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Veps, or Vepsians ( Veps: ''vepsläižed''), are a Finnic people who speak the
Veps language Veps, also known as Vepsian (Veps: ' or '), is a Finnic language from the Uralic language family, that is spoken by Vepsians. The language is written in the Latin script, and is closely related to Finnish and Karelian. According to Soviet s ...
, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
. According to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
, 11 spoke Vepsian (Ukr. Census 2001). The most prominent researcher of the Veps in Finland is Eugene Holman. The self-designations of these people in various dialects are ''vepslaine'', ''bepslaane'' and (in northern dialects, southwest of Lake Onega) ''lüdinik'' and ''lüdilaine''. Almost all Vepsians are fluent in Russian. The younger generation, in general, does not speak Vepsian although many have an understanding of the language.


Geography

In modern times, they live in the area between Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega and
Lake Beloye Lake Beloye or White LakeArukask, Madis, & Taisto-Kalevi Raudalainen. 2014. Autobiographical and Interpretive Dynamics in the Oral Repertoire of a Vepsian Woman. In: Marion Bowman & Ülo Valk (eds.), ''Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expres ...
– in the Russian Republic of Karelia in the former Veps National Volost, in
Leningrad Oblast Leningrad Oblast ( rus, Ленинградская область, Leningradskaya oblast’, lʲɪnʲɪnˈgratskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ, , ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It was established on 1 August 1927, although it was not until 1 ...
along the
Oyat River The Oyat () is a river in Babayevsky District of Vologda Oblast and Podporozhsky and Lodeynopolsky Districts of Leningrad Oblast of Russia, a major left tributary of the Svir ( Lake Ladoga basin). The length of the Oyat is , and the area of its ...
in the Podporozhsky and Lodeynopolsky Districts and further south in the Tikhvinsky and Boksitogorsky Districts, and in Vologda Oblast in the Vytegorsky and Babayevsky Districts.


History


Prehistory

Archeological and linguistic studies suggest that Vepsians lived in the valleys of the Sheksna, the
Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...
, and the
Syas The Syas () is a river in Lyubytinsky District of Novgorod Oblast and Tikhvinsky and Volkhovsky Districts of Leningrad Oblast, Russia. The Syas flows from the Valdai Hills north into Lake Ladoga. The town of Syasstroy is located at its mouth. It ...
rivers, developing, according to Kalevi Wiik, from the proto-Vepsian Kargopol culture to the east of Lake Onega. They probably also lived in East Karelia and on the northern coast of Lake Onega. It is possible that the earliest mention of the Veps dates to the sixth century CE, when the
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
historian
Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...
mentioned a people called ''Vasina broncas,'' which may have indicated the Vepsians. One of the eastern routes on which the
Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
went through their area, and the ''bjarm'' people mentioned by the Vikings as inhabiting the coast of the White Sea may have referred to the Veps.Saressalo 2005, Vepsa Maa, Kansa, Kulttuuri, p. 13 Evidence from tombs proves that they had contact with Staraya Ladoga,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...
and
Meryans The Meryans, also ''Merya'' (Russian: меря) were an ancient Finnic people that lived in the Upper Volga region. The Primary Chronicle places them around the Nero and Pleshcheyevo lakes. They were assimilated to Russians around the 13th cent ...
, other Volga Finnic tribes and later with the Principality of Novgorod and other Russian states. Later Vepsians also inhabited the western and eastern shores of Onega.


Historical period

In early
Kievan Rus' Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas o ...
chronicles, they are called "Весь" (Ves’) and in some Arabic sources they are called ''Wisu''. It is assumed that Bjarmians were at least partly Vepsians. From the 12th century their history is connected with first the Principality of Novgorod and then Muscovy. Russian settlement reached the Onega Veps in the 14th or 15th century. Eastern Vepsians in the Kargopol area merged linguistically with the Russians before the 20th century. The existence of the Vepsian people was not widely known until the mid-19th century. Despite its close relationship to the Karelian and the Finnish languages, the Vepsian language was thus one of the last
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
to be recognized as one. Vepsians numbered 25,607 in 1897. Some 7,300 of them inhabited East Karelia. In the beginning of the 20th century there were some signs of national awakening among Vepsians. Early Soviet nationality politics supported this progress, and 24 administrative units with the status of national village soviets were formed. The alphabet and the written language were developed. Teachers started to instruct in Vepsian in some elementary schools. The Soviet authorities started to oppress the Vepsian culture in 1937. All national activities were stopped and the national districts were abolished. When Finland invaded East Karelia in the Continuation War, some Vepsians joined the so-called Kindred Battalion of the Finnish Army. These troops were relinquished to the Soviet Union after the war. In the postwar period many Veps moved from their historic villages to larger cities. In 1983, on the initiative of national academics, an inquiry was carried out which showed that there were nearly 13,000 Veps in the Soviet Union, 5,600 of whom lived in Karelia, 4,000 in the Leningrad region and just under a 1,000 in the Vologda region. The new Vepsian
primer Primer may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Primer'' (film), a 2004 feature film written and directed by Shane Carruth * ''Primer'' (video), a documentary about the funk band Living Colour Literature * Primer (textbook), a te ...
''Abekirj'' and other elementary school books were published in Petrozavodsk in 1991. ''Kodima'', a newspaper in Vepsian, has been published since 1993. The Vepsian rural community was formed in East Karelia in 1994, encompassing 8,200 square kilometers of land and 3,373 inhabitants, 42% of them Vepsian. The authorities of the Republic of Karelia granted some budgetary autonomy to the Vepsian community in 1996. The language was taught as a subject in two schools, in Shyoltozero and Rybreka. However, the cultural revival slowed in the second half of the 1990s and the federal authorities abolished the autonomy in 2006. Nowadays the young generation in general does not speak the language, though the actual population of Vepsians continues to grow.


Notable Vepsians

* Nikolay Abramov – Vepsian-language poet, translator and writer


Further reading

*


References


External links


Vepsian organization

Effort to vitalise the Vepsian language

The Peoples of the Red Book: THE VEPS
{{authority control Vepsia Vepsian people Ethnic groups in Russia Baltic Finns Indigenous peoples of Europe Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East