

Where did the term “Mordovian” come from?

The term “Mordovians” is a shorthand designation for two radically different peoples. In fact, the traditions of the Mordovians are very different between these two peoples; they speak completely different languages, are completely different from each other in appearance, and what is most significant is that they will not even understand each other if they speak their native languages. So we can say that the customs of the Mordovians are extremely diverse. Before the Soviet period, residents of both nationalities did not identify themselves with the concept of “Mordvins” or “Mordovians”; moreover, this term was derogatory or offensive in their understanding. Nowadays, of course, everything has changed. This generalization was instilled at the state level during a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars in 1928. Initially, the meeting discussed the issue of creating the Erzyan-Moksha district, but at that time the term “Mordovians” was known to the entire population of Russia and was applied equally to both Erza and Moksha. Therefore, it was much easier creation Mordovian district and designation of all its inhabitants as one nationality - Mordovians, which was done. It was from this time that it began modern history Mordovians

History of the peoples of Mordovia.

Until the Middle Ages

The most ancient mentions of the Mordovian tribes are present in ancient, ancient records. In those days, these tribes were more than wild. For example, in the records of Herodotus they were called nothing less than androphages - cannibals. The bad climate and low standard of living of these tribes did not create best conditions for the development of a normal society of that time period. This turn of events led to growing anger among the population. In the fifth century AD. The Mordovian tribes clashed in battles with the Scythians and Sarmatians, who forced them out of their usual habitats. Clashes between the Mordovians and Russia began in the eleventh century AD. After the founding of Nizhny Novgorod, a large number of successful campaigns of Russian princes against the Mordovian tribes were historically noted. However, several years after these events, the Erzya land will be completely devastated by Batu. The Erzyans do not recognize their dependence on the Golden Horde and retreat to the northern forests; the Moksha tribes, on the contrary, act as part of the Mongol army and carry out multiple campaigns and raids, which mostly end unfortunately for them. Retreating to the north, the Erzya fall under the rule of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal Grand Duchy, which leads to a split in the community, as some Erzya convert to Christianity. This moment can be considered a turning point regarding the formation of the entire culture of Mordovia. Those who in those days refused to accept Christianity go further to the east and try to develop their culture and way of life there. Erzya participates in the destruction of Nizhny Novgorod and launches raids on the outskirts of the devastated city, but they are defeated on the way home.

Oath to the Moscow prince.

Gradually, the Russian princes still subjugated the Erzyans, and after Ivan the Terrible’s campaign against Kazan, the Moksha and Erzya noble families swore allegiance to the Moscow prince. Each Mordvin is subject to heavy taxes, which over time leads to a series of uprisings. Only representatives of the noble families of the Mordovians manage to escape the extortions, and then only those who converted to Christianity. Forced mass baptisms force the population to show the character of the Mordovians, and this periodically leads to targeted riots, but in the end it all ends with the virtually complete assimilation of the Mordovians next to the Russian population.
The history of the Mordovians is diverse and extraordinary. By studying it, you can better understand the character of this nation and its values. It is not surprising that the history of Mordovia is of interest to such a huge number of people all over the world. After all, by delving into the events of that ancient time, one can understand how this extraordinary culture of peoples arose. The national costumes of this nation deserve special attention, which, although outwardly similar to Russian ones, have some quite striking differences. Despite the complex and difficult fate of the Erzya and Moksha tribes, despite the historical compulsion to move from place to place, the traditions of the Mordovians have not sunk into oblivion. Even today, at festivals in Mordovia you can see traditional decorations and outfits, hear the old dialect of the local population, and feel the spirit and character of the Mordovians - an amazing and extraordinary people.

The name Mordovians (from Russian - in European languages: German Mordwinen, etc.) is not an original self-name and, although it has long been used by the Mordovian population itself, it is an exoethnonym borrowed from the Russian language and serves to designate two initially close friends friend in language and culture, but nevertheless having different ethnic identity groups - moksha And Erzi. For the first time this ethnonym is found in Jordan (VI century AD) in the form of Mordens - one of the peoples allegedly conquered by the Gothic king Germanaric. Then, in the 10th century, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenet used Mordia as the name of the country. In Russian chronicles Mordva was first mentioned in the list of peoples of the Middle Volga region who were part of the sphere of interests of Kievan Rus from the earliest times, compiled, as is commonly believed, in the 11th century. Its origin is obviously connected with the words of the Iranian languages ​​that mean “man, man.” The self-name of the Mordovians is Erzi er(d)zya, was first recorded, as is commonly believed, in a letter from the Khazar Kagan Joseph (10th century), where, among the peoples subjugated by the Khazars, between s-var (obviously, the Suvars, a tribe living on the territory of Volga Bulgaria) and c-r-mis ( apparently - Cheremis, that is, Mari), the Arisu people are mentioned. Perhaps the same name (Erzya) became the basis for the name of the mysterious country Arsa(niya) or Arta(b), mentioned in the works of Arab geographers since the 10th century as one of the three main centers of the Rus, the most inaccessible for foreigners. The origin of the word Erzya remains unclear. The self-name of Mordovians is Moksha (Mord. moksha) is first found in sources of the 13th century - in the notes of the Flemish traveler brother William de Rubruk, among the peoples conquered by Genghis Khan, the people of Moxel are named, living beyond the Don in the north, beyond which live the Mordovians (“Merdas, whom the Latins call Merduinis”). Moksha, along with Erza (arjan), is mentioned as one of the peoples of the Middle Volga region conquered by the Tatars and in the “Collection of Chronicles” of a statesman at the court of the Mongol khans, the Persian Rashid ad-Din (XIV century). This ethnonym is apparently associated with the name of the Moksha River, which flows through the original territory of the Mordovian-Moksha settlement, which, in turn, may have a Balto-Slavic etymology: Old Church Sl., Old Russian. wet“wet” + Baltic parallels). Starting from the 9th century, Mordovians (especially Moksha in the south and east) fell under the influence of Volga Bulgaria, and from the 11th century, Mordovian lands became the subject of attention of Russian princes (according to the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” Mordva paid tribute in honey to Vladimir Monomakh (1053–1125)), and the Mordovians took part in the struggle between Rus' and Bulgaria for zones of influence in the Middle Volga region. This struggle especially intensified at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century, when (in 1221) Nizhny Novgorod was founded by the Russians at the mouth of the Oka, and the Erzyan prince Purgas rose to prominence in the Mordovian lands, not without success fighting the Russians, even making campaigns against Nizhny Novgorod. The defeat of Purgas by the Nizhny Novgorod people in 1229 took place with the support of the son of a certain prince named Puresh (option - Pureisha), an ally of the Vladimir prince Yuri, whom some researchers are also inclined to consider as a Mordovian prince (in the chronicles, however, “Pureshev’s son from the Polovtsi” is mentioned, which gives reason to doubt his Mordovian origin). The struggle that unfolded in the Middle Volga region was put an end to in the 13th century by a third force - the Mongol-Tatars, during whose invasion (in 1237–1238) the Mordovian lands were subordinated to the Mongols, and part of the Mordovian-Moksha led princes, according to brother. Wilhelm de Rubruk (see above), was included in the Mongol army and died in the European campaigns. To control the Mordovian and neighboring lands, the Golden Horde was founded on the river in the 14th century. Mokshe city Mukhshi (cf. Tat. mukshy"Mordva-Moksha"< морд. moksha), now the village of Narovchat, Penza region. From this time on, the Turkic influence on the culture and language of the Mordovians-Moksha increased. On the other hand, in the north, from the second half of the 14th century, the Mordovian lands fell under the rule of the Nizhny Novgorod princes, and Russian influence on the Mordovian-Erzya grew, it was partially assimilated in the Oka-Sur interfluve and the main ethnic territory of the Erzya shifted to the east and southeast - to the middle reaches of the Sura River. The cruel Horde oppression, which did not save them from the constant terrible raids of the steppes (reflected in Mordovian folklore in the cycle of historical songs and legends about the Nogais), led to the fact that most of the Mordovians gradually leaned towards the Russians, and during the period of Moscow’s struggle with the Kazan Khanate, the Mordovians acts as a people allied with Moscow. The final inclusion of all Mordovian lands into the Russian state occurred after the conquest of Kazan by Moscow in 1552. In the 16th-17th centuries, cities were built here to form a defensive line on the steppe borderland of Rus', and the influx of Russian population increased greatly. From this same time, the Christianization of the Mordovians began, which acquired a special scope in the 18th century. The reaction to it, as well as to the increasing social and national oppression, was the so-called Teryushevsky (by the name of the volost) uprising of 1808–1810, led by Kuzma Alekseev (in Russian documents - “Kuzka the Mordovian god”), who tried to create on the basis of pagan Mordovian beliefs a special national religion of the Mordovians (see similar reformist neo-pagan movements in the 19th century among the Mari and Udmurts in the corresponding sections). As a result of assimilation by the Tatars and Russians to 19th century there were two special ethnographic groups Mordovians: Karatai(external name for the village of Bolshie Karatai), living in the south-west of Tatarstan (Tetyushsky district), speaking Tatar today, but considering themselves Mordovians (Moksha) and preserving the Mordovian features of traditional culture, and Teryukhane(also external name for the village of Bolshoye Teryushevo), who lived in the Nizhny Novgorod province (today - Dalnekonstantinovsky district Nizhny Novgorod region), which at the beginning of the 20th century retained Mordovian characteristics in culture and self-awareness (Mordovian-Erzya), today are completely Russified. On the other hand, due to the influx of Russian settlers to Mordovian lands, the enslavement of part (no more than 10%) of the Mordovian peasantry, etc. ., from the 17th century, the Mordovian migrations to the east began: initially - to the Volga region, on the territory of present-day Samara, Ulyanovsk, Saratov region, Tatarstan, then, in the 18th century - in the Volga and Cis-Ural regions, in Bashkiria, the Orenburg region. These migrations led to an extremely dispersed and widespread settlement of the Mordovians, who, however, retained their culture, language, and ethnic identity in the new lands. Already by mid-19th century century, barely more than half of the entire Mordovian population of Russia lived on the indigenous Mordovian lands, which at that time (before the abolition of serfdom in 1861) amounted to about 670 thousand people. The movement of the Mordovians to the east continued in the second half of the 19th century: according to the 1897 census, 1 million 22 thousand people lived in Russia as Mordovians, of which more than 30 thousand lived in the Trans-Urals, Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, the Mordovian people received autonomy : in 1928, the Mordovian Okrug was created, transformed in 1930 into the Mordovian Autonomous Region (since 1934 - the Mordovian Autonomous Republic). Due to the dispersed settlement of the Mordovians, initially less than a third of the total Mordovian population of Russia (according to the 1926 census - 1 million 339 thousand people) found themselves living within the boundaries of the created autonomy, among the population of which Mordovians accounted for 32.2% (452 ​​thousand people) in 1928 .), and in 1930, after changing the borders - 38.5% (501 thousand people). During the years of industrialization and World War II, the number of Mordovians, both in Russia as a whole and within the Mordovian Republic, decreased - mainly due to assimilation, which was facilitated by the dispersion of Mordvinian settlement, the presence of two literary languages, urbanization, and the liquidation of Mordovian national regions created in 1930- e years in Penza and Samara regions. According to the 1959 census, the number of Mordovians in the USSR was 1 million 285 thousand people, of which 358 thousand lived in Mordovia. The process of reducing the number of Mordovians continued in the 1960–1980s: 1970 - 1 million 262 thousand, 1979 - 1 million 192 thousand, 1989 - 1 million 154 thousand people within USSR. Moreover, only 740 thousand people in 1989 (64%) considered one of the Mordovian languages ​​their native language. In Mordovia in 1989, there were 313.4 thousand people of Mordovian nationality, of whom 277.3 thousand (88%) considered one of the Mordovian languages ​​their native language. Speaking about modern ethnosocial processes among the Mordovians, it should be borne in mind that, in the strength of the linguistic and ethnic proximity of Moksha and Erzi, the fact that for a long time a single exo-ethnonym Mordovians has been used in relation to both, the existence of Mordovian statehood, a kind of “dual” ethnic self-awareness is really widespread among Mordovians, when a person considers himself, on the one hand, belonging to the “Mordovian people”, and on the other hand, to one of its so-called “subethnic divisions” (Moksha or Erze). In connection with the growing interest in national issues, the rise of national self-awareness in the late 1980s - early 1990s in the Mordovian environment, the question of the priority of the general Mordovian or “separate”, Moksha and Erzya self-awareness, and whether it should continue to be used the name Mordovians brought from outside as the name of the people, or it is necessary to move on to the official use of two self-names, thereby recognizing the existence of two special peoples. Today, Mordovians-Moksha inhabits mainly the west and center of Mordovia, and Erzya - the east (see above about the formation of ethnic territory Mordovians), while the majority of the Erzyans (who, as is commonly believed, make up about two-thirds of the Mordovians) live outside the republic, in the Penza, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Orenburg regions, in the republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The Mokshans also live in these regions and republics, sometimes in the same villages with the Erzyans, but in general there are fewer of them outside of Mordovia. In addition to these two groups and the Teryukhans and Karatais described above, the Mordovians should be mentioned shokshu or (for some authors) Tengushevskaya Mordovians, living in the extreme north-west of Mordovia (about 15 thousand people in the Tengushevsky and Torbeevsky districts) and representing a culturally and linguistically isolated Mordovian group, initially, perhaps, close to the ancient Erzyan massif, long living in the Russian and Moksha environment . Links

Mordovians are one of the most unique peoples of Russia. Its uniqueness lies in its binary nature, i.e. the duality of its constituent parts – the Moksha and Erzya peoples. However, there is no final answer to the question “Are Moksha and Erzya one, Mordovian people, or two different ones?” Both versions have supporters and opponents.

The fact that the Moksha and Erzya are different peoples, united only by chance into one Mordovian people, is supported by the fact that the ethnonym “Mordovian” is absent in their language and that the Moksha and Erzya have their own language. They initially did not call themselves Mordovians, but called them Moksha and Erzeya.

Against the recognition of Moksha and Erzi different peoples it says that a large layer of representatives of these peoples has already formed, who consider themselves Mordovians, and outside of Mordovia, almost 100% of the Moksha and Erzya perceive themselves as a single Mordovian people.

The Moksha and Erzya languages ​​have much in common, but also many differences. As a rule, supporters of the legislative division of the Mordovians into Moksha and Erzya argue that Moksha and Erzya do not understand each other’s language. Supporters of the united Mordovian people claim the opposite.

There is an opinion that the division into Moksha and Erzya occurred in the 1st millennium. Over time, this was reflected in the language and mentality. Here the Mordovians repeat the fate of the Serbs, some of whom in ancient times left Central Europe to the Balkans, and some remained where Lusatia is now located - a region within Germany where Lusatian Serbs live (the Germans call them “Sorbs”), the smallest Slavic people(60 thousand).

Today, Balkan Serbs and Sorbs consider each other “cousins.” The first are Orthodox, predominantly using the Cyrillic alphabet; the latter are Germanized Lutherans and use the Latin alphabet.

Mordva is the largest Finno-Ugric people in Russia. And, as is the case with other Finno-Ugric peoples (Mari, Udmurts, Khanty, Mansi, etc.), their history contains many blank spots. The Basques immediately come to mind - a people in Spain, linguistically and culturally separated from the Spaniards. The origin of the Basques, their language and how they ended up in the Pyrenees is a mystery to scientists. Only known about availability common features in the Basque language with some Caucasian ones. The division into Moksha and Erzya is also somewhat of a mystery for scientists.

There are three in Mordovia state languages– Russian, Moksha and Erzya. So that no one is offended. At the same time, there is a problem of narrowing the range of use of the last two. The Mordovian languages ​​(the author will allow himself this general name for the sake of brevity) need support, and the central authorities are obliged to provide this support, because the ethnic diversity of Russia is like a motley picture, and the disappearance of even one of its shades will make it poorer.

In the old days, the Mordovian settlement area was much wider than it is today. There is an opinion that the Mordovians inhabited the modern Tambov, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Ryazan, and Penza regions. But the Mordovians became so close to the Russians that they assimilated quite quickly.

Indeed, outwardly it is difficult to distinguish a Mordvin from a Russian, and the number of Russians with Mordovian blood probably numbers in the tens of thousands. In the first half of the twentieth century, Mordovians moved en masse to Siberia, fleeing landlessness. They founded their own Mordovian villages, where even the children of Russian settlers gradually switched to the Mordovian language. Even in the 1950s, Mordovian first-graders still came to Siberian schools and confused Russian cases and persons (in Mordovian languages ​​there is no inflection for persons). But then assimilation took its toll, and they almost forgot the Mordovian language.

Everyone has heard about the feat of the pilot, the Hero Soviet Union Alexei Maresyev, who continued to smash the Nazis even after the amputation of two legs. Boris Polevoy dedicated the book “The Tale of a Real Man” to his feat. Who knows that Maresyev is Mordvin by nationality? Few.

Boxing fans know professional Oleg Maskaev, who has repeatedly surprised fans with intense fights in the ring. Who knows that Maskaev is also a Mordvin? Few. And there are enough such cases.

Unfortunately, the tradition of calling children with Mordovian names has gradually become a thing of the past: Pichai, Viryas, Kezhai, Parut. Today it is impossible to distinguish a Mordvin from a Russian by their full name, as one can distinguish, for example, an Ingush, a Tatar or a Balkar. I would like to believe that the tradition of giving newborns Mordovian names will be revived.

Distinctive features of the Mordovian national character are resilience, endurance, and determination. Stubborn as a Mordvin is an eloquent saying. Confirmation: Patriarch Nikon, under whom he was born church schism, was a Mordvin of remarkable energy. During the Great Patriotic War there were no traitors among the Mordovians. The Mordovian Legion as part of the Wehrmacht is an impossible scenario.

There were no defectors among the Mordovians in the Afghan campaign and in all other wars in which the Mordovians participated on an equal basis with other peoples of Russia. Interacting with Russians since the 11th century. (Mordovians are also mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years), having officially become part of the Russian state in the 16th century, the Mordovians made a significant contribution to the formation of Russia.

The capital of Mordovia, Saransk, hosted a series of FIFA World Cup games this year. Tens of thousands of foreign fans had the opportunity to get acquainted with Mordovian culture. They were treated to excursions to ethnocultural sites - the ethno-farm "World of the Mordovian Village", the Museum of Mordovian folk culture, exhibition “Life of the Mordovian people”, project “Try on a Mordovian costume”, etc.

And this is a very correct approach. Almost every tourist country includes in its tour program ethnic element. In Tunisia, tourists are introduced to the Berber culture, in China - to the culture of the Li and Miao peoples, in Vietnam - to the culture of the Hmong. Mordovian culture can also become a tourism asset for the republic. The World Cup proved this. Now the Mordovians will be heard on many continents.

Mordva is the largest Finno-Ugric people in the Soviet Union. language family. The number of Mordovians, according to the 1959 census, is 1,285.1 thousand people. It is most compactly settled in the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In addition, significant groups of Mordovians live in the Saratov, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Gorky, Orenburg, Kuibyshev regions, in the Tatar and Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, in Siberia and Central Asia.

The term “Mordovians” serves as a general name for the entire people, which is divided into two main groups: Mordovians-Erzya and Mordovians-Moksha. Each group retains to this day its self-name (Erzya and Moksha), features in the language, material culture(clothing, housing), folk art.

Erzya live mainly in the northeastern and eastern regions of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The exception is a unique local group of Mordvins-Erzi, living in the northwestern part of the republic, in villages along the lower reaches of the river. Moksha with its center in the village. Tengushev (now Temnikovsky district). This so-called Tengush group of Mordovian-Erzi also includes the population of two villages - Drakino and Kazhlodka, located in the southern part of the republic (Torbeevsky district). Having become isolated back in the 17th century. from the total mass of the Erzyan population and living for a long time among the Moksha Mordovians, the Tengushev Mordovians continue to this day to preserve their cultural identity and self-name “Erzya”. The folk women's costume of this group differs from the costume of the main part of the Erzi, as well as folklore and many rituals, such as weddings. This group speaks a transitional dialect from Erzya to Moksha. Its cultural identity is also determined by the strong influence of the neighboring Russian population, in close proximity to which it has lived for a long time.

Outside the republic, Erzya Mordovians live mainly in the Gorky, Kuibyshev, Saratov, and Orenburg regions, in the Tatar and Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics.

Mordovian-Moksha settled mainly in the western part of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Outside the republic, Moksha villages are more numerous in the Penza region. In the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and in the Orenburg region, Moksha villages are found along with Erzya villages.

There are no mixed Moksha-Erzya villages in the republic, but they exist in the Orenburg and Penza regions. Outside the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic there are also Mordovian-Chuvash villages, but most often Russian-Mordovian. The Mordovian population, living outside the republic, surrounded by Russians, Tatars, Bashkirs and other nationalities of the Middle Volga region, in a number of cases loses their self-names “Moksha” and “Erzya” and calls themselves Mordovians.

Until recently, two smaller ethnographic groups stood out among the Mordovians: the Teryukhans and the Karatai. Teryukhane - a group of Mordovians who lived within the Gorky region. not far from the city of Gorky. In our time, it has completely merged with the Russian population, but back in the 1920s, the Teryukhans called themselves Mordovians and retained a number of features in culture, clothing, housing, wedding rituals and a peculiar intonation (although they spoke Russian). The Karatai live in three villages on the territory of the Tetyushsky district of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and speak the Tatar language. Their material culture is close to Russian, but some customs and folklore are very unique. They themselves consider themselves Mordovians. The term “Karatai” coincides with the name of one of the villages in which they live - Mordovian Karatai.

The Erzyan and Moksha languages ​​constitute a special, Mordovian, group of Finno-Ugric languages. The first of them is phonetically closer to Russian, the second has significantly more features in phonetics and Tatar words in vocabulary.

Now the Moksha and Erzya languages ​​are literary languages; books, newspapers are published in them, and education is conducted in primary school. IN high school Teaching is conducted in Russian, and Moksha or Erzya languages ​​and literature are taught as separate subjects. In areas outside the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with a mixed Russian-Mordovian population, children are taught in Russian.

The Russian language is very widely spoken among the Mordovians. The entire Mordovian population, with the exception of some elderly women who have not traveled outside their village, knows Russian. In cities, in production, in middle and higher educational institutions Erzya and Moksha communicate in Russian, since communication between them in their native languages ​​is difficult.

The population of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is quite diverse. The 1959 census showed that Mordovians make up 36% of the republic’s population, with Russians occupying the first place in number; in third place are the Tatars. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Chuvashs, and Maris also live in small numbers in the republic.

The Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is located in the forest-steppe zone. Of the rivers flowing on its territory, the larger ones are Sura, Moksha, Tsna, Alatyr. The republic is rich in forests, mostly deciduous; forests alternate with large areas of arable land and meadows.

Brief historical sketch

The first information about the Mordovians dates back to the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. The Mordovians under the name Mordens were first mentioned by the Gothic historian Jordan, who lived in the 6th century. In the work of the Byzantine writer Constantine Porphyrogenitus (10th century), the country is named “Mordia”. The name “Mordovians” is found already in the Primary Chronicle and subsequently does not leave the pages of Russian chronicles.

At present, the autochthony of the Mordovians is no longer in doubt. The study of ancient Mordovian settlements and burial grounds makes it possible to establish the continuity of the Mordovians with the more ancient local tribes of the Bronze Age. This confirms the opinion of a number of researchers that the Mordovian tribes developed on the basis of the ancient tribes of the Middle Volga region. The genetic connection of the Mordovians with the culture of local tribes, in particular with the Gorodets culture, which was widespread in the Volga region from the 7th century. BC e. according to the 5th century n. e., can be clearly seen in the tools of labor, types of housing, techniques for making pottery, jewelry, etc. The earliest archaeological data that allows us to judge the life of the Mordovian tribes dates back to the first centuries of our era. Residents of ancient settlements of the mid-1st millennium AD. e. They were engaged in cattle breeding, shifting agriculture and hunting fur-bearing animals. Many finds of iron products indicate a relatively high level craft development. In the VIII-IX centuries. Mordovian tribes began to switch to arable farming.

Some Soviet scientists (V.V. Golmsten, E.I. Goryunova, etc.), based on archaeological data, note the existence of several groups of Mordovian tribes at the end of the 1st millennium. The Lower Sur group occupied the northwestern regions of the present Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the northeastern part of the Gorky region; Verkhnesurskaya - northern Saratov and eastern regions of Penza region; Tsninsky group - the western part of the Tambov region. Another group of Mordovian tribes, apparently, lived along the Oka River, along the territory of the present Ryazan region. Starting from the mouth of the river. Moscow, right down to the areas located slightly below the confluence of the Moksha and the Oka, the remains of ancient settlements and numerous burial grounds of the 2nd-8th centuries, usually called Ryazan, have been found. Their inventory has much in common with items from typical Mordovian burial grounds discovered near Penza and Tambov, on the Sura and Tsna rivers. The similarities can be seen in the burial ritual, costume and jewelry. It was this tribe, according to V.V. Golmsten, that was known to its neighbors under the name Mordovians and from the 6th century. began to be mentioned in written sources.

At the same time, archaeological data indicate an early cultural mixing of the Oka Mordovian tribes with the Slavic ones. Early Slavic burials cover older Mordovian graves.

Old Ryazan, which arose on the site of a Mordovian settlement as a Slavic city, took the name of its ancient inhabitants. Academician A. A. Shakhmatov considers the relationship between the words “Ryazan” and “Erzyan” to be undeniable. In the 10th century The Mordovians here apparently assimilated with the Slavs, since later Mordovian burial grounds are not known in this territory. Traces of Mordovian culture are preserved in the modern culture of the Oka population, in non-Russian geographical names, in the features of the ancient women's suit, type of weaving of bast shoes, decorations, ornaments, etc. With the assimilation of the Mordovian tribes near the Oka, their self-name “Mordva” was lost, and was transferred by the Russians to the entire group of tribes related to them, which later formed into a people currently known as “Mordva” "

The Initial Chronicle mentions, along with other tribes living on the Oka, the “Muroma” tribe, related to the Mordovians, but having its own language. From the end of the 10th century. The Murom land is mentioned in the chronicles as the land of the Russian principality.

Information about further ethnic history Mordovians are extremely scarce, they are reduced only to fragmentary reports of Arab writers and Russian chroniclers. From a letter from the Khazar king Joseph, dating back to the 10th century, it is known that during the heyday of the Khazar state, the Mordovian tribes were dependent on it and, like many other tribes, paid tribute to the Khazars. In the same letter from Joseph, many peoples of the Volga region are mentioned, in particular the Burtas and Arisu tribes. The Arabs wrote about the Burtases; they are mentioned both in the “Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” (XIII century) and in Russian documents of the 16th-17th centuries. Currently, the name of the Burtas people has been lost, and the question of their ethnicity is controversial. Some researchers classify them as Turkic-speaking peoples, others see the Burtases as a tribe of Ugric origin, and finally, others compare them with the Mordovians-Moksha, believing that “Moksha” is the self-name of a group of tribes or nationalities that was known to its eastern neighbors under the name Burtases.

The Arisu, or Arta, tribe is compared by linguists with the name “Erzya”. However, Arab writers report very little about arta, or aris, since they did not ascend the Volga beyond the possessions of the Bulgars and did not know the land of arta well. Nevertheless, there is evidence indicating that this land lay on the way from the possessions of the Bulgars to Kievan Rus. This path passed along the Volga, Oka, through the watershed of the Oka and Dnieper and further down the Dnieper. As ancient monuments indicate, the Erzya occupied the southern part of the present Gorky region. with the center where the city of Arzamas is now located, the name of which is clearly related to the ethnonym “Erzya”.

Differences in the culture of Moksha and Erzi, according to archaeological data, begin to be traced already from the 6th-7th centuries. At the same time, these tribes, having isolated themselves, continued to maintain close ties, closeness of culture and language.

In the IX-XII centuries. Mordovian lands were located between two large state associations: from the northeast and east they adjoined the country of the Volga Bulgars, in the west they were limited by the flow of the Oka and bordered the lands of the ancient Russian Kyiv State. From the south, expanses of steppes opened up for nomadic hordes. The mouth of the Oka River was an excellent strategic point; here, Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich founded Nizhny Novgorod in 1221, which became an outpost of the Russian state, a stronghold of Russian colonization and a base for advancing into the possessions of the Bulgars and Mordovian lands.

The Western Volga region, inhabited by Mordovian tribes, was gradually included in the lands that were tributed by the Russian princes. Mordovians put up stubborn resistance, hiding in the forest wilds or openly opposing Russian troops and organizing campaigns against Nizhny Novgorod. Nevertheless, the main part of the Priokskaya Mordovians are the Erzi and Muroms, a tribe closely related to the Mordovians, by the beginning of the 12th century. firmly merged with the Russian rural population. Connections with Russians can be traced in the economy (farming), material culture (dwelling, clothing, jewelry) and language. At the same time, the tribes living in the basin of the upper Tsna and Moksha, Sura and Pyana fell under the influence of the Bulgars.

Despite the scant information from Russian chronicles, it is still possible to get an idea of ​​the life of the Mordovian tribes in the 12th and 13th centuries.

By this time, the Mordovians had largely completed the process of collapse tribal community, which was replaced by the rural, or neighborhood, community in connection with the development of arable farming.

However, patriarchal clan relations continued to retain their strength for a long time.

The limited number of documents and materials does not yet allow us to fully elucidate the issue of the formation of feudal relations among the Mordovians. However, A.P. Smirnov and some other scientists adhere to the correct, in our opinion, point of view, suggesting that the Mordovians by the 9th-12th centuries. a feudal elite had already appeared, which had connections with the feudal elite of its neighbors. The burial of a Mordovian was found in the rich tomb of the Bulgars. The chronicle mentions the Mordovian princes Purgas and Puresh, who lived in the 13th century. Puresh (moksha) was an ally of the Russian prince Yuri and acted with him against the Erzi, led by Purgas, who was a vassal of the Bulgars.

Mordovians were a settled agricultural people. She spent the winter in villages and lived in huts. The villages were surrounded by arable land and pastures for livestock. In the summer, the Mordovians lived in light buildings near the fields or on their forest lands and hunting grounds, in winter huts, which, as can be assumed based on the mention of them in some documents, were settlements similar in type to farmsteads or settlements. To protect themselves from external enemies, the Mordovians built towns surrounded by high tine, and in the forests they set up “firmaments” - shelters in which they hid from the enemy, leaving their houses and property.

With the development of feudal relations, the consolidation of the Mordovian tribes into a nationality took place. Its formation was influenced by the Slavic tribes, and then by the Old Russian people.

Moksha and Erzya have long recognized themselves as one people. This was facilitated by trade ties, the general type of economy, the proximity of the territory and the need to jointly defend against the raids of the Khazars and Pechenegs among the Bulgars. TO beginning of XIII V. the process of consolidation of the Mordovian tribes intensified, but was then slowed down by the Mongol-Tatar invasion.

In the XIII-XIV centuries. Mordovian tribes were under the rule of the Mongols. In the south of the Mordovian lands, among the forests along the river. Moksha, the Mongols founded the ulus city of Mukhshi (modern Narovchat). The creation of an administrative center entailed the penetration of the Mongol-Tatar nobility into the region. Naturally, therefore, that southern group Mordovians - Moksha - were influenced more strongly than Erza by the Tatar, more southern culture. Tatar settlements arose here during the time of the Golden Horde.

The Mongol-Tatar influence can be traced in the inventory of Mordovian burial grounds of the 14th century - in decorations typical of the Golden Horde cities of the Volga region, in burial rites, etc.

Things turned out differently historical destinies Mordovians-Erzi. In the middle of the 14th century. Suzdal prince Konstantin Vasilyevich, having moved his capital from Suzdal to Nizhny Novgorod, began to expand the borders of his possessions. The Mordovian-Erzya were pushed away from the banks of the Oka and Volga into the forests, and in its place people from the Suzdal principality settled. Russian possessions spread further and further into the Mordovian lands. Northern group Mordovians-Erzi by the end of the 14th century. finally lost its independence and became a tributary of the Russian prince, and Nizhny Novgorod, having strengthened its position, acquired great economic importance.

With the growth of Moscow's political power, the Mordovian princes changed their orientation and began to support the Moscow prince. During the siege of Kazan, Mordovian troops participated in the liquidation of Tatar ambushes.

After the fall of the Kazan Khanate (1552), the Mordovian lands became part of the Russian state. For the Mordovians, this was the only salvation from the devastating raids of nomadic tribes. In order to defend the steppe borders, the Moscow state began to build abatis and fortified cities. Under the influence of the economically and culturally more developed Russian people, the process of transition of the Mordovians to more progressive forms of production accelerated, some elements of material and spiritual culture were adopted from the Russians, the penetration of the Russian language into the Mordovian environment expanded, which contributed to the strengthening of economic ties with the neighboring Russian population and the enrichment of the Mordovian language language. At the same time, the process of Russian colonization of Mordovian lands intensified. Villages of Russian settlers were formed near the cities built on Mordovian lands. Dozens of monasteries arose, engaged in the spread of Christianity among the Mordovians; they owned large lands. Service people from the Tatars, Meshchera and the Mordovians themselves also received lands and lands granted from the Moscow sovereign.

TO early XVIII V. The highest stratum in Mordovian society were the Murzas and Tarkhans, who had equal rights to Russian service people. They owned vast estates and peasants and did not pay taxes. Murzas were assigned to campaigns and performed stanitsa and guard duty. Subsequently, many of them were baptized, secured their estates and became part of the Russian nobility (Mordvinovs, etc.). Subsequently, most of the serving local nobility became very poor.

One of the duties that placed a heavy burden on the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region, including the Mordovians, was the so-called lashmanship. Since 1718, all the work of the Kazan Admiralty on the procurement of ship timber was entrusted to the indigenous population of the Volga region. For every nine male souls aged from 15 to 60 years, two people were taken for the autumn and winter - on horseback and on foot. If workers were needed for a year, they took from 25 people one horse and two foot. This separation of workers ruined the peasant economy for a long time.

After the first revision (1724), the Mordovian population was classified as state peasants and equalized in rights with the Russian draft peasantry. It had to provide recruits, send artels to build St. Petersburg, build a fleet and other work, pay Yam money to the treasury, carry out the duties of Yam service, etc. With the formation of appanages (1797), the Mordovian population living on the lands of the palace estates began to be listed as peasants of the appanage department. Some of the Mordovians were assigned to distilleries, potash and dyeing factories to perform factory work within a certain period of time, which was counted as taxes. Part of the local population became monastic peasants. Finally, a significant group among the Mordovians were serf lordly peasants; according to the tenth revision (1858), they numbered up to 20%.

The serfs were in a very difficult situation. In addition to the per capita tax, which was levied in the same amount from both appanage and monastic peasants, they had to pay quitrent to the landowner, the size of which, according to I. T. Pososhkov, reached very large sizes: “eight rubles or less than less.” " The peasants were especially oppressed by the burmistras (lordly managers) and elders.

Part of the Mordovian population, equal in rights with Russian state peasants, was actually in a more powerless position than Russian peasants. Merchants were prohibited from trading in Mordovian villages and importing weapons and military supplies there. Mordovians could buy what they needed only in the city, and then in limited quantities. Prohibition of manufacture and import metal products, parts of agricultural implements, objects household items artificially preserved the use of wooden tools, wooden utensils and other primitive household items.

Mordovians did not have the right to settle in cities, but could live there only for a limited time and in small numbers. As a result, the Mordovian population was concentrated almost exclusively in rural areas.

The land issue was extremely acute for the Mordovians. The best land and forest lands were distributed to Russian landowners, who, organizing serf farms on these lands, built mills, potash plants and distilleries, forcibly relocating serfs from various regions of Russia here. Mordovians were expelled from their ancestral lands and moved to other areas. The landowners poisoned the meadows, cut hay and grain, took away livestock, and did not allow the Mordovians to engage in beekeeping and hunting on their ancestral lands.

The result of such oppression and unbearable taxes was the complete ruin of the Mordovian population and the desolation of its lands. Mordovians left their ancestral lands, went into winter roads, hid in the forests, walked through the Samara Luka to the Volga region in search of free land. Mordovian villages arose in the Saratov, Ufa provinces and even in Siberia.

One of the main objectives of the colonial policy of tsarism in the Volga region was the complete assimilation of local peoples through the introduction of Orthodoxy and the destruction of national culture.

Already after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate, one of the concerns of Ivan IV was the conversion of “foreigners” to Orthodoxy. Missionary activities intensified in the 17th century. during the time of Patriarch Nikon. But the mass baptism of Mordovians received a particularly large scale in mid-18th century c., with the establishment of the “office of newly baptized affairs”, which carried out work among the Volga “foreigners”. Zealous church ministers baptized entire villages and even volosts of Mordovians. Nizhny Novgorod Bishop Dmitry Sechenov managed to baptize more than 17 thousand people within two years (1740-1742). The methods of baptism were of two kinds. On the one hand, the old methods of direct violence continued to be used, when the Mordovians were forced to be baptized by force of arms and threats; on the other hand, those who were baptized were promised material benefits: exemption from capitation taxes, recruitment and factory work for a certain number of years, in addition, the newly baptized were given a certain amount of money and clothing.

By the middle of the 19th century. The Mordovians were considered Christianized. However, for a long time, pre-Christian beliefs continued to persist. Often church and pagan rituals coexisted, closely intertwined with each other. Numerous ancient Mordovian deities, personifying the forces of nature, were considered predominantly female beings, such as the mother of the forest (Vir-ava), the mother of water (Ved-ava), the mother of the wind (Varma-ava), the mother of fire (Tol-ava) and etc. In all likelihood, these ideas arose among the Mordovians back in that distant era when the leading role in the economy and social life belonged to women.

Along with the female deities, the Mordovians, although to a lesser extent, also revered male deities (the father of the forest-Vir-apgya, the father of the earth-Mod-atya, etc.), who were considered the husbands of the female deities. According to popular beliefs, almost all Mordovian deities embodied both evil and good principles at the same time. To appease them and get help in economic activity And family life, held prayers (<озкспг) на полях, в лесах, у воды, в жилище, совершали жертвоприношения. Позднее, с развитием классового общества, возникла вера в единого верховного бога. Эрзя называли его паз-Нигике-паз, или Вере-паз (верхний бог), а мокша - гикай. Однако былые представления о многих мелких божествах-покровителях продолжали еще долго проявляться в старых обрядах.

The cult of ancestors occupied a large place in the beliefs of the Mordovians. The funeral rites associated with it represented a combination of paganism and Orthodoxy. The dead were buried in dugout logs, and later in ordinary planked coffins. With the deceased they put the things he loved and needed during life: with a man - bread, a knife, a kochedyk (a tool for weaving bast shoes), with a woman - canvas, a needle, threads and a spindle. The Mordovian Teryukhans have long maintained the custom of placing gingerbread cookies, sweets and flowers in children’s coffins. In more distant times, according to the stories of old people, men buried a plow, a harrow, and a cart in the grave.

According to the Mordovians, the deceased could return to his home and provide assistance to his living relatives or, conversely, harm them. To protect oneself from harm (illness or death) that the deceased could cause, a number of protective actions were performed. The room where the deceased lay was thoroughly washed and fumigated; things associated with him (the vessel from which he was washed, etc.) were thrown outside the outskirts, asking the deceased not to return to the house.

The funeral took place on the days established by the Orthodox Church, that is, on the day of the funeral, and then on the 9th, 20th and 40th days after death; long-dead relatives were commemorated on so-called parental days, as well as on Easter, Elijah’s Day, Trinity, etc.

All relatives took part in the wake of the deceased. The ritual of the funeral rite, in addition to prayer and a common meal, included a reenactment of the arrival of the deceased at the house of relatives and his return to the afterlife.

Russification, carried out with such bitterness by the tsarist government and the Orthodox Church, most affected the Mordovian serfs of the Nizhny Novgorod province, who had earlier and more closely encountered the Russians. Mordovian settlers in the Saratov and Samara provinces also quickly succumbed to Russification. The Penza and Tambov Mordovians, who lived in a more compact group, retained their linguistic and cultural identity longer.

Exorbitantly heavy taxes and the oppression of landowner exploitation, cruelty of treatment, forced Christianization - all this prompted the Mordovian population to actively campaign for the abolition of serfdom. Mordovians took an active part in peasant uprisings under the leadership of Ivan Bolotnikov, Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev.

The Mordovian protest against feudal-colonial oppression sometimes bore a religious overtones and was simultaneously directed against the dominant Christian religion, for the revival of the old Mordovian faith. The Teryushev uprising of 1804, led by the peasant Kuzma Alekseev from the village, also belongs to such movements. Bolshoye Seskino, Teryushevskaya volost, Nizhny Novgorod district.

Commodity-money relations that penetrated into the Mordovian village caused increased stratification of the Mordovian peasantry. At the beginning of the 20th century. The territory of modern Mordovia was a backward agrarian region of tsarist Russia with developed landlord and monastic land ownership, where the exploitation of the working peasantry by landowners and kulaks was combined with the colonial oppression of the tsarist government.

Industry on the territory of modern Mordovia at that time was represented by small semi-handicraft enterprises with backward technology. The total number of workers in them did not exceed 3 thousand. The most prominent place in industry was occupied by distilleries. The main source of income for the population was agriculture, but the bulk of the Mordovian peasantry had insignificant land plots and eked out a miserable existence.

Exorbitantly high taxes, which fell with all their weight mainly on the shoulders of the poor peasants, further ruined the peasantry and turned a significant part of it into rural proletarians. In order not to starve, Mordovian peasants hired out to work for local landowners and kulaks or went to work in all parts of the country. The working conditions of the otkhodniks were very difficult: the working day lasted from sunrise to sunset, and the pay for exhausting work was extremely low, amounting to only 25-40 kopecks. per day at your own allowance.

It is natural, therefore, that the Mordovian peasantry took an active part in the revolution of 1905-1907. The development of the peasant movement was greatly influenced by the speeches of the railway workers, who were conductors of revolutionary ideas among the working peasants. Already in the spring of 1905, peasants often began to leave work for the landowners, and by the fall the revolutionary movement swept many villages? Mordovia. The peasants divided the landowners' lands, destroyed the landowners' estates and distilleries. During 1905-1907 On the territory of present-day Mordovia, more than 500 landowners' estates were destroyed.

After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, thousands of Mordovian peasants were arrested, flogged and sent to hard labor.

The February Revolution of 1917 did not bring about any significant changes to the position of the Mordovians. The Provisional Government, in which the Social Revolutionaries played a large role, sought to keep the Mordovians, like other nationalities of Russia, in the same position in which they were under the autocracy.

Fundamental changes occurred only after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Soviet power was won by the working people of Mordovia under the leadership of the Communist Party in a fierce struggle against the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. During the first years of the existence of Soviet power on the territory of Mordovia, stubborn resistance continued from the kulak-SR and White Guard gangs that organized riots and counter-revolutionary uprisings here. And only in 1921 the enemies were finally destroyed.

In 1921, a conference of Bolsheviks took place in Samara, which summed up the results of the workers’ struggle for Soviet power and outlined the path for further work. A large place in this work was given to the issue of national construction in Mordovia.

In 1928, the Mordovian national district was formed, which became part of the Middle Volga region. On January 10, 1930, the district was transformed into the Mordovian Autonomous Region, and on December 22, 1934, into the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the RSFSR with its center in the city of Saransk.

Diverse Russia: notes from an essayist about one of our most hardworking peoples

The poetic nature of Mordvins, who loves native songs and myths, cannot live... without work. This is his very essence - an insatiable thirst for activity and perseverance, which helps him overcome all obstacles, just to do the job well and correctly. There is a lot to learn from these people.

In the dead of night in a peasant hut, something squeaked terribly. The squeak woke up the inhabitants of the house and seriously frightened them. But then the owner saw a tiny creature, the size of a thimble, in the corner and sighed with relief:

Kuygorozh!

It’s impossible to live with him without work, and if you don’t give him something he likes, he’ll destroy everything in the house from excess strength. Kuygorozh's persistence in work will reach the point where he will have to be given impossible tasks, for example, scooping water out of a swamp or making a rope out of sand...

Kuygorozh is a Mordovian gnome. Only the owner can see it. The Mordvin owner even wrote a legend about him. I knew that this invisible but strong little kid was the essence of Mordvin himself: his irrepressible thirst for activity and tenacity, sometimes reaching the point of unbridled, wild stubbornness. It’s difficult to “harness” a Mordvin. Fleeing from serfdom, the Mordovians scattered throughout Great Rus', went to Siberia and partly even to Armenia, and it is just as historically correct to talk about the Mordovian diaspora as it is about the Chinese, Jewish or Armenian diaspora.

But at first the Mordovians lived crowded together in a huge corner between the Oka and Volga, being a separate and independent nation belonging to the large Finno-Ugric family of languages ​​and peoples.

Let me remind you that this includes Estonians, Finns, Karelians, Udmurts, Mari, Komi, etc. - on the one hand, and Hungarians, Khanty and Mansi - on the other.

However, anyone, even a not very learned Mordovian, can immediately, on the spot, reproach me for the fact that the Mordovians are by no means a single nation: there are Mordovians-Moksha and Mordovians-Erzya (and I will answer him that I know about this, and I will also add , that there is also a small subgroup of shoksha, I wrote about it myself). The two Mordovian languages ​​are similar, but there are more differences between them than between Russian and Belarusian. Literature and periodicals are published in the Moksha and Erzya languages ​​in Mordovia, they are studied in schools and universities, signs on institutions are made in three languages, but... passers-by usually read only the third inscription. In the capital of Mordovia, Saransk, they will, however, hint to you that here, in the field of wonders fertilized by freedom, a kind of interethnic discussion club grew up in the 90s: who is “better”, who is more ancient, who is more cultured - Moksha or Erzya, but at least that is reassuring , that the debaters speak in a common and more familiar Russian language (in which the third inscription is made on the doors of institutions) ...

All this is just politics that everyone is tired of, but the fact that linguistic and ethnological Mordovian subtleties are quickly becoming a thing of the past along with the poetic epic of the Mordovians is a matter of great regret. And if it weren't for the scientists...

In Saransk there is, perhaps, no greater expert on everything Mordovian than Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation Valery Anatolyevich Yurchenkov. Some time ago, he and I talked about the characteristics of the Mordovians.

When you ask any neighbor - Tatar, Chuvash, Mari - about the main national trait of the Mordvins, they all unanimously name stubbornness. But with a positive connotation. Will you try to clarify: perseverance? No, just stubbornness. My graduate student conducted a survey on this topic, and 85 percent of respondents said this word. They also highlight friendliness and contact... Fair enough! Look: the Mordovians are the only Finno-Ugric people who have a huge diaspora, which means they know how to live together with other peoples. Although in the Middle Ages, the Mordovians, under the leadership of their princes, strongly resisted the Russian conquest. And only when the Mongols went to Rus', the former enemies became allies.

Mordovians are Orthodox people; There are wonderful churches in Mordovia. In three hundred years since the beginning of the baptism of the Mordovian people, about 650 churches and 42 monasteries appeared in the territory where they lived!

After the upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century associated with the destruction of churches, Orthodox life was restored. The Saransk and Mordovian diocese was created. The new church district was separated from the Penza diocese. Now in Mordovia there are more than 250 churches, 13 monasteries (8 men's and 5 women's), 8 monastery farmsteads, and a theological school.

On May 7, 1991, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of Mordovia, the Saransk and Mordovian diocese was transferred to the Nativity of the Mother of God Sanaksarsky Monastery, which is near the city of Temnikov. The first students of the Sanaksar monastery revived several more monasteries.

In the early 80s, by the way, I visited there, in what was then a monastery. From the windows of the dilapidated main building the heads of cheerful peteushniks looked out. Some of the windows they had broken were covered with pillows. But in the center of the monastery courtyard a neat flowerbed was blooming, and at a distance, quite unexpectedly for myself, I saw the well-kept grave of the great Russian naval commander, Admiral Fyodor Ushakov. Subsequently, I learned that there was a second grave there - that of the admiral’s uncle, Elder Theodore of Sanaksar.

In 2001, F.F. Ushakov was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as the righteous warrior Theodore Ushakov (October 6, 2004, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Theodore Ushakov among the general church saints in the ranks of the righteous).

In 2006, a majestic cathedral was erected in honor of the Holy righteous warrior Theodore Ushakov in Saransk.

...And as for Kuygorozh and pagan beliefs in general, a Mordovian woman can turn to the goddess Tolava, ask her for something and at the same time be baptized. And we, Russians, have been Christians for a thousand years, aren’t we superstitious?..

In the summer of 1957, in the village of Torbeevo, west of Saransk, they learned that their fellow countryman, guard senior lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev, had been awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. There was a reason.

Before the war, Mikhail, a Mordvin-Moksha by origin, graduated from a river technical school in Kazan, learning to become a river captain. But he became a fighter pilot. After being seriously wounded, he was transferred, exactly as in the film “Heavenly Slugger,” to low-speed aviation. Only after a meeting with the legendary Alexander Pokryshkin in May 1944, Devyatayev was returned to fighter aviation. In the same year he was shot down near Lvov. While descending by parachute, he lost consciousness when he hit his own plane and was captured. In the Lodz prisoner of war camp he made his first – unsuccessful – attempt to escape. Next was the death camp of Sachsenhausen, where he managed to change his status from death row to penalty. Finally, the island of Usedom, the famous Peenemünde test site, where the Nazis tested Vau cruise and ballistic missiles. It was from here that the stubborn Mordvin escaped, putting nine more prisoners in Heinkel-111.

Mikhail Petrovich lived to be 85 years old. For a long time he sailed along the Volga on river boats as a captain, participated in testing new ships, drove “Rockets” and “Meteors”, which now, alas, are so rarely seen on the Volga expanses...

If you are an art lover, and you are suddenly offered a business trip to any city in Russia, without a doubt, choose the capital of Mordovia. In Saransk - Erzya.

His works, of course, are in both the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery, but other masterpieces there will prevent you from viewing the works of the Mordovian genius. And in Saransk, in the museum named after itself, it is all on display.

I haven’t noticed how a name influences a person’s fate. If the talented Stepan remained, as he was according to the metrics, Nefedov, he may not see powerful world fame. But he chose a pseudonym after the name of his people. True, for most of his life the sculptor wrote his new surname in Latin letters - Erzia. Italy, France, Argentina... – wherever fate and creativity took him.

He was stubborn, angry, and peculiar. In the end, I found a material for myself that was hard, like Carrara marble, but, unlike stone, it was alive. From the deep South American rivers, the frantic Mordvin fished out the heavy trunks of quebracho, or quebracho, a tree with a human-like color of wood: from pink to very dark. And the sculptor also fell in love with algarrobo, with its painful swells of wood.

What personalities were immortalized by Erzya in his unique works: Eve, Moses, Christ, Lenin, Tolstoy, Stalin!

Well, besides them - just a Mordvin, just an Argentinean, just a Kazakh, a Mordovian girl, an unknown Russian, and also Stepan Dmitrievich’s own mother. What about “portraits of states”? And the famous “Passion”...

At the end of his life, Stepan Dmitrievich returned to his homeland, still worked in Moscow, and bequeathed to be buried in Mordovia, which was later done. The tombstone was made by Erzya’s eternal rival Sergei Konenkov.

The former head of the Republic of Mordovia, now the governor of the Samara region, Nikolai Ivanovich Merkushkin, with whom we have known for many years, always passed through the large village of Baevo, Erzya’s homeland, on his way to visit his neighbors in Chuvashia. He once told me about the village of Baevo:

Look: in just a few years, Novaya Street appeared in this village. And what beautiful houses they are! At the same time, people built them for themselves, on their own, helping fellow villagers by chipping in. But where do the funds come from, I ask, in this difficult time? It turns out that within a radius of almost a hundred kilometers, houses and wells were built by the hands of Baev’s craftsmen. In general, there have always been a lot of otkhodniks, seasonal workers on Mordovian soil who went to work thousands of kilometers away. 40-50 men from one village left, created teams of 4-5 people and worked 14-16 hours a day.

Basically, these are wood craftsmen: install a well, cut down a house, decorate the pediment with carvings, windows with platbands. And for all this beauty they charge less than private companies.

Nikolai Ivanovich began to tell me about the Mordovian village.

There are few sparsely populated villages in Mordovia - on the contrary, there are villages of 4-5 thousand people. They have been preserved, according to N.I. Merkushkin, because Mordovian peasants have always worked well on the land, striving for security and a good life.

Yes, in fact, otkhodnichestvo developed because there was often not enough work on one’s own land: there were many workers. And the Mordovian man, like the workaholic Kuygorozh, cannot live without work. And if he has set himself a goal - to earn money, he will persistently strive to achieve it, no one will stop him.

Back in Soviet times, I also saw a lot of Mordovian fields and farms. These were real fields - that is, places where wheat, rye, barley, oats grow as such, and not weeds. These were real farms, the milk and cream from which is such that I have never tasted anything better than it in Russia: you buy it for dinner and sit and drink it in a hotel, no need for a restaurant.

By the way, about the restaurant. My first business trip to the then Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a staff correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda took place more than thirty years ago. It was winter, always somehow especially white and clean in this forested and rural region. Things got done quickly. “Now let’s have lunch,” they told me. The road, going through the snowy fields, slid onto the bridge and flew up to the edge of the pine forest. We went up to the second floor of the forest restaurant, where the workers of the regional Komsomol committee who received me fed the whole company in a completely European way and even gave me champagne to drink with the usual toast “to the success of our hopeless cause.” On the road? But the owners smiled mysteriously and looked at the stairs leading from the first floor. Suddenly the head of a girl in an outlandish dress appeared, then the girl herself in Mordovian national dress... She was carrying on a platter a stack of something massive and airy at the same time.

Never tried it? Our food is purely Mordovian.

These were millet pancakes. Lush, tender, soft, I remember them as vividly as the homemade bread that my great-aunt, a Don Cossack, baked in the village of Berezovskaya, like Ukrainian borscht - the work of my Ukrainian aunt, like Belarusian pancakes - my husband’s culinary attempt, like Jewish tzimmes at my friends’ house, like fiery Georgian, Spanish and Korean food, Czech dumplings and real Uzbek pilaf, which I tried on my many travels. You really shouldn’t treat life’s gastronomic experiences with disdain: culinary traditions are just as much a part of the culture of the people as songs, legends and embroidery.

The main thing is to treat every good deed with love. And if we add Mordovian tenacity to love, which is so stubbornly called stubbornness here, the results will be impressive. That’s how it is, by the way.

While in some other regions of Russia the authorities unanimously whine from impotence and reduce the fields to complete unrecognizability, and former cattle yards are allowed to “fertilize” the former fields with broken bricks, the agro-industrial complex of Mordovia has been holding the title of one of the leading ones in the country for many years now, and In terms of production of eggs, milk and cattle meat per capita, this region is rarely surpassed.

Most of the republic's industrial enterprises are alive and well. In 2012, Saransk, the capital of Mordovia, took second place in the World Bank's Doing Business in Russia ranking.

The results of a special study showed that the easiest way to register a company, obtain construction permits, connect to power grids and register ownership is in Saransk. At the same time, this clean, pleasant city in all respects became the winner of the competition “The most comfortable urban (rural) settlement in Russia” four years ago. And what? When everything is clean and Right, easier to work with. Labor, as we already know, is the favorite activity of the Mordvins.

Especially for "Century"