Tver Karelians are a people who inhabit regions of

Tver Tver ( rus, Тверь, p=tvʲerʲ) is a city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is northwest of Moscow. Population: Tver was formerly the capital of a powerful medieval state and a model provincial town in the Russi ...

Saint Petersburg 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

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. Their dialect is remarkable in that it does not borrow from other

Balto-Finnic languages The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 ...

due to centuries of geographical isolation. Although the number of Tver Karelian people was about 14,633 in 2002, very few (about 25 in one census) named the dialect as their

primary language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tong ...

. The number of Tver Karelians was 7,394 in 2010.

Origins

There are two complementary theories as to the origin of the Tver Karelians.

Resettlement theory

Tver Karelians may have migrated from their homeland, the

Karelian Isthmus The Karelian Isthmus (russian: Карельский перешеек, Karelsky peresheyek; fi, Karjalankannas; sv, Karelska näset) is the approximately stretch of land, situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern ...

, to the

region by a process of resettlement. The beginning of migration followed the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617, at the conclusion of the

Ingrian war The Ingrian War ( sv, Ingermanländska kriget) between the Swedish Empire and the Tsardom of Russia lasted between 1610 and 1617. It can be seen as part of Russia's Time of Troubles and is mainly remembered for the attempt to put a Swedish duke ...

where

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

was defeated by

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. Peak migration, in the tens of thousands (25,000 to 30,000), occurred between the 1640s and 1660s. Under Swedish rule, residents of

Ingria Ingria is a historical region in what is now northwestern European Russia. It lies along the southeastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the River Narva on the border with Esto ...

and Swedish Karelia were forced to convert from the Orthodox religion to

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

. This together with famine and disease led to an exodus.

Ethnic sub-group theory

Smaller Karelian groups who were native to the Tikhvin and Valdai regions may have assimilated with the migrant groups. EthnoMap1851

History

In 1926, the Tver Karelian numbered about 140,567. 95% identified Karelian as their mother tongue. Between 1937 and 1939, the

Karelian National Okrug Karelian National Okrug (russian: Карельский национальный о́круг, ''Karelsky Natsionalny okrug''), was a territory with special status within Kalinin Oblast, Soviet Union. It existed between 1937 and 1939 and was inte ...

was recognised with its centre in

Likhoslavl Likhoslavl (russian: Лихосла́вль) is a town and the administrative center of Likhoslavlsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Moscow–St. Petersburg Railway, northwest of Tver, the administrative center of the obl ...

. Since 1997, the Tver Karelian have had national and cultural autonomy.

Decrease in national identity

Decreases in Tver Karelian national identity in the twentieth century may be associated with factors such as loss of religion to

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

; loss of native language; and loss of the inter-generational passage of cultural knowledge such as "Babkin tradition" (traditional craftsmanship). In the 1950s, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

experienced a mass migration from

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are de ...

to urban regions. This affected the Tver Karelians as many of the population were farmers and or resident in rural areas. Because of such predominantly rural residence, the term "Karelian" might in some circumstances colloquially equate to " Country bumpkin".

Changes in the Tver Karelian population over time

ImageSize = width:700 height:300 PlotArea = left:50 right:40 top:20 bottom:20 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify Colors = id:gray1 value:gray(0.9) DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:140567 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:40000 start:0 gridcolor:gray1 PlotData = bar:1834 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:83304 width:15 text:83,304 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1859 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:95103 width:15 text:95,103 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1873 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:105743 width:15 text:105,743 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1886 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:132332 width:15 text:132,332 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1926 color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:140567 width:15 text:140,567 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1939** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:119957 width:15 text:119,957 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1959** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:59120 width:15 text:59,120 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1970** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:38064 width:15 text:38,064 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1979** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:30387 width:15 text:30,387 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:1989* color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:29177 width:15 text:29,177 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2002** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:14633 width:15 text:14,633 textcolor:red fontsize:8px bar:2010** color:gray1 width:1 from:0 till:7394 width:15 text:7,394 textcolor:red fontsize:8px * In the USSRDemoscope Weekly — Application. Handbook of statistical indicators
/ref> ** in the Tver region

Language

In contrast to other languages and dialects, the Tver Karelian language continues in its archaic form. Most probably, it is close to a Karelian

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...

. Vocabulary of Tver dialect was influenced by and borrowed from the language of the medieval Egonskoy villages (which no longer exist). Reliable information about the origin of writing of the Tver Karelian language is not available. By 1930, Karelian was commonly written in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

and or the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

References

External links

* http://www.gov.karelia.ru/gov/index_e.html {{authority control Ethnic groups in Russia Baltic Finns Indigenous peoples of Europe Karelia Karelian people