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23-554: The first Russian written source which mentions them is the Tolkovaya Paleya , from the 13th century. They are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century. This is in stark contrast to the related tribes Merya and Muroma , which appear to have been assimilated by the East Slavs by the 10th and the 11th centuries. Ivan II , prince of Moscow, wrote in his will, 1358, about

46-578: A longer period. In the 16th century, the St Nicholas monastery was founded in Radovitsky in order to convert the remaining Meshchera pagans. It is possible that they still spoke their old language. The princely family Meschersky in Russia derives its nobility from having originally been native rulers of some of these Finnic tribes. Ethnographers treat the modern Meshchera as a local group within

69-638: 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 . Meshchersky The House of Meshchersky (Russian: Мещерский) is an old princely family whose title was recognized by

92-948: The Eastern Orthodox faith and used Slavic Christian names. The family was listed in the first part of the Registers of the Nobility of Russia , which became formalized in the 19th century or earlier. The book Notice sur les principales familles de la Russie does not mention the Meshchersky family at all, which may be attributable to the well-established animosity towards the Meshcherskys of its author, Prince Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov . The Meshcherskys had estates particularly in Ukraine , examples of their lands being at: Pokrovskoe , Petrovskoe , Lotoshino , and

115-623: The Mordvins and the Tatars . Prince A. M. Kurbsky wrote that a Mordvin language was spoken in the lands of the Meshchera. The Meshchera language is unattested, and theories on its affiliation remain speculative. In the Oka River valley, the Meshchera culture appears to have disappeared by the 11th century. In the marshy north, they appear to have stayed and to have been converted into

138-597: The Moskva River , along the Oka River to the town Kasimov . The general opinion is nowadays, that the Oka-Ryazan culture is identical to that of the Meshchera. The graves of women have yielded objects typical of the Volga Finns, of the 4th-7th centuries, consisting of rings , jingling pendants , buckles and torcs . A specific feature was round breast plates with a characteristic ornamentation. Some of

161-560: The Orthodox faith. The Meshchera nobility appears to have been converted and assimilated by the 13th century, but the common Meshchera huntsman and fisherman may have kept elements of their language and beliefs for a longer period. In the 16th century, the St Nicholas monastery was founded in Radovitsky in order to convert the remaining Meshchera pagans. The princely family Mestchersky in Russia derives its nobility from having originally been native rulers of some of these Finnic tribes. In

184-768: The Russian Empire . The family descends from the medieval independent rulers of the Meshchera tribe. Their title of prince was confirmed by the Emperor Paul I of Russia on 30 June 1798. According to the Velvet Book of the 17th century, Bakhmet Husein, the Prince of Shirin, after some disagreement in the Great Horde (according to Dmitry Ilovaysky prince s of Shirin had a disagreement with Tsar of

207-649: The Upper Volga region . The Primary Chronicle places them around the Nero and Pleshcheyevo lakes. They were assimilated to Russians around the 13th century, but there has been a modern revival of Meryan culture and language, termed Meryan ethnofuturism  [ ru ] . Jordanes mentioned "Merens" as a nation paying tribute to the Gothic ruler Ermanarich . According to the Primary Chronicle ,

230-548: 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 . 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

253-402: The hydronymic stems: Un-, Ič-, Ul and Vil-, which can be compared to Udmurt uno 'big', iči 'little', vi̮l 'upper' and ulo 'lower'. Rahkonen also theorized the name Meshchera itself could be a Permic word, and its cognate be Komi mösör 'isthmus'. Meryans The Meryans (also Merya people ; Russian : меряне , meryane or меря , marya ) were an ancient Finnic people that lived in

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276-761: 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 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

299-582: The Great Horde ), moved to Volga region and later conquered the land of Meschera in 1298. He had a son by the name of Beklemish who in Andreev Gorodok  [ ru ] (Andrew's City) was baptized as Mikhail. Mikhail later build the temple of Transfiguration and along with oneself baptised a number of people. His descendants until 1398 kept as their own the Meschera domain. A grandson of Beklemish, Yuriy Fedorovich, joined with his regiment

322-719: The Great Prince of Moscow Dmitriy Donskoy at the Kulikovo Battle. In the 16–17th centuries many princes of Meschera were polk (regiment) or grad (city) voivodes. The family was somewhat arbitrarily grouped in documentation together with Tatar princely families of the Russian Empire. The neighboring Tatar kingdom subjugated lords of the Meshchera tribe under its suzerainty, and some of them converted to Islam and bore Muslim -like first names; but soon, under Russian subjugation, subsequent generations converted to

345-567: The Merya survives near Kleshchin (see Blue Stone ). 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. Based on toponyms , onomastics and words in Russian dialects 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

368-518: The Russian ethnos. These Russian-speakers live in the massive forests on the frontier between the Moscow , Ryazan and Vladimir Oblasts . Some Meshchera also appear in the regions of Tambov , Penza and Saratov Oblasts . They are generally dark and of medium height and they continue to live as fishermen, bee-keepers and huntsmen. It is believed that the Mishars, a subgroup of the Tatars , inherited

391-571: The Russians, they held to animistic beliefs. Some linguists think that Meschera might have been a dialect of Mordvinic , while Pauli Rahkonen has suggested on the basis of toponymic evidence that it was a Permic or closely related language. Rahkonen's speculation has been criticized by other scientists, such as by the Russian Uralist Vladimir Napolskikh . Some toponyms which Rahkonen suggested as Permic are

414-543: The fast changes appear to show that the Meshchera were partially pushed away by the Slavs. In the marshy north, they appear to have stayed and to have been converted into the Orthodox faith. The Slavs were not as interested in the wetlands and allowed the Meshchera to stay for some time. The Meshchera nobility appears to have been converted and assimilated by the 13th century, but the common Meshchera huntsman and fisherman may have kept elements of their language and beliefs for

437-466: The graves contained well-preserved copper oxides of the decorations with long black hair locked into small bells into which were woven pendants. It appears from the remains that Slavic tribes arrived into Meshcheran territories in the period of the 10th-12th centuries. In the Oka river valley, the Meshchera culture appears to have disappeared by the 11th century. There are no indications of genocide, but

460-409: The name Meshchera , but it remains unclear whether the ethnonym derives from the name of the region in which the group originally lived or actually indicates that the group traces its descent from the original Finno-Ugric tribe. The Meschera were primarily fishermen, beekeepers, hunters and bronze craftsmen. They knew of agriculture, but they only used it in limited amounts. Prior to assimilation from

483-746: The village Meshcherka, which he had bought from the native Meshcherian chieftain Alexander Ukovich . The village appears to have been converted to the Christian Orthodox faith and to have been a vassal of Muscovy . Several documents mention the Meshchera concerning the Kazan campaign by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. These accounts concern a state of Meshchera (known under a tentative name of Temnikov Meshchera , after its central town of Temnikov ) which had been assimilated by

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506-543: The village of Zhabki ( Egorievsk district, Moscow Oblast ), Meshchera burial sites were found in 1870. Women's bronze decorations identified as Finno-Ugric were found and dated to the 5th-8th centuries. Very similar finds soon appeared in the Ryazan Oblast and the Vladimir Oblast , enabling archaeologists to establish what characterized the material culture of the Meshchera. 12 such sites were found from

529-456: Was published in 2019. The Meryans are thought to have been closely connected with the Muroma people (whose language has even been suggested to have been a dialect of Meryan). Rahkonen claims that the eastern Volkhov Chudes were very close to Meryans, culturally and linguistically. Some people from the former Meryan territory have recently began to identify themselves as "Meryan", which

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