Misplaced Pages

#616383

94-496: The Malaya Kokshaga ( Mari : Изи Какшан , Izi Kakšan ; Russian : Малая Кокша́га , literally Little Kokshaga) is a river in Mari El , a left tributary of the Volga . It is 194 kilometres (121 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 5,160 square kilometres (1,990 sq mi). It originates in the northern part of the republic, passes through its capital, Yoshkar-Ola , and flows to

188-450: A 'negative verb', much like Finnish does. The negative verb is more versatile than the negative verb in Finnish (see Finnish grammar ), existing in more grammatical tenses and moods. It has its own form in the present indicative, imperative and desiderative, and in the first preterite indicative. Other negations are periphrastic. The negation verb in its corresponding form is put in front of

282-483: A double goal. On the one hand, it had been an effort to counter Russian chauvinism by assuring a place for non-Russian languages and cultures in the newly formed Soviet Union. On the other hand, it was a means to prevent the formation of alternative ethnically based political movements , including pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism . One way of accomplishing this was to promote what some regard as artificial distinctions between ethnic groups and languages rather than promoting

376-587: A large scale. Nominally, this process was guided by the principle of "voluntary parental choice." But other factors also came into play, including the size and formal political status of the group in the Soviet federal hierarchy and the prevailing level of bilingualism among parents. By the early 1970s schools in which non-Russian languages served as the principal medium of instruction operated in 45 languages, while seven more indigenous languages were taught as subjects of study for at least one class year. By 1980, instruction

470-533: A people totalling less than one million in number. On 19 June 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that made education in all languages but Russian optional, overruling previous laws by ethnic autonomies , and reducing instruction in minority languages to only two hours a week. This bill has been likened by some commentators, such as in Foreign Affairs , to the policy of Russification. When

564-597: A process of changing one's ethnic self-label or identity from a non-Russian ethnonym to Russian, from Russianization , the spread of the Russian language, culture, and people into non-Russian cultures and regions, distinct also from Sovietization or the imposition of institutional forms established by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the territory ruled by that party. In this sense, although Russification

658-461: A second language but they also adopted it as their home language or mother tongue – although some still retained their sense of ethnic identity or origins even after shifting their native language to Russian. This includes both the traditional communities (e.g., Lithuanians in the northwestern Belarus ( see Eastern Vilnius region ) or the Kaliningrad Oblast ( see Lithuania Minor )) and

752-1088: A second language or using it as a primary language. In the last decades of the Soviet Union, ethnic Russification (or ethnic assimilation ) was moving very rapidly for a few nationalities such as the Karelians and Mordvinians . Whether children born in mixed families to one Russian parent were likely to be raised as Russians depended on the context. For example, the majority of children in North Kazakhstan with one of each parent chose Russian as their nationality on their internal passport at age 16. Children of mixed Russian and Estonian parents living in Tallinn (the capital city of Estonia ), or mixed Russian and Latvian parents living in Riga (the capital of Latvia ), or mixed Russian and Lithuanian parents living in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania ) most often chose as their own nationality that of

846-532: A separate morpheme to signify plurality . There are three particles, which are attached to the end of words with a hyphen, used to signify plural. Every grammatical person in Mari has its own possessive suffix . Additional particles, falling into none of the categories above, can be added to the very end of a word, giving it some additional meaning. For example, the suffix -ат (-at ), means 'also' or 'too'. The arrangement of suffixes varies from case to case. Although

940-422: A single common language would be adopted by all nationalities in the Soviet Union, "the obliteration of national distinctions, and especially language distinctions, is a considerably more drawn-out process than the obliteration of class distinctions." At the time, Soviet nations and nationalities were further flowering their cultures and drawing together (сближение – sblizhenie) into a stronger union. In his Report on

1034-756: Is a form of cultural assimilation in which non- Russians , whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian culture and the Russian language . In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union concerning their national constituents and to national minorities in Russia, aimed at Russian domination and hegemony. The major areas of Russification are politics and culture. In politics, an element of Russification

SECTION 10

#1732868618617

1128-446: Is assigning Russian nationals to lead administrative positions in national institutions. In culture, Russification primarily amounts to the domination of the Russian language in official business and the strong influence of the Russian language on national idioms. The shifts in demographics in favour of the ethnic Russian population are sometimes considered a form of Russification as well. Some researchers distinguish Russification , as

1222-463: Is divided into their own smaller local subdialects. Only Hill and Meadow Mari have their own literary written standard varieties, based on the dialects of Kozmodemyansk and Yoshkar-Ola respectively. Eastern and Meadow Mari are often united as a Meadow-Eastern supra-dialect . Northwestern Mari is transitional between the Hill and Meadow dialects, and its phonology and morphology are closer to Hill Mari. Mari

1316-459: Is formed with the suffix -рак (-rak). The superlative is formed by adding the word эн (en) in front. Morphologically, conjugation follows three tenses and three moods in Meadow Mari. In Meadow Mari, verbs can conjugate according to two conjugation types. These differ from each other in all forms but the infinitive and the third-person plural of the imperative. Unfortunately, the infinitive

1410-570: Is mostly written with the Cyrillic script . The schwa /ə/ and its fronted counterpart are usually transcribed in Finno-Ugric transcription as ə̑ (reduced mid unrounded vowel) and ə (reduced front unrounded vowel) respectively. The former has sometimes been transcribed in IPA as / ɤ / , but phonetically the vowel is most strongly distinguished by its short duration and reduced quality. Descriptions vary on

1504-493: Is the form denoted in dictionaries and word lists. It is, thus, necessary to either mark verb infinitives by their conjugation type in word lists, or to include a form in which the conjugation class is visible—usually, the first-person singular present, which ends in -ам (or -ям) for verbs in the first category, and in -ем (or -эм) for second-type verbs. The three tenses of Mari verbs are: Additional tenses can be formed through periphrasis . The moods are: Negation in Mari uses

1598-519: Is the titular and official language of its republic, alongside Russian . The Mari language today has three standard forms: Hill Mari , Northwestern Mari , and Meadow Mari . The latter is predominant and spans the continuum Meadow Mari to Eastern Mari from the Republic into the Ural dialects of Bashkortostan , Sverdlovsk Oblast and Udmurtia ), whereas the former, Hill Mari, shares a stronger affiliation with

1692-403: Is usually conflated across Russification, Russianization, and Russian-led Sovietization, each can be considered a distinct process. Russianization and Sovietization, for example, did not automatically lead to Russification – a change in language or self-identity of non-Russian people to being Russian. Thus, despite long exposure to the Russian language and culture, as well as to Sovietization, at

1786-827: The Caucasus , and in the Volga region (including Tatarstan ). This detached the local Muslim populations from exposure to the language and writing system of the Quran . The new alphabet for these languages was based on the Latin alphabet and was also inspired by the Turkish alphabet . By the late 1930s, the policy had changed. In 1939–1940, the Soviets decided that a number of these languages (including Tatar , Kazakh , Uzbek , Turkmen , Tajik , Kyrgyz , Azerbaijani , and Bashkir ) would henceforth use variations of

1880-451: The Cyrillic script (see Cyrillization in the Soviet union ). Not only that, the spelling and writing of these new Cyrillic words must also be in accordance with the Russian language. Some historians evaluating the Soviet Union as a colonial empire , applied the " prison of nations " idea to the USSR. Thomas Winderl wrote "The USSR became in a certain sense more a prison-house of nations than

1974-470: The Cyrillic script . Before and during World War II, Joseph Stalin deported to Central Asia and Siberia many entire nationalities for their alleged and largely disproven collaboration with the German invaders: Volga Germans , Crimean Tatars , Chechens , Ingush , Balkars , Kalmyks , and others. Shortly after the war, he deported many Ukrainians , Balts , and Estonians to Siberia as well. After

SECTION 20

#1732868618617

2068-622: The Komi began but it did not penetrate the Komi heartlands until the 18th century. However, by the 19th century, Komi-Russian bilingualism had become the norm and there was an increasing Russian influence on the Komi language . After the Russian defeat in the Crimean War in 1856 and the January Uprising of 1863, Tsar Alexander II increased Russification to reduce the threat of future rebellions. Russia

2162-582: The Krupskaya Teachers' Training Institute (Yoshkar-Ola), more than half of the subjects are taught in Mari. However, by 2024, only 9% of ethnic Mari children where being taught Mari in just 81 schools. The principal division between Mari varieties is the West and the East. According to the Soviet linguist Kovedyaeva (1976:9-15, 1993:163-164) the Mari macrolanguage is divided into four main dialects: Each main dialect

2256-582: The Kuybyshev Reservoir , Volga near Kokshaysk . The Malaya Kokshaga is mainly fed by snow. From November till April, the river is frozen. The riverbed is meandering ; there are many former river beds in the valley. The main tributary is the Maly Kundysh . This article related to a river in Southern Russia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mari language Mari

2350-539: The Russian Revolution . The term Mari comes from the Maris' autonym марий ( mari ). Most Maris live in rural areas with slightly more than a quarter living in cities. In the republic's capital, Yoshkar-Ola , the percentage of Maris is just over 23 percent. At the end of the 1980s (per the 1989 census) Maris numbered 670,868, of whom 80% (542,160) claimed Mari as their first language and 18.8% did not speak Mari. In

2444-520: The 10th class), the pattern of using the Russian language as the main medium of instruction accelerated after Khrushchev's parental choice program got underway. Pressure to convert the main medium of instruction to Russian was evidently higher in urban areas. For example, in 1961–62, reportedly only 6% of Tatar children living in urban areas attended schools in which Tatar was the main medium of instruction. Similarly in Dagestan in 1965, schools in which

2538-670: The 1970s schooling was offered in at least seven languages in Uzbekistan : Russian, Uzbek , Tajik , Kazakh , Turkmen , Kyrgyz , and Karakalpak . While formally all languages were equal, in almost all Soviet republics the Russian/local bilingualism was "asymmetric": the titular nation learned Russian, whereas immigrant Russians generally did not learn the local language. In addition, many non-Russians who lived outside their respective administrative units tended to become Russified linguistically; that is, they not only learned Russian as

2632-532: The 1990s opened opportunities for a revival of efforts expand the use of Mari in education and the public sphere. In the 1990s, the Mari language, alongside Russian, was proclaimed in the republican constitution to be an official language of Mari El. By the beginning of the 21st century, Mari language and literature was taught in 226 schools. At the History and Philology Department of the Mari State University and

2726-628: The 19th century. Russian Imperial authorities as well as modern Russian nationalists asserted that Russification was an organic national consolidation process that would accomplish the goals of homogenizing the Russian nation as they saw it, and reversing the effects of Polonization . After the 1917 revolution , authorities in the USSR decided to abolish the use of the Arabic alphabet in native languages in Soviet-controlled Central Asia, in

2820-589: The Caucasus called for the legislation to be blocked. On 10 September 2019, Udmurt activist Albert Razin self-immolated in front of the regional government building in Izhevsk as it was considering passing the controversial bill to reduce the status of the Udmurt language . Between 2002 and 2010 the number of Udmurt speakers dwindled from 463,000 to 324,000. Other languages in the Volga region recorded similar declines in

2914-581: The Communist Party's socialist project for the Soviet society as a whole but have active participation and leadership by the indigenous nationalities and operate primarily in the local languages. Early nationality policies shared with later policy the object of assuring control by the Communist Party over all aspects of Soviet political, economic, and social life. The early Soviet policy of promoting what one scholar has described as "ethnic particularism" and another as "institutionalized multinationality", had

Malaya Kokshaga - Misplaced Pages Continue

3008-577: The Communist period: the 1926 census indicated more than 99% of Maris considered Mari their first language, declining to less than 81% in 1989. Some qualitative evidence of a reversal in recent years has been noted. There was no state support for Mari language in Imperial Russia , and with the exception of some enthusiasts and numerous ecclesiastical texts by the Russian Orthodox Church , there

3102-599: The Duma representatives from the Caucasus did not oppose the bill, it prompted a large outcry in the North Caucasus with representatives from the region being accused of cowardice. The law was also seen as possibly destabilizing, threatening ethnic relations and revitalizing the various North Caucasian nationalist movements. The International Circassian Organization called for the law to be rescinded before it came into effect. Twelve of Russia's ethnic autonomies, including five in

3196-604: The Mari Republic, 11.6% claimed Mari was not their first language. In a survey by the Mari Research Institute more than three quarters of Maris surveyed considered Mari language to be the most crucial marker of ethnic identity, followed by traditional culture (61%) and common historical past (22%), religion (16%), character and mentality (15%) and appearance (11%) (see Glukhov and Glukhov for details). A gradual downward trend towards assimilation to Russian has been noted for

3290-468: The North Caucasus is nearly devoid of schools that teach in mainly their native languages, with the exception of one school in North Ossetia, and a few in rural regions of Dagestan; this is true even in largely monoethnic Chechnya and Ingushetia. Chechen and Ingush are still used as languages of everyday communication to a greater degree than their North Caucasian neighbours, but sociolinguistics argue that

3384-648: The Northwestern dialect (spoken in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and parts of the Kirov Oblast ). Both language forms use modified versions of Cyrillic script . For the non-native, Hill Mari, or Western Mari, can be recognized by its use of the special letters "ӓ" and "ӹ" in addition to the shared letters "ӱ" and "ӧ", while Eastern and Meadow Mari utilize a special letter "ҥ". The use of two "variants", as opposed to two "languages", has been debated: Maris recognize

3478-607: The Program to the Congress, Khrushchev used even stronger language: that the process of further rapprochement (sblizhenie) and greater unity of nations would eventually lead to a merging or fusion (слияние – sliyanie) of nationalities. Khrushchev's formula of rapprochement-fusing was moderated slightly when Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1964 (a post he held until his death in 1982). Brezhnev asserted that rapprochement would lead ultimately to

3572-539: The RSFSR, whereas 27% of children in classes I-IV (primary school) studied in Russian-language schools, 53% of those in classes V-VIII (incomplete secondary school) studied in Russian-language schools, and 66% of those in classes IX-X studied in Russian-language schools. Although many non-Russian languages were still offered as a subject of study at a higher class level (in some cases through complete general secondary school –

3666-403: The Russian language gained greater emphasis. In 1938, Russian became a required subject of study in every Soviet school, including those in which a non-Russian language was the principal medium of instruction for other subjects (e.g., mathematics, science, and social studies). In 1939, non-Russian languages that had been given Latin-based scripts in the late 1920s were given new scripts based on

3760-644: The Russian language was regarded as the language for interethnic communication for the whole Soviet Union. Therefore, for most of the Soviet era, especially after the korenizatsiya (indigenization) policy ended in the 1930s, schools in which non-Russian Soviet languages would be taught were not generally available outside the respective ethnically based administrative units of these ethnicities. Some exceptions appeared to involve cases of historic rivalries or patterns of assimilation between neighboring non-Russian groups, such as between Tatars and Bashkirs in Russia or among major Central Asian nationalities. For example, even in

3854-528: The Russian word narod ("people") implied an ethnic community , not just a civic or political community. October 13, 1978, the Soviet Council of Ministers enacted (but did not officially publish) 1978 Decree No. 835, titled "On measures to further improve the teaching and learning of the Russian language in the Union Republics", directing mandating the teaching of Russian , starting in first grade, in

Malaya Kokshaga - Misplaced Pages Continue

3948-637: The Soviet era, a significant number of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians migrated to other Soviet republics, and many of them settled there. According to the last census in 1989, the Russian 'diaspora' in the non-Russian Soviet republics had reached 25 million. Progress in the spread of the Russian language as a second language and the gradual displacement of other languages was monitored in Soviet censuses. The Soviet censuses of 1926, 1937, 1939, and 1959, had included questions on "native language" (родной язык) as well as "nationality." The 1970, 1979, and 1989 censuses added to these questions one on "other language of

4042-440: The USSR to use their native languages and the free development of these languages will be ensured in the future as well. At the same time learning the Russian language, which has been voluntarily accepted by the Soviet people as a medium of communication between different nationalities, besides the language of one's nationality, broadens one's access to the achievements of science and technology and of Soviet and world culture. During

4136-509: The amalgamation of these groups and a common set of languages based on Turkish or another regional language. The Soviet nationalities policy from its early years sought to counter these two tendencies by assuring a modicum of cultural autonomy to non-Russian nationalities within a federal system or structure of government, though maintaining that the ruling Communist Party was monolithic, not federal. A process of "national-territorial delimitation" ( ru:национально-территориальное размежевание )

4230-570: The bill was still being considered, advocates for minorities warned that the bill could endanger their languages and traditional cultures. The law came after a lawsuit in the summer of 2017, where a Russian mother claimed that her son had been "materially harmed" by learning the Tatar language , while in a speech Putin argued that it was wrong to force someone to learn a language that is not their own. The later "language crackdown" in which autonomous units were forced to stop mandatory hours of native languages

4324-406: The case suffixes are after the possessive suffixes in the genitive and the accusative, the opposite is the case for the locative cases. In the dative, both arrangements are possible. There are many other arrangements in the plural—the position of the plural particle is flexible. The arrangement here is one commonly used possibility. Comparison happens with adjectives and adverbs. The comparative

4418-461: The collapse of the Soviet Union, especially in connection with urbanization and the declining population replacement rates (particularly low among the more western groups). As a result, several of Russia's indigenous languages and cultures are currently considered endangered . E.g. between the 1989 and 2002 censuses, the assimilation numbers of the Mordvins have totalled over 100,000, a major loss for

4512-470: The communities that appeared during Soviet times such as Ukrainian or Belarusian workers in Kazakhstan or Latvia , whose children attended primarily the Russian-language schools and thus the further generations are primarily speaking Russian as their native language; for example, 57% of Estonia's Ukrainians, 70% of Estonia's Belarusians and 37% of Estonia's Latvians claimed Russian as the native language in

4606-491: The complete unity of nationalities. "Unity" is an ambiguous term because it can imply either the maintenance of separate national identities but a higher stage of mutual attraction, similarity between nationalities or total disappearance of ethnic differences. In the political context of the time, rapprochement-unity was regarded as a softening of the pressure toward Russification that Khrushchev had promoted with his endorsement of sliyanie. The 24th Party Congress in 1971 launched

4700-430: The continued flourishing of the nations and nationalities and the fact that they are steadily and voluntarily drawing closer together on the basis of equality and fraternal cooperation. Neither artificial prodding nor holding back of the objective trends of development is admissible here. In the long term historical perspective, this development will lead to complete unity of the nations.... The equal right of all citizens of

4794-517: The cultural values and traditions of the Muslim population. Eventually, 240 such schools for both boys and girls, including a women's college founded in 1901, were established prior to the "Sovietization" of the South Caucasus. The first Russian-Azeri reference library opened in 1894. In 1918, during the short period of Azerbaijan's independence , the government declared Azeri the official language, but

SECTION 50

#1732868618617

4888-613: The current situation will lead to their degradation relative to Russian as well. In 2020, a set of amendments to the Russian constitution was approved by the State Duma and later the Federation Council . One of the amendments enshrined Russian nation as the "state-forming nationality" (Russian: государствообразующий народ ) and Russian the “language of the state-forming nationality”. The amendment has been met with criticism from Russia's minorities who argue that it goes against

4982-450: The degree of backness and labialization. The mid vowels /e/ , /ø/ , /o/ have more reduced allophones [e̽] , [ø̽] , [o̽] at the end of a word. Stress is not phonemic in Mari, but a dynamic stress system is exhibited phonetically, the stressed syllable being higher in pitch and amplitude and greater in length than an unstressed syllable. Generally, there is one prominent syllable per word and prominence may be found in any syllable of

5076-489: The end of the Soviet era , non-Russians were on the verge of becoming a majority of the population in the Soviet Union . After the two collapses: of Russian Empire in 1917 and Soviet Union in 1991 major processes of derussification took place. The Russification of Uralic-speaking people, such as Vepsians , Mordvins , Maris , and Permians , indigenous to large parts of western and central Russia had already begun with

5170-418: The end of the Soviet era, doctrinal rationalization had been provided for some of the practical policy steps that were taken in the areas of education and the media. First of all, the transfer of many "national schools" (schools based on local languages) to Russian as a medium of instruction accelerated under Khrushchev in the late 1950s and continued into the 1980s. Second, the new doctrine was used to justify

5264-421: The federal system. Federalism and the provision of native-language education ultimately left as a legacy a large non-Russian public that was educated in the languages of their ethnic groups and that identified a particular homeland on the territory of the Soviet Union. By the late 1930s, policies had shifted. Purges in some of the national regions, such as Ukraine , had occurred already in the early 1930s. Before

5358-433: The first class (grade) in 67 languages between 1934 and 1980. Educational reforms were undertaken after Nikita Khrushchev became First Secretary of the Communist Party in the late 1950s and launched a process of replacing non-Russian schools with Russian ones for the nationalities that had lower status in the federal system, the nationalities whose populations were smaller and the nationalities which were already bilingual on

5452-537: The former of which resulted in Mordvins no longer being among the top ten largest ethnic groups in Russia. Russia was introduced to the South Caucasus following its colonisation in the first half of the nineteenth century after Qajar Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories per the Treaty of Gulistan and Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1813 and 1828 respectively to Russia. By 1830 there were schools with Russian as

5546-541: The health of the Russian people, because in this war they earned general recognition as the leading force of the Soviet Union among all the nationalities of our country. The view was reflected in the new State Anthem of the Soviet Union which started with: "An unbreakable union of free republics, Great Russia has sealed forever." Anthems of nearly all Soviet republics mentioned "Russia" or "Russian nation" singled out as "brother", "friend", "elder brother" ( Uzbek SSR ) or "stronghold of friendship" ( Turkmen SSR ). Although

5640-420: The idea that a new " Soviet people " was forming on the territory of the USSR, a community for which the common language – the language of the "Soviet people" – was the Russian language, consistent with the role that Russian was playing for the fraternal nations and nationalities in the territory already. This new community was labeled a people (народ – narod ), not a nation (нация – natsiya ), but in that context

5734-468: The indigenous language was the medium of instruction existed only in rural areas. The pattern was probably similar, if less extreme, in most of the non-Russian union republics , although in Belarus and Ukraine, schooling in urban areas was highly Russianized. The promotion of federalism and of non-Russian languages had always been a strategic decision aimed at expanding and maintaining Communist Party rule. On

SECTION 60

#1732868618617

5828-593: The language of instruction in the cities of Shusha , Baku , Yelisavetpol ( Ganja ), and Shemakha ( Shamakhi ); later such schools were established in Kuba ( Quba ), Ordubad , and Zakataly ( Zaqatala ). Education in Russian was unpopular amongst ethnic Azerbaijanis until 1887 when Habib bey Mahmudbeyov and Sultan Majid Ganizadeh founded the first Russian–Azerbaijani school in Baku. A secular school with instruction in both Russian and Azeri , its programs were designed to be consistent with

5922-445: The last Soviet census of 1989. Russian replaced Yiddish and other languages as the main language of many Jewish communities inside the Soviet Union as well. Another consequence of the mixing of nationalities and the spread of bilingualism and linguistic Russification was the growth of ethnic intermarriage and a process of ethnic Russification—coming to call oneself Russian by nationality or ethnicity, not just speaking Russian as

6016-606: The law came after a decade in which educational opportunities in the indigenous languages was reduced by more than 50%, due to budget reductions and federal efforts to decrease the role of languages other than Russian. During this period, numerous indigenous languages in the North Caucasus showed significant decreases in their numbers of speakers even though the numbers of the corresponding nationalities increased, leading to fears of language replacement . The numbers of Ossetian, Kumyk and Avar speakers dropped by 43,000, 63,000 and 80,000 respectively. As of 2018, it has been reported that

6110-441: The most widely spoken language, and that Russians were the majority of the population of the country, were also cited in justification of the special place of the Russian language in government, education, and the media. At the 27th CPSU Party Congress in 1986, presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev , the 4th Party Program reiterated the formulas of the previous program: Characteristic of the national relations in our country are both

6204-407: The negated verb in its second-person singular (the stem-only form), much as it is in Finnish and Estonian . The verb улаш (ulaš) – to be – has its own negated forms. In order to illustrate the conjugation in the respective moods and times, one verb of the first declination (лекташ – to go) and one verb of the second declination (мондаш – to forget) will be used. Verbs have two infinitive forms:

6298-466: The number of speakers; between the 2002 and 2010 censuses the number of Mari speakers declined from 254,000 to 204,000 while Chuvash recorded only 1,042,989 speakers in 2010, a 21.6% drop from 2002. This is attributed to a gradual phasing out of indigenous language teaching both in the cities and rural areas while regional media and governments shift exclusively to Russian. In the North Caucasus ,

6392-445: The official literature on nationalities and languages in subsequent years continued to speak of there being 130 equal languages in the USSR, in practice a hierarchy was endorsed in which some nationalities and languages were given special roles or viewed as having different long-term futures. An analysis of textbook publishing found that education was offered for at least one year and it was also offered to children who were in at least

6486-485: The old Empire had ever been." Stalin's Marxism and the National Question (1913) provided the basic framework for nationality policy in the Soviet Union. The early years of said policy, from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s, were guided by the policy of korenizatsiya ("indigenization"), during which the new Soviet regime sought to reverse the long-term effects of Russification on the non-Russian populations. As

6580-550: The original eastward expansion of East Slavs . Written records of the oldest period are scarce, but toponymic evidence indicates that this expansion was accomplished at the expense of various Volga-Finnic peoples , who were gradually assimilated by Russians; beginning with the Merya and the Muroma early in the 2nd millennium AD. In the 13th to 14th century , the Russification of

6674-530: The other 14 Republics. The new rule was accompanied by a statement that Russian was a "second native language" for all Soviet citizens and "the only means of participation in social life across the nation." The Councils of Ministers of the Republics across the USSR enacted resolutions based on Decree No. 835. Other aspects of Russification contemplated that native languages would gradually be removed from newspapers, radio and television in favor of Russian. Thus, until

6768-568: The partitioning of Kievan Rus. The mentality behind Russification when applied to these groups differed from that applied to others, in that they were claimed to be part of the All-Russian or Triune Russian nation by the Russian Imperial government and by subscribers to Russophilia . Russification competed with contemporary nationalist movements in Ukraine and Belarus that were developing during

6862-400: The peoples of the USSR" that an individual could "use fluently" (свободно владеть). It is speculated that the explicit goal of the new question on the "second language" was to monitor the spread of Russian as the language of internationality communication. Each of the official homelands within the Soviet Union was regarded as the only homeland of the titular nationality and its language, while

6956-613: The position of the verb is not affected. The focus position is directly before the verb. Subjects, objects, adverbial, and secondary predicate can appear in this position. The examples below quoted in Saarinen (2022) show the different elements that can appear in the focus position. 1PST:first preterite 2PST:second preterite Чачи t͡ɕɑt͡ɕi Chachi корно korno road мучко mut͡ɕko Russification Russification ( Russian : русификация , romanized :  rusifikatsiya ), Russianisation or Russianization ,

7050-637: The principle that Russia is a multinational state and will only marginalize them further. The amendments were welcomed by Russian nationalists , such as Konstantin Malofeev and Nikolai Starikov . The changes in Constitution were preceded by "Strategy of government's national policy of Russian Federation" issued in December 2018, which stated that "all-Russian civic identity is founded on Russia cultural dominant, inherent to all nations of Russian Federation". With

7144-488: The regime was trying to establish its power and legitimacy throughout the former Russian empire, it went about constructing regional administrative units, recruiting non-Russians into leadership positions, and promoting non-Russian languages in government administration, the courts, the schools, and the mass media. The slogan then established was that local cultures should be "socialist in content but national in form." That is, these cultures should be transformed to conform with

7238-530: The release of the latest census in 2022, results showed a catastrophic decline in the number of many ethnic groups, particularly peoples of the Volga region. Between 2010 and 2022, the number of people identifying as ethnic Mari dropped by 22.6%, from 548,000 to 424,000 people. Ethnic Chuvash and Udmurts dropped by 25% and 30% respectively. More vulnerable groups like the Mordvins and Komi-Permyaks saw even larger declines, dropping by 35% and 40% respectively,

7332-401: The special place of the Russian language as the "language of inter-nationality communication" (язык межнационального общения) in the USSR. Use of the term "inter-nationality" (межнациональное) rather than the more conventional "international" (международное) focused on the special internal role of Russian language rather than on its role as a language of international discourse. That Russian was

7426-561: The standard infinitive and the necessive infinitive, used when a person must do something. The person needing to do something is put in the dative in such a situation. There are four participles in Meadow Mari: There are five gerunds in Meadow Mari: Word order in Mari is subject–object–verb . This means that the object appears directly before the predicate. Word order in Mari is affected by information structure. However,

7520-462: The stressed vowel in the word is rounded , then the suffix will contain a rounded vowel: for example, кӱтӱ́ ([kyˈty] 'herd') becomes кӱтӱ́штӧ ([kyˈtyʃtø], 'in the herd'); if the stressed vowel is unrounded, then the suffix will contain an unrounded vowel: ки́д ([kid], 'hand') becomes ки́дыште ([ˈkidəʃte], 'in the hand'). If the stressed vowel is back, then the suffix will end in a back vowel: агу́р ([aˈgur], 'whirlpool') becomes агу́рышто ([aˈgurəʃto], 'in

7614-470: The theoretical plane, the Communist Party's official doctrine was of eventual national differences and nationalities as such would disappear. In official party doctrine as it was reformulated in the Third Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union introduced by Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress in 1961, although the program stated that ethnic distinctions would eventually disappear and

7708-557: The titular nationality of their republic – not Russian. More generally, patterns of linguistic and ethnic assimilation (Russification) were complex and cannot be accounted for by any single factor such as educational policy. Also relevant were the traditional cultures and religions of the groups, their residence in urban or rural areas, their contact with and exposure to the Russian language and to ethnic Russians, and other factors. Defunct The enforced Russification of Russia's remaining indigenous minorities continued in Russia after

7802-563: The turnabout in Ukraine in 1933, a purge of Veli İbraimov and his leadership in the Crimean ASSR in 1929 for "national deviation" led to the Russianization of government, education, and the media and to the creation of a special alphabet for Crimean Tatar to replace the Latin alphabet. Of the two dangers that Joseph Stalin had identified in 1923, now bourgeois nationalism (local nationalism)

7896-437: The unity of the ethnic group, and the two forms are very close, but distinct enough to cause some problems with communication. The Mari language and people were known as "Cheremis" ( Russian : черемисы, черемисский язык , cheremisy , cheremisskiy yazyk ). In medieval texts the variant forms Sarmys and Tsarmys are also found, as well as Tatar : Чирмеш , romanized:  Çirmeş ; and Chuvash : Ҫармӑс , Śarmăs before

7990-454: The war, the leading role of the Russian people in the Soviet family of nations and nationalities was promoted by Stalin and his successors. This shift was most clearly underscored by Communist Party General Secretary Stalin's Victory Day toast to the Russian people in May 1945: I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, before all, the Russian people. I drink, before all, to

8084-418: The whirlpool'). Like other Uralic languages , Mari is an agglutinating language . It lacks grammatical gender, and does not use articles. Meadow Mari has 9 productive cases , of which 3 are locative cases . The usage of the latter ones is restricted to inanimate objects. Many cases, aside from their basic function, are used in other situations, such as in expressions of time. If a locative statement

8178-533: The word. Post- and prefixes behave as clitics , i.e., they do not have their own stress. For example, пӧ́рт ( pört , "house") гыч ( gəč , "out of") ( [ˈpørt ɣɤt͡ʃ] ); or му́ро ( muro , "song") дене ( dene , "with") ( [ˈmuro ðene] ). Consonants are shown in Cyrillic, Latin, and the IPA : Like several other Uralic languages, Mari has vowel harmony . In addition to front/back harmony, Mari also features round/unround harmony. If

8272-510: Was almost no education in Mari language. After the October Revolution , there was a period of support of all lesser national cultures in the Soviet Union , but eventually Russification returned. While the development of Mari literary language continued, still, only elementary-school education was available in Mari in the Soviet period, with this policy ending in village schools in the 1970–1980s. The period of glasnost and perestroika in

8366-570: Was also seen as a move by Putin to "build identity in Russian society". Protests and petitions against the bill by either civic society, groups of public intellectuals or regional governments came from Tatarstan (with attempts for demonstrations suppressed), Chuvashia , Mari El , North Ossetia , Kabardino-Balkaria, the Karachays , the Kumyks , the Avars , Chechnya , and Ingushetia . Although

8460-567: Was offered in 35 non-Russian languages of the peoples of the USSR, just over half the number in the early 1930s. In most of these languages, schooling was not offered for the complete ten-year curriculum. For example, within the Russian SFSR in 1958–59, full 10-year schooling in the native language was offered in only three languages: Russian, Tatar , and Bashkir . And some nationalities had minimal or no native-language schooling. By 1962–1963, among non-Russian nationalities that were indigenous to

8554-609: Was populated by many minority groups, and forcing them to accept the Russian culture was an attempt to prevent self-determination tendencies and separatism. In the 19th century, Russian settlers on traditional Kazakh land (misidentified as Kyrgyz at the time) drove many of the Kazakhs over the border to China. Russification was extended to non-Muscovite ethnographic groups that composed former Kievan Rus , namely Ukrainians and Belarusians , whose vernacular language and culture developed differently from that of Muscovy due to separation after

8648-464: Was said to be a greater threat than Great Russian chauvinism (great power chauvinism). In 1937, Faizullah Khojaev and Akmal Ikramov were removed as leaders of the Uzbek SSR , and in 1938, during the third great Moscow show trial , convicted and subsequently put to death for alleged anti-Soviet nationalist activities. After Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union,

8742-475: Was to be made about an animate object, postpositions would be used. Additionally, terms denoting family members have vocative forms. These are, however, not created with a specific paradigm, and only exist in a few pre-defined cases. Hill Mari has these cases, plus the abessive case (of the form -де), which is used to form adverbials stating without the involvement or influence of which an action happens. Mari, though an agglutinative language, does not have

8836-421: Was undertaken to define the official territories of the non-Russian populations within the Soviet Union. The federal system conferred the highest status to the titular nationalities of union republics, and lower status to the titular nationalities of autonomous republics, autonomous provinces, and autonomous okrugs. In all, some 50 nationalities had a republic, province, or okrug of which they held nominal control in

#616383