Finno-Ugric peoples. Video: interesting features of the inhabitants of Finland

- (self-name Suomalayset) nation, the main population of Finland (4.65 million people), total number of 5.43 million people (1992), including 47.1 thousand people in the Russian Federation (1989). Language Finnish. Protestant believers (Lutherans) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

FINNS- FINNS, Finns, units. Finn, Finn, husband 1. The people of the Finno-Ugric group, inhabiting the Karelo Finnish SSR and Finland. 2. The general name of the peoples of the Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Dictionary Ushakova. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

FINNS- FINNS, ov, units. Finn, ah, husband. The people who make up the main population of Finland. | wives Finnish, I. | adj. Finnish, aya, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

FINNS- (self-name suomalay set), people. In the Russian Federation there are 47.1 thousand people living in Karelia, the Leningrad region, etc. The main population is Finland. Finnish language of the Baltic Finnish branch of Finno Ugric family languages. Believers... ...Russian history

FINNS- People living in the northwestern region of Europe. Russia and mainly in Finland. Dictionary foreign words, included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

FINNS- FINNS, see Cysticercosis. FISTULA, see Fistula... Great Medical Encyclopedia

Finns- residents of the state in Northern Europe, Finland. However, they themselves do not call their country that way. This is a foreign name for them of Germanic origin. Finnish doesn't even have the f sound itself. For them, their country is Suomi, and they themselves are suoma layset (people... ... Ethnopsychological Dictionary

Finns- ov; pl. Nation, main population of Finland; representatives of this nation. ◁ Finn, a; m. Finka, and; pl. genus. nok, dat. nkam; and. Finnish, oh, oh. F. epic. F. language. F. knife (short knife with a thick blade, worn in a sheath). F e sleigh, sleigh (sleigh,... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

FINNS- in a broad sense, a number of Ural-Altai peoples. They were divided into four groups: a) Finnish in the narrow sense (Finns, Ests, Livs, Korels, Lapps); b) Ugric (Magyars, Ostyaks, Voguls); c) Volga (Meshcherya, Merya, Muroma, Mordva, Cheremisy, Chuvash) and... ... Cossack dictionary-reference book

Books

• Finns serving in the SS troops during the Second World War, V. N. Baryshnikov. The monograph, based on Russian, Finnish and German sources, examines key events concerning relations between Finland and Germany in the 1920-1930s, as well as the period of the so-called... Buy for 884 UAH (Ukraine only)
• Finns serving in the SS troops during the Second World War. Second edition, corrected and expanded, Baryshnikov V.. The monograph, based on Russian, Finnish and German sources, examines key events relating to relations between Finland and Germany in the 1920-1930s, as well as the period of the so-called...

The Komi language is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, and with the closest Udmurt language it forms the Perm group of Finno-Ugric languages. In total, the Finno-Ugric family includes 16 languages, which in ancient times developed from a single base language: Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty (Ugric group of languages); Komi, Udmurt (Perm group); Mari, Mordovian languages ​​- Erzya and Moksha: Baltic - Finnish languages ​​- Finnish, Karelian, Izhorian, Vepsian, Votic, Estonian, Livonian languages. A special place in the Finno-Ugric family of languages ​​is occupied by the Sami language, which is very different from other related languages.

Finno-Ugric languages ​​and Samoyed languages ​​form the Uralic family of languages. The Amodian languages ​​include Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, and Kamasin languages. Peoples speaking Samoyed languages ​​live in Western Siberia, except for the Nenets, who also live in northern Europe.

Hungarians moved to the territory surrounded by the Carpathians more than a thousand years ago. The self-name of the Hungarians Modyor has been known since the 5th century. n. e. Writing in the Hungarian language appeared at the end of the 12th century, and the Hungarians have a rich literature. The total number of Hungarians is about 17 million people. In addition to Hungary, they live in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia.

Mansi (Voguls) live in the Khanty-Mansiysk district of the Tyumen region. In Russian chronicles, they, together with the Khanty, were called Yugra. The Mansi use a written language based on Russian graphics and have their own schools. The total number of Mansi is over 7,000 people, but only half of them consider Mansi their native language.

The Khanty (Ostyaks) live on the Yamal Peninsula, lower and middle Ob. Writing in the Khanty language appeared in the 30s of our century, but the dialects of the Khanty language are so different that communication between representatives of different dialects is often difficult. Many lexical borrowings from the Komi language have penetrated into the Khanty and Mansi languages

The Baltic-Finnish languages ​​and peoples are so close that speakers of these languages ​​can communicate with each other without a translator. Among the languages ​​of the Baltic-Finnish group, the most widespread is Finnish, it is spoken by about 5 million people, the self-name of the Finns is Suomi. In addition to Finland, Finns also live in the Leningrad region of Russia. Writing arose in the 16th century, and in 1870 the period of the modern Finnish language began. The epic "Kalevala" is written in Finnish, and a rich original literature has been created. About 77 thousand Finns live in Russia.

Estonians live on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea; the number of Estonians in 1989 was 1,027,255 people. Writing existed from the 16th century to the 19th century. Two literary languages ​​developed: southern and northern Estonian. In the 19th century these literary languages ​​became closer based on the Central Estonian dialects.

Karelians live in Karelia and the Tver region of Russia. There are 138,429 Karelians (1989), a little more than half speak their native language. The Karelian language consists of many dialects. In Karelia, Karelians study and use the Finnish literary language. The most ancient monuments of Karelian writing date back to the 13th century; in Finno-Ugric languages, this is the second oldest written language (after Hungarian).

Izhora is an unwritten language and is spoken by about 1,500 people. Izhorians live on the southeastern coast of the Gulf of Finland, on the river. Izhora, a tributary of the Neva. Although the Izhorians call themselves Karelians, in science it is customary to distinguish an independent Izhorian language.

Vepsians live on the territory of three administrative-territorial units: Vologda, Leningrad regions of Russia, Karelia. In the 30s there were about 30,000 Vepsians, in 1970 there were 8,300 people. Due to the strong influence of the Russian language, the Vepsian language is noticeably different from other Baltic-Finnish languages.

The Votic language is on the verge of extinction, because there are no more than 30 people who speak this language. Vod lives in several villages located between the northeastern part of Estonia and the Leningrad region. The Votic language is unwritten.

The Livs live in several seaside fishing villages in northern Latvia. Their number has sharply decreased over the course of history due to the devastation during World War II. Now the number of Livonian speakers is only about 150 people. Writing has been developing since the 19th century, but currently the Livonians are switching to the Latvian language.

The Sami language forms a separate group of Finno-Ugric languages, since there are many specific features in its grammar and vocabulary. The Sami live in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. There are only about 40 thousand people, including about 2000 in Russia. The Sami language has much in common with the Baltic-Finnish languages. Sami writing develops on the basis of different dialects in Latin and Russian graphic systems.

Modern Finno-Ugric languages ​​have diverged so much from each other that at first glance they seem completely unrelated to each other. However, a deeper study of sound composition, grammar and vocabulary shows that these languages ​​have many common features, which prove the former single origin of the Finno-Ugric languages ​​from one ancient proto-language.

Turkic languages

Turkic languages ​​belong to the Altaic language family. Turkic languages: about 30 languages, and with dead languages ​​and local varieties, the status of which as languages ​​is not always indisputable, more than 50; the largest are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Uyghur, Tatar; the total number of speakers of Turkic languages ​​is about 120 million people. The center of the Turkic range is Central Asia, from where, in the course of historical migrations, they also spread, on the one hand, to southern Russia, the Caucasus and Asia Minor, and on the other, to the northeast, to eastern Siberia up to Yakutia. The comparative historical study of Altai languages ​​began in the 19th century. Nevertheless, there is no generally accepted reconstruction of the Altaic proto-language; one of the reasons is the intensive contacts of the Altaic languages ​​and numerous mutual borrowings, which complicate the use of standard comparative methods.

Read also:

AVITO notebook VKontakte group on VKontakte
II. HYDROXYL GROUP – OH (ALCOHOLS, PHENOLS)
III. CARBONYL GROUP
A. Social group as a fundamental determinant of living space.
B. Eastern group: Nakh-Dagestan languages
The influence of the individual on the group. Leadership in small groups.
Question 19 Typological (morphological) classification of languages.
Question 26 Language in space. Territorial variation and interaction of languages.
Question 30 Indo-European family of languages. General characteristics.
Question 39 The role of translation in the formation and improvement of new languages.

Read also:

Väinemöinen was alone,
Eternal singer, -
Born by a beautiful virgin,
He was born from Ilmatar...
Old faithful Väinämöinen
Wanders in the womb of the mother,
He spends thirty years there,
Zim spends exactly the same amount of time
On waters full of slumber,
On the foggy waves of the sea...
He fell into the blue sea,
He grabbed the waves with his hands.
The husband is at the mercy of the sea,
The hero remained among the waves.
He lay at sea for five years,
I rocked in it for five and six years,
And another seven years and eight.
Finally floats to land,
To an unknown shallows,
He swam out onto the treeless shore.
Väinämöinen has risen,
I stood with my feet on the shore,
To an island washed by the sea,
To a plain without trees.

Kalevala.

Ethnogenesis of the Finnish race.

In modern science it is customary to consider it Finnish tribes together with the Ugric ones, uniting them into a single Finno-Ugric group. However, research by the Russian professor Artamonov on the origins of the Ugric peoples shows that their ethnogenesis took place in an area covering the upper reaches of the Ob River and the northern coast of the Aral Sea. It should be noted that the ancient Paleosian tribes, related to the ancient population of Tibet and Sumer, acted as one of the ethnic substrates for both the Ugric and Finnish tribes. This relationship was discovered by Ernst Muldashev with the help of a special ophthalmological study (3). This fact allows us to talk about the Finno-Ugric people as a single ethnic group. However, the main difference between the Ugrians and Finns is that different tribes acted as the second ethnic component in both cases. Thus, the Ugric peoples were formed as a result of the mixing of the ancient Palaisians with the Turks of Central Asia, while the Finnish peoples were formed as a result of the mixing of the former with the ancient Mediterranean (Atlantic tribes) supposedly related to the Minoans. As a result of this mixture, the Finns inherited a megalithic culture from the Minoans, which died out in the middle of the second millennium BC due to the destruction of its metropolis on the island of Santorini in the 17th century BC.

Subsequently, the settlement of the Ugric tribes occurred in two directions: downstream of the Ob and to Europe. However, due to the low passionarity of the Ugric tribes, they only in the 3rd century AD. reached the Volga, crossing the Ural ridge in two places: in the area of ​​modern Yekaterinburg and in the lower reaches of the great river. As a result, the Ugric tribes reached the Baltic territory only by the 5-6th century AD, i.e. just a few centuries before the arrival of the Slavs on the Central Russian Upland. While Finnish tribes lived in the Baltic region at least since the 4th millennium BC.

Currently, there is every reason to assume that the Finnish tribes were carriers ancient culture, which archaeologists conventionally call the “Funnel Beaker culture.” This name arose due to the fact that a characteristic feature of this archaeological culture are special ceramic cups that are not found in other parallel cultures. Judging by archaeological data, these tribes were mainly engaged in hunting, fishing and raising small livestock. The main hunting weapon was a bow, the arrows of which were tipped with bone. These tribes lived in the floodplains of large European rivers and, during the period of their greatest expansion, occupied the northern European lowlands, which were completely freed from the ice sheet in about Vth thousand. BC. The famous archaeologist Boris Rybakov describes the tribes of this culture as follows (4, p. 143):

In addition to the agricultural tribes mentioned above, who moved to the territory of the future “ancestral home of the Slavs” from the Danube south, because of the Sudetes and the Carpathians, foreign tribes also penetrated here from the North Sea and the Baltic. This is the “funnel cup culture” (TRB), associated with megalithic structures. It is known in Southern England and Jutland. The richest and most concentrated finds are concentrated outside the ancestral home, between it and the sea, but individual settlements are often found along the entire course of the Elbe, Oder and Vistula. This culture is almost synchronous with the Pinnacle, Lendel, and Trypillian, coexisting with them for more than a thousand years. The unique and fairly high culture of funnel-shaped beakers is considered the result of the development of local Mesolithic tribes and, in all likelihood, non-Indo-European, although there are supporters of attributing it to the Indo-European community. One of the centers of development of this megalithic culture probably lay in Jutland.

Judging by linguistic analysis languages ​​of the Finnish group, they do not belong to the Aryan (Indo-European) group. Famous philologist and writer, professor at Oxford University D.R. Tolkien spent a lot of time studying this ancient language and came to the conclusion that it belongs to a special language group. It turned out to be so isolated that the professor constructed on the basis of the Finnish language the language of the mythological people - the elves, whose mythical history he described in his fantasy novels. So, for example, the name of the Supreme God in the mythology of the English professor sounds like Iljuvatar, while in Finnish and Karelian it is Ilmarinen.

By their origin, the Finno-Ugric languages ​​are not related to the Aryan languages, which belong to a completely different language family - Indo-European. Therefore, numerous lexical convergences between the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages ​​testify not to their genetic relationship, but to deep, diverse and long-term contacts between the Finno-Ugric and Aryan tribes. These connections began in the pre-Aryan period and continued in the pan-Aryan era, and then, after the division of the Aryans into “Indian” and “Iranian” branches, contacts were carried out between Finno-Ugric and Iranian-speaking tribes.

The range of words borrowed by Finno-Ugric languages ​​from Indo-Iranian languages ​​is very diverse. This includes numerals, kinship terms, animal names, etc. Particularly characteristic are words and terms related to the economy, the names of tools and metals (for example, “gold”: Udmurt and Komi - “zarni”, Khanty and Mansi - “sorni”, Mordovian “sirne”, Iranian “zaranya” ", modern Osetinsk - "zerin"). A number of correspondences have been noted in the field of agricultural terminology (“grain”, “barley”); Words used in various Finno-Ugric languages ​​for cow, heifer, goat, sheep, lamb, sheep skin, wool, felt, milk and a number of others were borrowed from Indo-Iranian languages.

Such correspondences, as a rule, indicate the influence of more economically developed steppe tribes on the population of the northern forest regions. Also indicative are examples of borrowing into Finno-Ugric languages ​​from Indo-European languages ​​terms related to horse breeding (“foal”, “saddle”, etc.). The Finno-Ugrians became acquainted with the domestic horse, apparently as a result of connections with the population of the steppe South. (2, 73 pages).

A study of basic mythological subjects shows that the core of Finnish mythology differs significantly from the common Aryan one. The most complete presentation of these stories is contained in Kalevala, a collection of Finnish epics. The main character of the epic, unlike the heroes of the Aryan epic, is endowed not only and not so much with physical, but magical power, allowing him to use a song to build, for example, a boat. The heroic duel again boils down to competitions in magic and poetry. (5, p. 35)

He sings – and Joukahainen
I went thigh-deep into the swamp,
And up to the waist in the quagmire,
And up to the shoulders in loose sand.
That's when Joukahainen
I could comprehend with my mind,
That I went the wrong way
And took the journey in vain
Compete in chants
With the mighty Väinämöinen.

The Scandinavian “Saga of Halfdan Eisteysson” also reports about the outstanding witchcraft abilities of the Finns (6, 40):

In this saga, the Vikings meet in battle with the leaders of the Finns and Biarms - terrible werewolves.

One of the Finnish leaders, King Floki, could shoot three arrows at once from a bow and hit three people at once. Halfdan cut off his hand so that it flew into the air. But Floki exposed his stump, and his hand grew to it. Another Finnish king, meanwhile, turned into a giant walrus, which simultaneously crushed fifteen people. The king of the Biarms, Harek, turned into a fearsome dragon. With great difficulty, the Vikings managed to deal with the monsters and take possession of the magical country of Biarmia.

All these and many other elements indicate that the Finnish tribes belong to some very ancient race. It is the antiquity of this race that explains the “slowness” of its modern representatives. After all, the older the people, the more life experience they have accumulated, and the less vain they are.

Elements of the culture of the Finnish race are found mainly among the peoples living along the shores of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, the Finnish race can also be called the Baltic race. It is characteristic that the Roman historian Tacitus in the 1st century AD. pointed out that the Aestii people, living on the shores of the Baltic Sea, have many similarities with the Celts. This is a very important remark, because it is through Celtic culture the ancient Finnish nation managed to preserve its historical heritage. In this sense, the Frisian tribe is of greatest interest, from the point of view of studying ancient Finnish history. In ancient times, this people lived on the territory of modern Denmark. The descendants of this tribe still live in this territory, although they have long lost their language and culture. However, the Frisian chronicle “Hurray Linda Brook” has survived to this day, which tells how the ancestors of the Frisians sailed to the territory of modern Denmark after a terrible catastrophe - the flood that destroyed Plato’s Atlantis. This chronicle is often cited by atlantologists as confirmation of the existence legendary civilization. As a result, the version of the antiquity of the Baltic race receives further confirmation.

Each nation can also be identified by the nature of its burials. The main funeral rite of the ancient Balts is the laying of stones over the body of the deceased. This ritual has been preserved in both Ireland and Scotland. Over time, it was modified and was reduced to installing a tombstone on the grave.

Such a ritual indicates a direct cultural connection between the Finnish/Baltic race and the megalithic structures found mainly in the Baltic Sea basin and surrounding areas. The only place that falls outside this range is the North Caucasus, however, there is an explanation for this fact, which, however, cannot be given within the framework of this work.

As a result, we can state the fact that one of the essential elements of the ethnic substrate of the modern Baltic peoples is the ancient Finnish race, whose origin is lost in the depths of millennia. This race went through its own history of development, different from the Aryans, as a result of which it formed a unique language and culture, which are part of the genetic heritage of the modern Balts and Finns.

Individual tribes.

The overwhelming number of ethnographers agree that the tribes that inhabited northeastern Europe and adjacent territories, immediately before the start of the Slavic and Germanic colonization of this region, were ethnically Finno-Ugric, i.e. to the 10th century AD Finnish and Ugric elements in the local tribes mixed quite strongly. The most famous tribe that lived on the territory of modern Estonia, after which the lake located on the border of the Slavic and German colonization zones is named, is Chud. According to legend, miracles possessed various witchcraft abilities. In particular, they could suddenly disappear in the forest, or they could remain under water for a long time. It was believed that the white-eyed miracle knew the spirits of the elements. During Mongol invasion Chud went into the forests and disappeared forever from the chronicle history of Rus'. It is believed that it is she who inhabits the legendary Kitezh-grad, located at the bottom of Beloozero. However, in Russian legends, the Chud are also called the more ancient dwarf people who lived in prehistoric times, and in some places lived as a relic until the Middle Ages. Legends about dwarf people are usually common in areas where there are clusters of megalithic structures.

In Komi legends, these short and dark-skinned people, for whom the grass seems like a forest, sometimes acquire animal features - they are covered with hair, and miracles have pig legs. The miracles lived in a fabulous world of abundance, when the sky was so low above the earth that the miracles could reach it with their hands, but they do everything wrong - they dig holes in the arable land, feed the cattle in the hut, mow the hay with a chisel, reap the bread with an awl, store threshed grain in stockings, pounding oatmeal in an ice hole. The strange woman insults Yen because she stains the low sky with sewage or touches it with a rocker. Then Yen (the demiurge god of the Komi) raises the sky, tall trees grow on the ground, and miracles are replaced by white tall people: miracles go away from them into their holes underground, because they are afraid of agricultural tools - sickles, etc...

...There is a belief that miracles have turned into evil spirits that hide in dark places, abandoned dwellings, baths, even under water. They are invisible, leave behind traces of birds' paws or children's feet, harm people and can replace their children with their own...

According to other legends, Chud are, on the contrary, ancient heroes, which include Pera and Kudy-osh. They also go underground or turn to stone, or become trapped in the Ural Mountains after Russian missionaries spread a new Christian religion. Ancient settlements (kars) remained from the Chud; the Chud giants could throw axes or clubs from settlement to settlement; sometimes they are credited with the origin of lakes, the founding of villages, etc. (6, 209-211)

The next large tribe was “Vod”. Semenov-Tianshansky in the book “Russia. Complete geographical description of our Fatherland. Lake Region" in 1903 wrote about this tribe as follows:

“In the east of the miracle there once lived water. This tribe, ethnographically, is considered transitional from the western (Estonian) branch of the Finns to other Finnish tribes. Vody settlements, as far as can be judged by the prevalence of Votic names, occupied a vast area ranging from the river. Narova and to the river. Msta, reaching in the north to the Gulf of Finland, and in the south going beyond Ilmen. Vod participated in the alliance of tribes that called the Varangian princes. It was first mentioned in the “Charter of Bridges”, attributed to Yaroslav the Wise. The colonization of the Slavs pushed this tribe to the coast of the Gulf of Finland. The leader lived amicably with the Novgorodians, participating in the campaigns of the Novgorodians, and even in the Novgorod army a special regiment consisted of “leaders”. Subsequently, the area inhabited by Vodya became part of one of the five Novgorod regions under the name “Vodskaya Pyatina”. From the middle of the 12th century, the Swedes began crusades in the land of water, which they called “Vatland”. A number of papal bulls are known to encourage Christian preaching here, and in 1255 a special bishop was appointed for Watland. The connection of the Vod with the Novgorodians, however, was stronger; the Vod gradually merged with the Russian and became strongly channelized. The remnants of the Vodi are considered to be the small tribe “Vatyalayset”, living in the Peterhof and Yamburg districts.”

It is also necessary to mention the unique Setu tribe. Currently it lives in the Pskov region. Scientists believe that it is an ethnic relic of the ancient Finnish race, which was the first to populate these lands as the glacier melted. Some national characteristics of this tribe allow us to think so.

The Karela tribe managed to preserve the most complete collection of Finnish myths. Thus, the basis of the famous Kalevala (4) - the Finnish epic - is mostly based on Karelian legends and myths. The Karelian language is the most ancient of the Finnish languages, containing a minimal number of borrowings from languages ​​belonging to other cultures.

Finally, the most famous Finnish tribe, which has preserved its language and culture to this day, is the Livs. Representatives of this tribe live in the territory of modern Latvia and Estonia. It was this tribe that was the most civilized in the initial period of the formation of the Estonian and Latvian ethnic groups. Occupying territory along the coast of the Baltic Sea, representatives of this tribe came into contact with the outside world earlier than others. For several centuries, the territory of modern Estonia and Latvia was called Livonia, after the estate of this tribe.

Comments.

It can be assumed that the description of this ethnic contact, which occurred in ancient times, was preserved in the Kalevala in the second rune. (1), where it is indicated that a short hero in copper armor came out of the sea to help the hero Väinämöinen, who then miraculously turned into a giant and cut down a huge oak tree that covered the Sky and eclipsed the Sun.

Literature.

1. Tolkien John, The Silmarilion;
2. Bongard-Levin G.E., Grantovsky E.A., “From Scythia to India” M. “Mysl”, 1974
3. Muldashev Ernst. "From whom did we come?"
4. Rybakov Boris. "The paganism of the ancient Slavs." – M. Sofia, Helios, 2002
5. Kalevala. Translation from Finnish by Belsky. – St. Petersburg: Publishing house “Azbuka-classics”, 2007.
6. Petrukhin V.Ya. “Myths of the Finno-Ugric peoples”, M, Astrel AST Transitbook, 2005

Finno-Ugric peoples

Finno-Ugric peoples: history and culture. Finno-Ugric languages

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Peoples of the Finno-Ugric language group

The Finno-Ugric language group is part of the Ural-Yukaghir language family and includes the peoples: Sami, Vepsians, Izhorians, Karelians, Nenets, Khanty and Mansi.

Sami live mainly in the Murmansk region. Apparently, the Sami are the descendants of the oldest population of Northern Europe, although there is an opinion about their migration from the east. For researchers, the greatest mystery is the origin of the Sami, since the Sami and the Baltic-Finnish languages ​​go back to a common base language, but anthropologically the Sami belong to a different type (Uralic type) than the Baltic-Finnish peoples, who speak languages ​​that are closest to them related, but mainly of the Baltic type. To resolve this contradiction, many hypotheses have been put forward since the 19th century.

The Sami people most likely descend from the Finno-Ugric population. Presumably in the 1500-1000s. BC e. The separation of the proto-Sami begins from a single community of native language speakers, when the ancestors of the Baltic Finns, under Baltic and later German influence, began to move to a sedentary lifestyle as farmers and cattle breeders, while the ancestors of the Sami in Karelia assimilated the autochthonous population of Fennoscandia.

The Sami people, in all likelihood, were formed by the merger of many ethnic groups. This is indicated by anthropological and genetic differences between the Sami ethnic groups living in different territories. Genetic studies in recent years have revealed that modern Sami have common features with the descendants of the ancient population of the Atlantic coast ice age- modern Basque Berbers. Such genetic characteristics were not found in more southern groups of Northern Europe. From Karelia, the Sami migrated further and further north, fleeing the spreading Karelian colonization and, presumably, tribute. Following the migrating herds of wild reindeer, the ancestors of the Sami, at the latest during the 1st millennium AD. e., gradually reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean and reached the territories of their current residence. At the same time, they began to move on to breeding domesticated reindeer, but this process reached a significant extent only in the 16th century.

Their history over the past one and a half millennia represents, on the one hand, a slow retreat under the onslaught of other peoples, and on the other hand, their history is an integral part of the history of nations and peoples that have their own statehood in which an important role is given to the imposition of tribute on the Sami. A necessary condition for reindeer herding was that the Sami wandered from place to place, driving herds of reindeer from winter to summer pastures. In practice, nothing prevented people from crossing state borders. The basis of the Sami society was a community of families, which were united on the principles of joint ownership of land, which gave them the means to subsist. Land was allocated by family or clan.

Figure 2.1 Dynamics of the population of the Sami people 1897 – 2010 (compiled by the author based on materials).

Izhorians. The first mention of Izhora occurs in the second half of the 12th century, where it speaks of pagans, who half a century later were already recognized in Europe as a strong and even dangerous people. It was from the 13th century that the first mentions of Izhora appeared in Russian chronicles. In the same century, the Izhora land was first mentioned in the Livonian Chronicle. At dawn of a July day in 1240, the elder of the Izhora land, while on patrol, discovered the Swedish flotilla and hastily sent a report to Alexander, the future Nevsky, about everything.

Obviously, at this time the Izhorians were still very close ethnically and culturally to the Karelians who lived on the Karelian Isthmus and in the Northern Ladoga region, north of the area of ​​​​the supposed distribution of the Izhorians, and this similarity persisted until the 16th century. Quite accurate data on the approximate population of the Izhora land were first recorded in the Scribe Book of 1500, but the ethnicity of the residents was not shown during the census. It is traditionally believed that the inhabitants of the Karelian and Orekhovetsky districts, most of whom had Russian names and nicknames of Russian and Karelian sound, were Orthodox Izhorians and Karelians. Obviously, the boundary between these ethnic groups passed somewhere on the Karelian Isthmus, and perhaps coincided with the border of Orekhovetsky and Karelian counties.

In 1611, Sweden took possession of this territory. During the 100 years that this territory became part of Sweden, many Izhorians left their villages. Only in 1721, after the victory over Sweden, Peter I included this region in the St. Petersburg province of the Russian state. IN late XVIII At the beginning of the 19th century, Russian scientists began to record the ethno-confessional composition of the population of the Izhora lands, then already included in the St. Petersburg province. In particular, to the north and south of St. Petersburg, the presence of Orthodox residents is recorded, ethnically close to the Finns - Lutherans - the main population of this territory.

Vepsians. At present, scientists cannot finally resolve the question of the genesis of the Veps ethnic group. It is believed that by origin the Vepsians are associated with the formation of other Baltic-Finnish peoples and that they separated from them, probably in the 2nd half. 1 thousand n. e., and by the end of this thousand settled in the southeastern Ladoga region. The burial mounds of the 10th-13th centuries can be defined as ancient Vepsian. It is believed that the earliest mentions of the Vepsians date back to the 6th century AD. e. Russian chronicles from the 11th century call this people the whole. Russian scribe books, lives of saints and other sources more often know the ancient Vepsians under the name Chud. The Vepsians lived in the interlake area between Lakes Onega and Lake Ladoga from the end of the 1st millennium, gradually moving east. Some groups of Vepsians left the inter-lake region and merged with other ethnic groups.

In the 1920s and 30s, Vep national districts, as well as Vep rural councils and collective farms, were created in places where people lived compactly.

In the early 1930s, the introduction of teaching the Veps language and a number of academic subjects in this language began in primary school, Vepsian language textbooks based on Latin script appeared. In 1938, Veps-language books were burned, and teachers and others public figures arrested and expelled from their homes. Since the 1950s, as a result of increased migration processes and the associated spread of exogamous marriages, the process of assimilation of the Vepsians has accelerated. About half of the Vepsians settled in cities.

Nenets. History of the Nenets in the 17th-19th centuries. rich in military conflicts. In 1761, a census of tribute-paying foreigners was carried out, and in 1822, the “Charter on the Management of Foreigners” was put into effect.

Excessive monthly exactions and arbitrariness of the Russian administration repeatedly led to riots, accompanied by the destruction of Russian fortifications; the most famous is the Nenets uprising in 1825-1839. As a result of military victories over the Nenets in the 18th century. first half of the 19th century The area of ​​settlement of the tundra Nenets expanded significantly. By the end of the 19th century. The territory of settlement of the Nenets stabilized, and their numbers increased compared to the end of the 17th century. approximately doubled. Throughout Soviet period The total number of Nenets, according to census data, also increased steadily.

Today the Nenets are the largest of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The share of Nenets who consider the language of their nationality to be their native language is gradually decreasing, but still remains higher than that of most other peoples of the North.

Figure 2.2 Number of Nenets peoples 1989, 2002, 2010 (compiled by the author based on materials).

In 1989, 18.1% of Nenets recognized Russian as their native language, and in general were fluent in Russian, 79.8% of Nenets - thus, there is still a fairly noticeable part of the linguistic community, adequate communication with which can only be ensured by knowledge of the Nenets language. It is typical that young people retain strong Nenets speech skills, although for a significant part of them the Russian language has become the main means of communication (like other peoples of the North). A certain positive role is played by the teaching of the Nenets language at school, the popularization national culture in the media, the activities of Nenets writers. But first of all, the relatively favorable language situation is due to the fact that reindeer husbandry - the economic basis of Nenets culture - was generally able to survive in traditional form contrary to all destructive trends Soviet era. This type of production activity remained entirely in the hands of the indigenous population.

Khanty- a small indigenous Ugric people living in the north of Western Siberia.

Volga region center of cultures of Finno-Ugric peoples

Three ethnographic groups of Khanty are distinguished: northern, southern and eastern, and the southern Khanty mixed with Russian and Tatar population. The ancestors of the Khanty penetrated from the south into the lower reaches of the Ob and settled the territories of modern Khanty-Mansi and the southern regions of the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs, and from the end of the 1st millennium, based on the mixing of aborigines and alien Ugric tribes, the ethnogenesis of the Khanty began. The Khanty called themselves more by rivers, for example “people of Konda”, “people of the Ob”.

Northern Khanty. Archaeologists associate the genesis of their culture with the Ust-Polui culture, localized in the river basin. Ob from the mouth of the Irtysh to the Ob Bay. This is a northern, taiga fishing culture, many of whose traditions are not followed by modern northern Khanty.
From the middle of the 2nd millennium AD. The northern Khanty were strongly influenced by the Nenets reindeer herding culture. In the zone of direct territorial contacts, the Khanty were partially assimilated by the tundra Nenets.

Southern Khanty. They spread upward from the mouth of the Irtysh. This is the territory of the southern taiga, forest-steppe and steppe and culturally it gravitates more towards the south. In their formation and subsequent ethnocultural development, the southern forest-steppe population played a significant role, layering on the general Khanty base. The Russians had a significant influence on the southern Khanty.

Eastern Khanty. They settle in the Middle Ob region and along the tributaries: Salym, Pim, Agan, Yugan, Vasyugan. This group, to a greater extent than others, retains North Siberian cultural features that go back to the Ural population - draft dog breeding, dugout boats, the predominance of swing clothing, birch bark utensils, and a fishing economy. Within the modern territory of their habitat, the Eastern Khanty interacted quite actively with the Kets and Selkups, which was facilitated by belonging to the same economic and cultural type.
Thus, in the presence of common cultural features characteristic of the Khanty ethnic group, which is associated with the early stages of their ethnogenesis and the formation of the Ural community, which, along with the mornings, included the ancestors of the Kets and Samoyed peoples, the subsequent cultural “divergence”, the formation of ethnographic groups, to a greater extent was determined by the processes of ethnocultural interaction with neighboring peoples. Muncie- a small people in Russia, the indigenous population of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. Closest relatives of the Khanty. They speak the Mansi language, but due to active assimilation, about 60% use Russian in everyday life. As an ethnic group, the Mansi were formed as a result of the merger of local tribes of the Ural culture and Ugric tribes moving from the south through the steppes and forest-steppes of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. The two-component nature (a combination of the cultures of taiga hunters and fishermen and steppe nomadic herders) in the culture of the people persists to this day. Initially, the Mansi lived in the Urals and its western slopes, but the Komi and Russians in the 11th-14th centuries forced them out into the Trans-Urals. The earliest contacts with Russians, primarily Snovgorodians, date back to the 11th century. With the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state at the end of the 16th century, Russian colonization intensified, and already at the end of the 17th century the number of Russians exceeded the number of the indigenous population. The Mansi were gradually forced out to the north and east, partially assimilated, and were converted to Christianity in the 18th century. The ethnic formation of Mansi was influenced by various peoples.

In the Vogul cave, located near the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva in the Perm region, traces of Voguls were discovered. According to local historians, the cave was a temple (pagan sanctuary) of the Mansi, where ritual ceremonies were held. In the cave, bear skulls with traces of blows from stone axes and spears, shards of ceramic vessels, bone and iron arrowheads, bronze plaques of the Permian animal style with an image of a moose man standing on a lizard, silver and bronze jewelry were found.

Finno-Ugrians or Finno-Ugric- a group of peoples with related linguistic features and formed from the tribes of northeastern Europe since the Neolithic times, they inhabited Western Siberia, the Trans-Urals, the northern and middle Urals, the territory north of the upper Volga, the Volga Oksya interfluve and the middle Volga region until midnight of the modern Saratov region in Russia.

1. Title

In Russian chronicles they are known under the unifying names Chud and Samoyeds (self-name suomaline).

2. Settlement of Finno-Ugric ethnic groups in Russia

On the territory of Russia there live 2,687,000 people belonging to the Finno-Ugric ethnic groups. In Russia, Finno-Ugric peoples live in Karelia, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, and Udmurtia. According to chronicle references and linguistic analysis of toponyms, the Chud united several tribes: Mordva, Muroma, Merya, Vesps (All, Vepsians) and etc..

The Finno-Ugric people were an autochthonous population between the Oka and Volga rivers; their tribes, Estonians, Merya, Mordovians, and Cheremis, were part of the Gothic kingdom of Germanaric in the 4th century. The chronicler Nestor in the Ipatiev Chronicle indicates about twenty tribes of the Ural group (Ugro-Finivs): Chud, Livs, Vodi, Yam (Ӕm), all (also the North of them on the White Lake Sedѧt Vs), Karelians, Ugra, caves, Samoyeds, Perm (Perm) ), Cheremis, casting, Zimgola, Cors, Norom, Mordovians, Meria (and on the Rostov ѡzere, and on the tick -blessed and ѡzer - the same), Murom (and ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ѡ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕ ӕs The Muscovites called all local tribes Chud from the indigenous Chud, and accompanied this name with irony, explaining it through the Muscovite weird, weird, strange. Now these peoples have been completely assimilated by the Russians, they have disappeared from the ethnic map of modern Russia forever, adding to the number of Russians and leaving only a wide range of their ethnic geographical names.

These are all the names of rivers from ending-wa: Moscow, Protva, Kosva, Silva, Sosva, Izva, etc. The Kama River has about 20 tributaries, the names of which end in na-va, means "water" in Finnish. From the very beginning, the Muscovite tribes felt their superiority over the local Finno-Ugric peoples. However, Finno-Ugric place names are found not only where these peoples today make up a significant part of the population, forming autonomous republics and national districts. Their distribution area is much larger, for example, Moscow.

According to archaeological data, the settlement area of ​​the Chud tribes in Eastern Europe remained unchanged for 2 thousand years. Starting from the 9th century, the Finno-Ugric tribes of the European part of present-day Russia were gradually assimilated by Slavic colonists who came from Kievan Rus. This process formed the basis for the formation of modern Russian nation.

Finno-Ugric tribes belong to the Ural-Altai group and a thousand years ago were close to the Pechenegs, Cumans and Khazars, but were at a significantly lower level than the rest social development, in fact, the ancestors of the Russians were the same Pechenegs, only forest ones. At that time, these were the primitive and culturally most backward tribes of Europe. Not only in the distant past, but even at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia they were cannibals. The Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC) called them androphages (eaters of people), and the chronicler Nestor, already during the period of the Russian state, called Samoyeds (Samoyed).

Finno-Ugric tribes of a primitive gathering-hunting culture were the ancestors of the Russians. Scientists claim that the Moscow people received the greatest admixture of the Mongoloid race through the assimilation of the Finno-Ugric people, who came to Europe from Asia and partially absorbed the Caucasoid admixture even before the arrival of the Slavs. A mixture of Finno-Ugric, Mongolian and Tatar ethnic components contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Russians, which was formed with the participation of the Slavic tribes of the Radimichi and Vyatichi. Due to ethnic mixing with the Ugrofinans, and later with the Tatars and partly with the Mongols, Russians have an anthropological type that is different from the Kiev-Russian (Ukrainian). The Ukrainian diaspora jokes about this: “The eyes are narrow, the nose is plus - completely Russian.” Under the influence of the Finno-Ugric language environment, the formation of the Russian phonetic system (akanye, gekanya, ticking) took place. Today, “Ural” features are inherent to one degree or another in all the peoples of Russia: average height, wide face, nose, called “snub-nosed,” and sparse beard. The Mari and Udmurts often have eyes with the so-called Mongolian fold - epicanthus; they have very wide cheekbones and a thin beard. But at the same time she has blond and red hair, blue and gray eyes. The Mongolian fold is sometimes found among Estonians and Karelians. Komi are different: in those places where there are mixed marriages with adults, they are dark-haired and slanted, others are more reminiscent of Scandinavians, but with a slightly wider face.

According to the research of Meryanist Orest Tkachenko, “In the Russian people, connected on the maternal side with the Slavic ancestral home, the father was a Finn. On the paternal side, Russians descended from the Finno-Ugric peoples.” It should be noted that according to modern studies of Y-chromosome halotypes, in fact the situation was the opposite - Slavic men married women of the local Finno-Ugric population. According to Mikhail Pokrovsky, Russians are an ethnic mixture, in which Finns belong to 4/5, and Slavs -1/5. Remnants of Finno-Ugric culture in Russian culture can be traced in such features that are not found among other Slavic peoples: women's kokoshnik and sundress , men's shirt-shirt, bast shoes (bast shoes) in national costume, dumplings in dishes, style of folk architecture (tent buildings, porch), Russian bathhouse, sacred animal - bear, 5-tone singing scale, a-touch and vowel reduction, paired words like stitches-paths, arms-legs, alive and well, so-and-so, turnover I have(instead of I, characteristic of other Slavs) the fairytale beginning “once upon a time,” the absence of the rusal cycle, carols, the cult of Perun, the presence of the cult of the birch rather than the oak.

Not everyone knows that there is nothing Slavic in the surnames Shukshin, Vedenyapin, Piyashev, but they come from the name of the Shuksha tribe, the name of the war goddess Vedeno Ala, and the pre-Christian name Piyash. Thus, a significant part of the Finno-Ugrians was assimilated by the Slavs, and some, having converted to Islam, mixed with the Turks. Therefore, today Ugrofins do not make up the majority of the population even in the republics to which they gave their name. But, having dissolved in the mass of Russians (Rus. Russians), Ugrofins have retained their anthropological type, which is now perceived as typically Russian (Rus. Russian) .

According to the vast majority of historians, the Finnish tribes had an extremely peaceful and gentle disposition. This is how the Muscovites themselves explain the peaceful nature of colonization, declaring that there were no military clashes, because written sources do not remember anything like that. However, as the same V.O. Klyuchevsky notes, “in the legends of Great Russia, some vague memories of the struggle that broke out in some places survived.”

3. Toponymy

Toponyms of Meryan-Erzyan origin in Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Vologda, Tver, Vladimir, Moscow regions account for 70-80% (Vexa, Voksenga, Elenga, Kovonga, Koloksa, Kukoboy, lekht, Melexa, Nadoxa, Nero (Inero), Nux, Nuksha, Palenga, Peleng, Pelenda, Peksoma, Puzhbol, Pulokhta, Sara, Seleksha, Sonokhta, Tolgobol, otherwise, Sheksheboy, Shekhroma, Shileksha, Shoksha, Shopsha, Yakhrenga, Yakhrobol(Yaroslavl region, 70-80%), Andoba, Vandoga, Vokhma, Vokhtoga, Voroksa, Lynger, Mezenda, Meremsha, Monza, Nerekhta (flicker), Neya, Notelga, Onga, Pechegda, Picherga, Poksha, Pong, Simonga, Sudolga, Toekhta, Urma, Shunga, Yakshanga(Kostroma region, 90-100%), Vazopol, Vichuga, Kineshma, Kistega, Kokhma, Ksty, Landeh, Nodoga, Paks, Palekh, Parsha, Pokshenga, Reshma, Sarokhta, Ukhtoma, Ukhtokhma, Shacha, Shizhegda, Shileksa, Shuya, Yukhma etc. (Ivanovo region), Vokhtoga, Selma, Senga, Solokhta, Sot, Tolshma, Shuya and others. (Vologda region), "Valdai, Koy, Koksha, Koivushka, Lama, Maksatikha, Palenga, Palenka, Raida, Seliger, Siksha, Syshko, Talalga, Udomlya, Urdoma, Shomushka, Shosha, Yakhroma etc. (Tver region), Arsemaki, Velga, Voininga, Vorsha, Ineksha, Kirzhach, Klyazma, Koloksha, Mstera, Moloksha, Mothra, Nerl, Peksha, Pichegino, Soima, Sudogda, Suzdal, Tumonga, Undol etc. (Vladimir region), Vereya, Vorya, Volgusha, Lama, Moscow, Nudol, Pakhra, Taldom, Shukhroma, Yakhroma etc. (Moscow region)

3.1. List of Finno-Ugric peoples

3.2.

FINNO-UGRIAN PEOPLES

Personalities

Ugrofinams by origin were Patriarch Nikon and Archpriest Avvakum - both Mordovians, Udmurts - physiologist V. M. Bekhterev, Komi - sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, Mordvins - sculptor S. Nefedov-Erzya, who adopted the name of the people as his pseudonym; Pugovkin Mikhail Ivanovich - the Russified Merya, his real name sounds in Meryan - Pugorkin, composer A.Ya. Eshpai - Mari, and many others:

See also

Sources

Notes

Map of the approximate settlement of Finno-Ugric tribes in Art. 9.

Stone gravestone with the image of a warrior. Ananyinsky burial ground (near Yelabuga). VI-IV centuries BC.

The history of the Russian tribes that inhabited the Volga-Oka and Kama basins in the 1st millennium BC. e., is distinguished by significant originality. According to Herodotus, the Boudins, Tissagets and Irki lived in this part of the forest line. Noting the difference between these tribes from the Scythians and Sauromatians, he points out that their main occupation was hunting, which supplied not only food, but also furs for clothing. Herodotus especially notes the horse hunting of the hirks with the help of dogs. The information of the ancient historian is confirmed by archaeological sources indicating that hunting really occupied a large place in the life of the studied tribes.

However, the population of the Volga-Oka and Kama basins was not limited only to those tribes mentioned by Herodotus. The names he gives can only be attributed to the southern tribes of this group - the immediate neighbors of the Scythians and Sauromatians. More detailed information about these tribes began to penetrate into ancient historiography only at the turn of our era. Tacitus probably relied on them when he described the life of the tribes in question, calling them fenians (Finns).

The main occupation of the Finno-Ugric tribes in the vast territory of their settlement should be considered cattle breeding and hunting. Swidden farming played minor role. A characteristic feature of production among these tribes was that, along with iron tools, which came into use around the 7th century. BC e., bone tools were used here for a very long time. These features are typical of the so-called Dyakovo (interfluve of the Oka and Volga), Gorodets (southeast of the Oka) and Ananyin (Prikamye) archaeological cultures.

The southwestern neighbors of the Finno-Ugric tribes, the Slavs, throughout the 1st millennium AD. e. significantly advanced into the area of ​​settlement of Finnish tribes. This movement caused the displacement of part of the Finno-Ugric tribes, as an analysis of numerous Finnish names of rivers in the central part of European Russia shows. The processes under consideration occurred slowly and did not violate the cultural traditions of the Finnish tribes. This makes it possible to connect a number of local archaeological cultures with Finno-Ugric tribes, already known from Russian chronicles and others. written sources. The descendants of the tribes of the Dyakovo archaeological culture were probably the Merya and Muroma tribes, the descendants of the tribes of the Gorodets culture - the Mordovians, and the origin of the chronicle Cheremis and Chud goes back to the tribes that created the Ananyin archaeological culture.

Many interesting features The life of the Finnish tribes was studied in detail by archaeologists. The most ancient method of obtaining iron in the Volga-Oka basin is indicative: iron ore was smelted in clay vessels standing in the middle of open fires. This process, noted in settlements of the 9th-8th centuries, is characteristic of the initial stage of the development of metallurgy; later ovens appeared. Numerous bronze and iron products and the quality of their manufacture suggest that already in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. e. Among the Finno-Ugric tribes of Eastern Europe, the transformation of domestic production industries into crafts, such as foundry and blacksmithing, began. Among other industries, the high development of weaving should be noted. The development of cattle breeding and the beginning emphasis on crafts, primarily metallurgy and metalworking, led to an increase in labor productivity, which in turn contributed to the emergence of property inequality. Nevertheless, the accumulation of property within the clan communities of the Volga-Oka basin occurred rather slowly; because of this, until the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. the ancestral villages were relatively weakly fortified. Only in subsequent centuries did the settlements of the Dyakovo culture become fortified with powerful ramparts and ditches.

The picture of the social structure of the inhabitants of the Kama region is more complex. The burial inventory clearly indicates the presence of property stratification among local residents. Some burials dating back to the end of the 1st millennium allowed archaeologists to suggest the emergence of some kind of disadvantaged category of the population, possibly slaves from among prisoners of war.

Settlement area

On the position of the tribal aristocracy in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. evidenced by one of the striking monuments of the Ananyinsky burial ground (near Yelabuga) - a stone tombstone with a relief image of a warrior armed with a dagger and a war hammer and decorated with a mane. The rich grave goods in the grave under this slab contained a dagger and a hammer made of iron, and a silver hryvnia. The buried warrior was undoubtedly one of the clan leaders. The isolation of the clan nobility especially intensified by the 2nd-1st centuries. BC e. It should be noted, however, that at this time the clan nobility was probably relatively few in number, since low labor productivity still greatly limited the number of members of society who lived off the labor of others.

The population of the Volga-Oka and Kama basins was associated with the Northern Baltic, Western Siberia, the Caucasus, and Scythia. Many objects came here from the Scythians and Sarmatians, sometimes even from very distant places, such as the Egyptian figurine of the god Amon, found in a settlement excavated at the spout of the Chusovaya and Kama rivers. The shapes of some iron knives, bone arrowheads and a number of vessels among the Finns are very similar to similar Scythian and Sarmatian products. Connections of the Upper and Middle Volga region with the Scythian and Sarmatian world can be traced back to the 6th-4th centuries, and by the end of the 1st millennium BC. e. are made permanent.

Finland is a small northern country with a unique flavor. The birthplace of Santa Claus, the land of a thousand lakes - such associations arise when mentioning Finland. And also a sauna, fishing, and special Finnish humor.

However, few people know that “Finland” is not at all Finnish word. What do Finns call their country, if not Finland? Suomi is the name of the state. Let's figure out where it came from.

A little history. State formation

For almost seven centuries Finland was under Swedish rule. All this time, the Russian Empire was fighting for Finnish lands. Only at the beginning of the 19th century Finland ceded to Russia, and gained independence in 1917. Nevertheless (or maybe that’s why), Finns are very sensitive to the issue of self-determination and national identity. Anxiously, but patiently, accepting the fact of a multilingual and multinational society. Swedish has the status of a second state language, and Russian, although not officially recognized, is studied in many schools and used in everyday life. Signs, price tags in stores, announcements in Russian are the norm, especially in border areas.

Why Suomi?

The way Finns call their country has several interpretations. According to one version, the name comes from the word “suomaa” - swamp, swampy land. According to another, from the word "suomu" - fish scales.

In modern Russian there is also a consonant word “Sami”, the name of a small people living in Lapland, as well as in the northern part of Norway. The Sami are a nomadic tribe of reindeer herders who have preserved their language (in Norway it is the second state language), traditions, and customs.

If you dig deeper, the root of the word "suomi" echoes the Baltic "zeme", which simply means "land".

Finland vs Suomi. What do Finns think?

There is no clear explanation of where the word Finland comes from. Historians only agree that it dates back to the times of Swedish rule. The Scandinavian word "finnland" literally means " beautiful land"This is exactly what the Swedes called part of the territories of modern southwestern Finland back in the 12th century.

The Finns themselves, with their characteristic equanimity, accept both names. Love your country - national trait. Moreover, this love is deep, not subject to feelings of false patriotism. What is the Finnish country? The homeland for the Finns is thousands of lakes, endless forests, northern lights and self-esteem. What word this is called outside the country is a secondary matter.

National idea- is not political system or territorial integrity. For Finns, this is, first of all, silence, peace and respect for nature.

- (self-name Suomalayset) nation, the main population of Finland (4.65 million people), total number of 5.43 million people (1992), including 47.1 thousand people in the Russian Federation (1989). Language Finnish. Protestant believers (Lutherans) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

FINNS, Finns, units. Finn, Finn, husband 1. The people of the Finno-Ugric group, inhabiting the Karelo Finnish SSR and Finland. 2. The general name of the peoples of the Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

FINNS, ov, units. Finn, ah, husband. The people who make up the main population of Finland. | wives Finnish, I. | adj. Finnish, aya, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

- (self-name suomalay set), people. In the Russian Federation there are 47.1 thousand people living in Karelia, the Leningrad region, etc. The main population is Finland. The Finnish language is a Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric family of languages. Believers... ...Russian history

People living in the northwestern region of Europe. Russia and mainly in Finland. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

FINNS- FINNS, see Cysticercosis. FISTULA, see Fistula... Great Medical Encyclopedia

Finns- residents of a state in Northern Europe, Finland. However, they themselves do not call their country that way. This is a foreign name for them of Germanic origin. Finnish doesn't even have the f sound itself. For them, their country is Suomi, and they themselves are suoma layset (people... ... Ethnopsychological Dictionary

Ov; pl. Nation, main population of Finland; representatives of this nation. ◁ Finn, a; m. Finka, and; pl. genus. nok, dat. nkam; and. Finnish, oh, oh. F. epic. F. language. F. knife (short knife with a thick blade, worn in a sheath). F e sleigh, sleigh (sleigh,... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

FINNS- in a broad sense, a number of Ural-Altai peoples. They were divided into four groups: a) Finnish in the narrow sense (Finns, Ests, Livs, Korels, Lapps); b) Ugric (Magyars, Ostyaks, Voguls); c) Volga (Meshcherya, Merya, Muroma, Mordva, Cheremisy, Chuvash) and... ... Cossack dictionary-reference book

Books

• Finns serving in the SS troops during the Second World War, V. N. Baryshnikov. The monograph, based on Russian, Finnish and German sources, examines key events concerning relations between Finland and Germany in the 1920-1930s, as well as the period of the so-called…
• Finns serving in the SS troops during the Second World War. Second edition, corrected and expanded, Baryshnikov V.. The monograph, based on Russian, Finnish and German sources, examines key events relating to relations between Finland and Germany in the 1920-1930s, as well as the period of the so-called...

Finns are one of the largest Ural peoples. Their number currently numbers 6–7 million people (an exact figure does not exist due to the lack of reliable statistics on the fairly large Finnish emigration). Finns live mainly in Finland (5.3 million people). as well as in the USA (approx. 700 thousand people), Canada (120 thousand), Russia (34 thousand), Scandinavian countries, Australia, etc. Language - Finnish or Swedish (about 300 thousand). people in Finland). The self-name of the Finns is suomalainen(units), Russian popular name - Chukhna, Chukhonians, and the official name is Finns- borrowed by Russians from Germanic languages. The ethnonym Finns (Swedish finnar, German Finnen) was first found by the Roman historian Tacitus (I AD) in the form Fenni. Apparently, in its origin it is connected with the Germanic verbs meaning ‘to find, seek’ (Goth. fin?an, Swedish finna, German finden). Initially, this ethnonym served in the Germanic languages, from where it eventually came to Tacitus, to designate the population of Fennoscandia and (in Tacitus, in any case) the Eastern Baltic, leading a mainly active lifestyle and unfamiliar with agriculture (living by hunting, that is, “the seeker”), most likely the ancestors of the modern Sami, whose settlement border at that time ran significantly south of the current one (and the very name of the country - Finnland, Finland - originally meant, in fact, 'the country of the Sami, Sami'). Back in the 18th century, in a word Finnar Norwegians and Swedes called not only Finns, but also Sami (Norwegian finne still means ‘Sami’ today). The Finnish name for Finland is Suomi (suomalainen, thus, literally means ‘resident of the country of Suomi, Suomian’) is first recorded on the pages of Russian chronicles in the form Sum (from the beginning of the 12th century). Initially, this was the name of the territory of what is now southwestern Finland (coastal areas), the so-called. Varsinais Suomi‘real Finland’. This word itself is also of Germanic origin, going back to an ancient Swedish word meaning 'squad, group, gathering', which in itself should not be surprising - Finnish culture and language throughout its history have constantly experienced powerful Germanic influence. The word Suomi did not immediately become represent the entire country. Simultaneously with the name Sum, another group appears in Russian chronicles - eat (Finnish h?me), and the difference between the dialects of both these groups remains to this day. In a number of ways, the Suomi dialect is close to the Estonian, Votic, and Livonian dialects (the southern (western) group of Baltic-Finnish dialects) and is opposed to the Häme dialect, Karelian and Vepsian languages. This indicates the origin of the Suomi group from the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The question of the time of the appearance of Suomi on the territory of southwestern Finland remains debatable; from an archaeological point of view, the most likely assumption is that this happened in the so-called “early Roman time” (the turn of the era - the first centuries AD), when the territory of Varsinais Suomi and all The coast of Finland up to the area of ​​today's Vasa was subject to the expansion of carriers of the culture of stone burial grounds with fences, which originated, in particular, from the territory of modern Estonia and Latvia. In turn, the Häme developed the territories immediately to the east and northeast of Varsinais Suomi, displacing the ancient Sami population from them. The formation of the Finnish people at the end of the 1st - first half of the 2nd millennium AD. was a complex process of consolidation of several Baltic-Finnish tribes. In addition to the Finns-Suomi and Häme, the Karelians played a significant role in this process. As a result of mixing the dialects of Suomi (to a small extent), Häme and Karelians in eastern Finland, the Savo dialect (f. Savo - possibly from the Orthodox personal names Savva, Savvaty) was formed. and in the southeast - the Ladoga Finnish dialects, which are essentially closer to the Karelian language than to the language of the Suomi Finns. It was these groups that in the 17th century formed the basis of the Finns who moved to the lands of Ingermanland (mainly the modern Leningrad region) that moved to the lands of Ingria (mainly the modern Leningrad region) through the Stolbovo world, who by the end of the 17th century there were already more than 30 thousand people in this territory (more than half the population of the region). Ingrian Finns, who called themselves yyrьmbiset (plural; probably from f. ырьs “steep bank; slope”) and savakot (plural; from Savo - see above), were the largest national minority at the beginning of the 20th century on the territory of the modern Leningrad region (about 125 thousand people) and lived not only in rural areas, but also in St. Petersburg, where a Finnish newspaper was founded back in 1870. Schools taught in Finnish, published literature, and from 1899 to 1918 All-Ingrian song festivals were regularly held. In the first decades of Soviet power, the national and cultural development of Ingrian Finns continued successfully: the number of Finnish schools grew, in several village councils of the region, office work was translated into Finnish, and a Finnish book publishing house was created. However, in the mid-1930s, relations between Finland and the Soviet Union began to rapidly deteriorate, and this had the saddest impact on the fate of Finns in Russia: about 50 thousand people were forcibly deported from their homeland, since 1937 all Finnish printed publications were completely banned, teaching in Finnish, activities of national and cultural organizations. During the war, more than 50 thousand Ingrians were deported to Finland, then returned to the USSR, but they were forbidden to settle in their native places. Finns from the territory of the Leningrad region and from besieged Leningrad were almost completely taken to Siberia, and only in 1956 Finns were again allowed to settle in the Leningrad region. The 2002 census recorded 4 thousand Finns in St. Petersburg, and another approx. in the Leningrad region. 8 thousand. In addition to the Baltic-Finnish tribes, settlers from Scandinavia (ancient Germans - ancient Scandinavians - Swedes), who settled on the coast of western, southwestern and southern Finland since the end of the Bronze Age, played a significant role in the formation of the Finns. Their influx into Finland has increased significantly since around the 3rd century AD. - from this time on, the population of Varsinais Suomi finds itself drawn into a single sphere of trade relations with Scandinavia, in contrast to the more eastern regions, where old ties with Eastern Europe are preserved. As a result of the mixing of the Baltic-Finnish and Scandinavian populations in the Middle Ages, a group of Kvens (Russian Kayans, Finnish kainuu, Norwegian kv?n) was formed, settling along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia to the north. The name Kvens is recorded in Old Norse (Kv?nir) and Old English (Cwenas) sources starting from the 9th century, and designated the mixed Finnish-Scandinavian population of the coast of Bothnia (cf. later Russian (Pomeranian) Kayans 'Norwegians'). Around the turn of I and II millennium AD Baltic-Finnish tribes occupied only the west, southwest and south of modern Finland, and central Finland and the lake district, not to mention the north of the country, were inhabited by the Sami, as evidenced by toponymy, archeology, folklore and historical sources. The Baltic-Finnish population turned out to be back in the 1st millennium AD. drawn into the circle of trade relations between the Baltic and, more broadly, Europe as a whole, and was particularly active in the northern direction. In the first centuries of the 2nd millennium AD. The ancestors of the Finns begin expansion into the Sami lands, which was initially of a trading nature. In the 16th-17th centuries, the process of agricultural colonization of the Sami lands of the lake region (central Finland) by Finnish peasants (mainly Savosians) was actively underway, who carried out massive forest burning, thereby eliminating the ecological basis for preserving the hunting and commercial economy of the Sami here. This led to the gradual displacement of the Sami population further and further north or to its assimilation by the Finns. The advance of the Finnish-Sami border to the north continued throughout the 17th-19th centuries, until almost the entire territory of modern Finland, except for a small Sami enclave in the far north near Lake. Inari and R. Utsjoki did not become Finnish. However, the advance of Finnish groups practicing slash-and-burn agriculture in search of new lands to clear to the north did not stop there: they penetrated into the territories of northern Sweden and especially Norway, where they received the name Forest Finns. Following the official ban on slash-and-burn farming in Sweden, mid-19th century and the implementation of an active state assimilation policy, the “Forest Finns” switched to the Swedish and Norwegian languages ​​by the middle of the 20th century. An important factor that contributed to the consolidation of the Finnish people within the borders of modern Finland was the inclusion of its territory into the Swedish state and the conversion of the population to Christianity, which took place in the second half of the 12th - first half of the 13th century as a result of several crusades associated with the founding of a new diocese in Finland. During the struggle between Sweden and Novgorod, by the middle of the 14th century, the border of their possessions was established, close to the modern border of Russia and Finland, and the Baltic-Finnish tribes were divided politically and religiously: their western part was subordinated to Sweden (Duchy of Finland from 1284 . to 1563, when the status of the duchy was temporarily abolished after the victory of the Swedish king Gustav Vasa over his rebellious son, Duke of Finland Johan) and converted to Catholicism (during the era of the Reformation, associated in Finland primarily with the activities of the enlightener Michael Agricola in the 16th century, replaced by Lutheranism), and the eastern one was subordinated to Novgorod and converted to Orthodoxy. This circumstance led mainly to the consolidation of the Finnish people in the west and the Karelian people in the east and the establishment of a border between them. Already under the conditions of Swedish domination, the enlightenment and rise of national self-awareness of the Finns began. In the middle of the 16th century, the already mentioned Mikael Agricola published the first books in Finnish. In 1581, Finland again received the status of a Grand Duchy within the Kingdom of Sweden. After the Russian-Swedish war of 1808–1809. Finland became part of the Russian Empire as an autonomous Grand Duchy, later - a Grand Duchy (the conditions for Finland's entry into the Empire were approved by a meeting of representatives of the country's estates - the Borgo Diet in 1809; since 1863, the Diet - the Parliament of Finland - has been in operation again). To consolidate its position in the new lands and combat Swedish influence, the Russian government used the Finnish factor - it granted the autonomy unprecedented in breadth of rights (since 1863, the equality of the Swedish and Finnish languages ​​​​in the territory of the Grand Duchy was officially announced, since 1866 education in schools was introduced in Finnish), annexed to the lands of the Grand Duchy the lands that at that time were part of Russia, and not Sweden (Vyborg region). All this created objectively favorable conditions for the national development of the Finnish people. The most significant and fateful event for Finnish cultural history in this regard was the transfer of the university from Abo (Turku) to Helsingfors (Helsinki) in 1827. Being under the personal patronage of Emperor Alexander I, the University of Helsingfors was the only university in the Empire that received a control copy of every publication printed in Russia for its library, and became the center of Finnish culture and science. All this ensured a sharp rise in the national movement, in which, in addition to politicians, an outstanding role was played by scientists: the collector of Karelian-Finnish epic songs and the creator of “Kalevala” Elias Lönnrot, academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences Antti Johan Sjögren, traveler, linguist and ethnologist Matthias Aleksanteri Castren and others. In the first half of the 19th century, the modern Finnish literary language was formed. Naturally, the national revival of the Finns led to an increase in Russophobic sentiments in society, and the attempts of the government of Nicholas II to smooth out the disproportion between the freedoms enjoyed by the Grand Duchy and the status of other regions of the empire only added fuel to the fire. The growing national movement achieved its main goal during the revolution of 1917: in July the Finnish Diet adopted the “Law on Power”, declaring itself the bearer of supreme power, in December the newly elected parliament adopted the Declaration of Independence, and the Republic of Finland was recognized by Soviet Russia.