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Eastern Finno-Ugrian Cooperation and Foreign Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Rein Taagepera
Rein Taagepera*
Affiliation:
University of California-Irvine, USA, and University of Tartu, Estonia
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Extract

Britons and Iranians do not wax poetic when they discover that “one, two, three” sound vaguely similar in English and Persian. Finns and Hungarians at times do. When I speak of “Finno-Ugrian cooperation,” I am referring to a linguistic label that joins peoples whose languages are so distantly related that in most world contexts it would evoke no feelings of kinship. Similarities in folk culture may largely boil down to worldwide commonalities in peasant cultures at comparable technological stages. The racial features of Estonians and Mari may be quite disparate. Limited mutual intelligibility occurs only within the Finnic group in the narrow sense (Finns, Karelians, Vepsians, Estonians), the Permic group (Udmurts and Komi), and the Mordvin group (Moksha and Erzia). Yet, despite this almost abstract foundation, the existence of a feeling of kinship is very real. Myths may have no basis in fact, but belief in myths does occur. Before denigrating the beliefs of indigenous and recently modernized peoples as nineteenth-century relics, the observer might ask whether the maintenance of these beliefs might serve some functional twenty-first-century purpose.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2001 , pp. 181 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. For a short overview of Finno-Ugrian languages and peoples, including statistics and a map, see Seppo Lallukka's article “Finno-Ugrians of Russia: Vanishing Cultural Communities?” in this special issue. For a longer version, see Rein Taagepera, The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State (London: Hurst, 1999). The history of the interactions of Finno-Ugrian peoples may be found in Sirkka Saarinen, “The Myth of a Finno-Ugrian Community in Practice,” in this special issue.Google Scholar

2. Further details and sources for this section are given in Taagepera, op. cit. See also various issues of Uralic Contacts and Fenno-Ugria Infoleht. I thank Ott Kurs, Seppo Lallukka, and Jaak Prozes for providing me with various kinds of information. My greatest thanks go to Andres Heinapuu for his detailed comments on a draft of this article.Google Scholar

3. Heikki Leskinen, ed., Congressus Octavus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum, Vols. I and II (Jyväskylä, 1995).Google Scholar

4. Later an Association of Finno-Ugrian Literatures was formed, headed in the late 1990s by the Estonian writer Arvo Valton.Google Scholar

5. Indigenous place names and constructs are used here, followed by the Russian ones, if different, in parentheses. Some, like Izhkar (Izhevsk) have begun to appear in such contexts as multilingual tourist brochures. To avoid tiresome repetition of “republic” and “autonomous okrug,” forms like “Khanty-Mansia” are used when possible. In line with contractions like “Bangladesh” (officially “Bangla Desh”), “Mariel” (Mari Land) is used, and also “Komimu” (Komi Land) for the Komi Republic. [Mordvin is used to describe the Erzia and Moksha collectively, though it is recognized that some people find this term offensive. An alternative, “Moksherzian”, has not been widely accepted by either group, though it does have certain proponents—The editors].Google Scholar

6. Uralic Contacts, No. 2, 1997, p. 7.Google Scholar

7. Igor' Sadovin, “Khronika nauchnoi i kul'turnoi zhizni finno-ugorskogo mira 1987–1993 g.,” Finno-ugrovedenie, No. 1, 1994, pp. 153–159.Google Scholar

8. Further details and sources for this section are given in Taagepera, op. cit. See also Uralic Contacts and Fenno-Ugria Infoleht.Google Scholar

9. Sándor Csúcs and Mayer, Rita, “Ungari ja soome-ugri väikerahvad,” in Hõimusidemed (Tallinn: SURI, forthcoming); Also, Fenno-Ugria Infoleht, No. 3, 1997.Google Scholar

10. These sites can be found at (www.suri.ee), (www.suri.ee/coco.html), and (www.suri.ee/uc), respectively. As usual, the Mari have excelled at promoting themselves in hyper-space; (www.mari.su) is a good place to start. To sign up for a Mari mailing list, a message can be sent to [email protected] stating “subscribe marij <your e-mailaddress>.”.”>Google Scholar

11. This section is based on Csúcs and Mayer, “Ungari ja soome-ugri väikerahvad.”Google Scholar

12. Ibid.Google Scholar

13. In A. S. Efremov, N. N. Isanbaev, and S. S. Sabitov, eds, Vengerskie uchenye o Mariiskom krae i narode (Ioshkar-Ola: Mariiskii nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut, 1990), especially the chapter by I. S. Galkin, “Iz istorii vengersko-mariiskikh sviazei,” pp. 3–17.Google Scholar

14. A main source for this section is Riho Grünthal, “Soome suhted Venemaa soomeugri-lastega 20. sajandi lõpul,” in Hõimusidemed (Tallinn: SURI, forthcoming).Google Scholar

15. See the chapter on Karelia co-authored by Ott Kurs in Taagepera, op. cit., pp. 100–146.Google Scholar

16. Grünthal, “Soome suhted Venemaa.”Google Scholar

17. These contacts, for example, helped to expose the local police murder of Khanty activist Prokopi Antonovich Sopochin in March 1993, because an Estonian folklorist happened to be visiting at the time and was able to involve the foreign press. See Piret Tali, “Kuidas Siberis hante tapetakse,” Postimees (Tartu), 29 April 1993; also Taagepera, op. cit., pp. 9–12.Google Scholar

18. Refer to its internet pages at (haldjas.folklore.ee/ugri/fu/).Google Scholar

19. This author also numbers among those repeatedly denied a visa.Google Scholar

20. Postimees (Tartu), 23 July 1997.Google Scholar

21. Twice, in 1996 and 1997, this author taught a special course for the eastern Finno-Ugrian students at Tartu University, encouraging them to submit short pieces to their native-language press back home, while also handing in Estonian-language versions for comments. I invited them to my apartment and summer cottage and received counter-invitations to their dormitory rooms. They were a friendly group with limited city skills and hence limited initiative. On two occasions they asked me for emergency travel money to return home and to attend a seminar in Hungary, funds that they later duly repaid. Those dependent on payments from their home republics have at times been in dire straits. Help from the Castren Society was invaluable; it has now been replaced by Estonian state funds.Google Scholar

22. Prozes Jaak, “On the Situation of the Finno-Ugrian Students in Estonia,” Fenno-Ugria Infoleht, No. 2, 1996, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

23. Ibid. The latter complaint illustrates limited initiative: they tended to wait for someone else to organize them.Google Scholar

24. From course papers and conversations.Google Scholar

25. Vita Studiosi, No. 5, 1997, p. 6.Google Scholar