The Meryans, also ''Merya'' (Russian: меря) were an ancient Finnic people that lived in the

Upper Volga region The Volga Region (russian: Поволжье, ''Povolzhye'', literally: "along the Volga") is a historical region in Russia that encompasses the drainage basin of the Volga River, the longest river in Europe, in central and southern European Russ ...

. The

Primary Chronicle The ''Tale of Bygone Years'' ( orv, Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ, translit=Pověstĭ vremęnĭnyxŭ lětŭ; ; ; ; ), often known in English as the ''Rus' Primary Chronicle'', the ''Russian Primary Chronicle'', or simply the ...

places them around the Nero and Pleshcheyevo lakes. They were assimilated to Russians around the 13th century.

History

Jordanes mentioned "Merens" as a nation paying tribute to the Gothic ruler

Ermanarich Ermanaric; la, Ermanaricus or ''Hermanaricus''; ang, Eormanrīc ; on, Jǫrmunrekkr , gmh, Ermenrîch (died 376) was a Greuthungian Gothic king who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of Oium, the part of Sc ...

. According to the

, the Varangians 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 against Smolensk and

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

. They are also mentioned as the participants of Oleg's campaign against Constantinople in 907. Merya began to be assimilated by East Slavs when their territory became incorporated into Kievan Rus' in the 10th century. Their assimilation in the Upper Volga region seems to have been complete by the 13th century. The ''Life of

Abraham of Galich Abraham Galitzki or Abramius of Galich (russian: Авраамий Галичский) or Chukhlomsky and Gorodetsky (died 20 July 1375) was an abbot of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a disciple of Sergius of Radonezh, and later went on to ...

'' claims that, when arriving to the Lake 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. The sites of Sarskoye Gorodishche near Lake Nero and island Nero and Kleshchin 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 (see Blue Stone).

Language

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. meri sea in language of the veps fino-ugorian nation Based on toponyms,

onomastics Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...

and words in

Russian dialects Russian dialects are spoken variants of the Russian language. Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories: Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian: A Monocentric or Pluricentric Lan ...

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.”Allikas: Ткаченко О. Б., Мерянский язык, Kiova 1985.” The Meryans are thought to have been closely connected with the

Muroma people The Volga Finns (sometimes referred to as Eastern Finns) are a historical group of indigenous peoples of Russia living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and ...

(whose language has even been suggested to have been a dialect of Meryan).SOUTH-EASTERN CONTACT AREA OF FINNIC LANGUAGES IN THE LIGHT OF ONOMASTICS (helsinki.fi) Rahkonen claims that the eastern

Volkhov Chudes Volkhov Chudes (волховская чудь) were a Finno-Ugric people living along the banks of the Volkhov River, who spoke a Finnic language. The Volkhov Chudes lived upstream from Staraya Ladoga. Rahkonen's studies of local toponyms confir ...

were very close to Meryans, culturally and linguistically.

Today

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. in 2010 a film was made about the Neo-Meryan people. In Moscow there exists a "Meryan society", and Meryan festivals have been done in Moscow. In 2010, the Neo-Meryans were featured in the award-winning film '' Silent Souls''.

References

Historical ethnic groups of Russia {{Uralic peoples