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Eastern Mari people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eastern Mari people
Two older women wearing national costume, featuring bright pink headscarves and coin-covered dresses.
Mari women of the Ural region
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Eastern Mari language

The Eastern Mari are a subgroup of the Mari people, a Volga Finnic ethnic group of Russia. Eastern Mari comprise those Mari living outside of the Mari El Republic, east of the Vyatka River in the Kama and Ural regions.[1] They are concentrated in Bashkortostan, particularly in the Mishkinsky District, Birsky District, and in Neftekamsk. Eastern Mari populations are also found in southern Sverdlovsk Oblast and in Perm Krai.[2] They make up between a quarter and a third of the general Mari population. According to academic Seppo Lallukka, Eastern Mari is more of a scholarly category than an ethnically unified subgroup.[3]

The Eastern Mari language variety includes loanwords and influence from Russian, Tatar, and Bashkir.[2]

Culture

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About two thirds of Eastern Mari live in rural areas, and they are traditionally farmers.[4] Folk religion is an important part of daily life for the Mari of the Ural region,[5] and they preserve many rituals that have been lost among other Mari groups.[6] Similarly to Meadow Mari, Ural Mari have a pronounced emphasis on traditional familial principles compared to neighboring ethnic groups.[7]

Mari in Bashkortostan mainly practice a syncretic combination of Russian Orthodoxy and traditional Mari religion,[8] although Finnish Lutheran missionary efforts have established several Lutheran Mari communities in the republic which incorporate aspects of traditional Mari culture.[9]

References

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  1. ^ Ivanova et al. 2020, p. 312
  2. ^ a b Ivanova et al. 2020, p. 313
  3. ^ Lallukka's arguments are summarized in Badcock, Sarah (2005). "Review: From Fugitive Peasants to Diaspora: The Eastern Mari in Tsarist and Federal Russia by Seppo Lallukka". Europe-Asia Studies. 57 (3): 512–514. JSTOR 30043898.
  4. ^ Ivanova et al. 2018, pp. 213–214
  5. ^ Berezina 2021, pp. 67–68, 70
  6. ^ Berezina 2021, p. 74
  7. ^ Berezina 2021, p. 72
  8. ^ Klyashev & Sadikov 2024, pp. 109–110
  9. ^ Klyashev & Sadikov 2024, pp. 113–115

Bibliography

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Further reading

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