 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Assimilated intoRussians; however, some people have begun to identify as Meryan again | |
| Languages | |
| Meryan (reconstructed form),Russian | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Finnic peoples,Mari people |
TheMeryans (Russian:меряне,romanized: meryane) orMerya people (Russian:меря,romanized: merya) were an ancientFinnic people that lived in theUpper Volga region.[1][2] ThePrimary Chronicle places them around theNero andPleshcheyevo lakes. They wereassimilated by theRussians by the 17th century,[3] but there has been a modern revival of Meryan culture and language, termedMeryan ethnofuturism [ru].
Jordanes mentioned "Merens" as a nation paying tribute to the Gothic rulerErmanarich. According to thePrimary Chronicle, theVarangians also forced the Meryans to pay tribute. This event is dated to 859, although the chronology is not reliable.Oleg of Novgorod forced the Meryans to take part in his 882 campaigns againstSmolensk andKiev. They are also mentioned as the participants of Oleg'scampaign against Constantinople in 907.
Merya began to be assimilated byEast Slavs when their territory became incorporated intoKievan Rus' in the 10th century.[4][5] TheLife ofAbraham of Galich claims that, when arriving to theLake Galich in the 14th century, he found there some "pagan people called Merya".
The Meryans were an important part of the development of the Russian nation.[6] The sites ofSarskoye Gorodishche near Lake Nero and island Nero[7] andKleshchin near Lake Pleshcheyevo were formerly proposed as Meryan "capitals", although this notion has been largely abandoned. A large boulder supposedly venerated by the Merya survives near Kleshchin (seeBlue Stone).
Not a single word of the Merya language was documented. The Meryans mostly lived around rivers, and many river hydronyms are still of Meryan origin.[8][9]
Based ontoponyms,onomastics and words inRussian dialects some people have tried to reconstruct the key features of the Meryan language. The first reconstructions were done in 1985 by O. B. Tkachenko. The latest book about Merya reconstructions was published in 2019.[10][11]
The Meryans are thought to have been closely connected with theMuroma people[12] (whoselanguage has even been suggested to have been a dialect of Meryan).[13] Rahkonen claims that the easternVolkhov Chudes were very close to Meryans, culturally and linguistically.[14]
Some people from the former Meryan territory have recently began to identify themselves as "Meryan", which is inspired by genetic links to the Meryan people.[3][15][16][17] In 2010 a film was made about the Neo-Meryan people.[18] In Moscow there exists a "Meryan society", and Meryan festivals have been done in Moscow.[3] In 2010, the Neo-Meryans were featured in the award-winning filmSilent Souls.
Merjalaiset olivat suomensukuinen kansa Moskovan seuduilla, jonka katsotaan sulautuneen slaaveihin ennen 1600-lukua.