Matrena Vakhrusheva (russian: Матрена Панкратьевна Вахрушевa also russian: Матрёна Панкратьевна Вахрушевa) 12 April 1918 – 1 January 2000) was a
Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
,
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
and writer. She is considered a pioneer in the development of Mansi literature and orthography for the
Mansi language
The Mansi languages are spoken by the Mansi people in Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, in the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and Sverdlovsk Oblast. Traditionally considered a single language, they constitute a branch of the Ural ...
. She was the first Mansi woman to earn a scientific degree and co-wrote the first Mansi-Russian dictionary.
Early life
Matrena Pankratjevna Vakhrusheva was born on 12 April 1918 in in the
Kondinsky District
Kondinsky District (russian: Конди́нский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #43-oz and municipalLaw #63-oz district (raion), one of the nine in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is located in the south of the ...
of the
Ostyak–Vogul National Okrug of
Soviet Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
to Ekaterina Semenovna (née Alagulova) and Pankratia Mikhailovich Vakhrushev. The family of six children were raised on their ancestral lands, where their father engaged in farming, raising cattle, horses, and
Siberian huskies. Prior to her marriage, Vakhrusheva's mother had worked in domestic service to the merchant Popov family in
Nakhrachi. At 9, Vakhrusheva began attending school at the public school. The teacher, Kapitolina Andreevna taught in a one-room school with children of a broad range of ages. While she taught them Russian language, reading and writing, Adnreevna studied
Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
, to enable her to communicate better with her students. By the end of the year, a new school was built which included music and drama courses. After finishing elementary school, Vakhrusheva and her brother Andrei were sent to Nakhrachi to attend a seven-year secondary school.
With the advent of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
,
collectivization of farming,
anti-kulak campaign and
purges
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
of the 1930s, the family were forcibly separated and their movable goods
redistributed. Pankratia, as "the son of a
kulak
Kulak (; russian: кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈlak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned ove ...
", was able to keep the ancestral land to feed his family, but had to move to various villages around
Tobolsk
Tobolsk (russian: Тобо́льск) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1590, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, and i ...
, while Ekaterina cared for the younger children in Kharmpavyl. The family would not be reunited until 1943, when Ekaterina died. In 1933, Vakhrusheva and Andrei moved to
Ostyako-Vogulsk, so that she could study at the newly established
normal school
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...
. Encouraged by her instructors, Victoria Senkevich and Ilya Gudkov, she joined a group of students who actively worked write literary works and collect folklore and ethnographic material for publication in the newspaper ''Советский Север'' (Soviet North).
Vakhrusheva began writing her own poems and translated some of the stories of
Vladimir Korolenko
Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko (russian: Влади́мир Галактио́нович Короле́нко, ua, Володи́мир Галактіо́нович Короле́нко; 27 July 1853 – 25 December 1921) was a Ukrainian-born ...
,
Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak
Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak (russian: Дми́трий Нарки́сович Ма́мин-Сибиря́к) (October 25, 1852 – November 2, 1912) was a Russian author most famous for his novels and short stories about life in the Ur ...
, and
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
into the Mansi language. These were first published in the paper ' (Ostyako-Vogulsk Truth). In 1940, some of her works were included in the poetry compilation, ''Хантыйская и мансийская поэзия'' (Khanty and Mansi poetry) gathered together by Senkevich and Gudkov from their students. As Mansi literature had an oral tradition, writing poetry created complications and Vakhrusheva's style varied. When she tried to replicate Mansi lyric songs, Vakhrusheva "successfully preserved the choral measures and the inherent Mansi folk song melodic rhythms". When she attempted to write using the rules of Russian poetry, her works were not as successful. She graduated with honors, earning her certification to teach.
Career
Vakhrusheva began teaching at a kindergarten in
Evra. Wanting to continue her education, in 1938 she traveled to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and entered the
Institute of the Peoples of the North
The Institute of the Peoples of the North (russian: Институт Народов Севера) is a research and later educationary institute based in Saint Petersburg. Its objective is to examine topics related to the northern minorities in th ...
. She joined the
Komsomol
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...
and became secretary of the organization. When the
Great Patriotic War
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...
broke out, she was sent to work as an instructor at a factory school and served as a recruiter. During the
Siege of Leningrad
The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...
in the day, she worked with the Sanitation squadron at the evacuation hospital and dug trenches, and at night helped extinguish bombs on building rooftops. In February 1942, the institute was evacuated to
Omsk
Omsk (; rus, Омск, p=omsk) is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia, and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk ...
, where Vakhrusheva was assigned to work in the hospital and serve as a secretary in the criminal investigation department.
Returning to Kharmpavyl, Vakhrusheva began teaching at the elementary school she had attended and quickly became the director of the school. When the war ended, she was awarded the medals
"For the Defence of Leningrad" and
"For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945". In 1943, she was sent to teach Mansi language courses at the normal school in Ostyako-Vogulsk, which had been renamed as Khanty-Mansiysk, where she remained until 1947. That year, Vakhrusheva returned to Leningrad to begin her graduate studies at
Andrei A. Zhdanov State University on the grammar of the Mansi language. In 1949, while she was still working on her thesis, ''Формирование сложных слов мансийского языка на базе соматической лексики
а материале кондинского диалекта' (Formation of complex words of the Mansi language on the basis of somatic vocabulary
ased on the material of the Kondinian dialect, Vakhrusheva began teaching Mansi at the
A. I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute.
One of her doctoral advisors,
Alexei Nikolayevich Balandin, who would later become her husband, encouraged her to write literature to create texts in her native language for students. She published an autobiographical story in the Mansi language ''На берегу Малой Юконды'' (On the Shore of Malaya Yukonda) in 1949. The book told the story of her transformation from a traditional village girl to an educated communist woman. In a collection of 12 short stories, she began with a description of family life in the harsh northern climate and the resourcefulness of her people. She told of the difficulties of beginning school, when the teacher could only speak Russian and her students only spoke Mansi. Another story told of her arrival in the city and experiencing an urban environment with modern technology for the first time. Though written in a
propagandistic style, praising the Soviet enhancements in favor of traditional life, she also employed a traditional artistic device, the confession-song of her people. The style incorporated folklore rhythms, respect for the natural world, and allegories to relay a life story. The book created a literary sensation when it was translated into Russian by
Gennady Gor
Gennady Samoilovich Gor (russian: Генна́дий Само́йлович Гор) (January 15, 1907 in Verkhneudinsk, Siberia - January 6, 1981 in St. Petersburg) was a Soviet writer of science fiction.
The son of a Jewish family exiled to Sib ...
.
Completing her PhD in 1952, Vakhrusheva became the first Mansi woman to earn a scientific degree. Most of her research career was dedicated to creating textbooks and
pedagogic
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
materials for the Mansi and
Khanty language
Khanty (also spelled Khanti or Hanti), previously known as Ostyak (), is a Uralic language spoken by the Khanty people, primarily in the Khanty–Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs and the Aleksandrovsky and Kargosoksky districts of Tom ...
s. She compiled a Mansi-Russian dictionary, a manual for teaching adult literacy, and designed curricula to train teachers in Mansi and Khanty. With her husband, she wrote the first complete
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
for Mansi grammar creating the foundation for the study of her native tongue. Teaching for 46 years at the A. I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute, she published around 24 textbooks and influenced generations of students, like
Nina Lyskova,
Evdokia Nemysova,
Anastasia Saynakhova,
Yuvan Shestalov Yuvan Nikolayevich Shestalov russian: Юван Николаевич Шесталов;(1937-2011) was a Mansi writer from Russia.
Life and work
Shestalov was born 22 June 1937 in Kamratka village, Beryozovsky District, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okru ...
,
Valentina Solovar, and , among others.
Death and legacy
Vakhrusheva died on 1 January 2000 in Saint Petersburg and was interred at the Rzhevsky Cemetery. She is considered as one of the pioneers of the development of Mansi literature. On the centennial of her birth in 2018, her alma mater, now known as the
Khanty-Mansiysk Technological and Pedagogical College, hosted a celebration to honor her contributions to their school and the indigenous community.
Selected works
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References
Citations
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vakhrusheva, Matrena
1918 births
2000 deaths
People from Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Mansi people
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Soviet philologists