Most Russians Lack an Interest in Others Living in Their Own Country, Anthropologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 10 – Most Russians display a complete lack of interest in what is going on not very far from themselves, beyond the Ring Road if they live in Moscow or beyond the Urals if they live in European Russia, Natalya Konradova says. They focus on only two agendas, the world of their own apartments and that of countries beyond Russia’s borders.

            “It would be a good thing,” the independent anthropologist says, “if people were to understand that the history of ‘the others’ … is deeply part of the history of their land” and “if people recognized that time and space [within the Russian Federation] are a bit wider than it seems to them” (idelreal.org/a/29575161.html).

            Konradova made her observation after doing field work with the Ural Mari, a group of that Finno-Ugric nation who fled from the Middle Volga into the Urals after Ivan the Terrible took Kazan in 1552, field work that she hopes to turn into a book and exhibit to encourage Russians to pay attention to these unusual people.

            The Maris of the Urals avoided conversion to Christianity despite continuing efforts by the Orthodox Church, and they have sought to avoid Russification by various means. For them, their ancient traditions and language and the preservation of their identity is important; but “in reality, the Maris live in a situation when they cannot sustain that.”

            “In the schools,” Konradova points out, “there is no Mari language. [Parents] understand that their children are leaving the villages because there is nothing for them to do there.” They are basically loyal to the Russian powers that be, who in the main now neither harm nor hurt them but rather allow them to live as they like.

            But the Maris of the Urals will tell visitors who get to know them that “it would not be bad if Mari were taught in the schools.” Some try to maintain the language at home, but others simply “are ceasing to speak it” even among themselves. And “they do not understand what bilingualism is” and why it is beneficial.

            Instead, once they give up Mari, they give it up completely, although most retain various cultural markers and traditions, including a strong attachment to ancient pagan beliefs.  Since the 1990s, intellectuals in Mari El have promoted a revival of these practices, and that effort has affected the Maris of the Urals as well.

            Their religion is open and tolerant, Konradova says. One woman told her that “we also believe in the Russian gods.” According to the Mari, there are three such: Christ, the Mother of God, and St. Nicholas, and the Mari engage in various syncretic combinations of their ancient faith with modern practices and beliefs.

            Despite what some think, the anthropologist concludes, the Maris of the Urals are not primitives but completely modern people who simply have chosen not to give up the one part of their culture that under current conditions they are able to retain, albeit in an increasingly modified format.