[Destro]

The people of the Volga - The Chuvash

by Marijke van der Meer, 12 February 2003

The Chuvash share many musical traditions with the Mari, and their languages have mutually influenced each other. But Chuvash is an East Turkic language, as distinct from the Finnic languages as Russian is from English. Like the Mari, the Chuvash also converted largely to Christianity, but in villages they too practice animism, around a "yoodah", an altar or sacred place.

As one poet we spoke to explained, they are orthodox but "inside" they feel a strong affinity with the old practices. In the recent past, in fact, there have been tensions with the Orthodox Church. Now the complete orthodox liturgy and the Bible are being translated into modern Chuvash, which is spoken by some two million people.

Chuvash speakers live throughout the region, but can also be found as far away as the Baltic and Sakhalin. In the many ethnically defined administrative units within the Russian Federation, the titular culture rarely forms a majority, but Chuvashia is an exception, and nearly 70% of the people in this autonomous republic define themselves as Chuvash, on the basis of language, music, social and religious rituals and village customs.

Census

The Chuvash National Congress, which is a member of UNPO, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. The congress promotes the preservation of Chuvash language and identity through publications, the school system, theater and the media. The current census being carried out in the Russian Federation is a crucial issue.

The Russian passport names citizenship as being Russian but also lists ‘nationality', and some predict that fewer people outside of the republic will continue to register their nationality as Chuvash. Poet and dramatist Anatoli Kibetch, when asked why it was important to keep the language alive, says that the culture also embodies certain values that have an edifying function.

Descendants of the Bolgars

The Chuvash pride themselves in speaking one of the oldest Turkic languages and they nurture close ties with other speakers of Turkic languages in the region, namely Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. They also see themselves as the direct descendants of the Bolgars, who settled along the middle Volga in the 8th century.

[virgil]

I don't know if this is related or not, but didn't Noah have 3 sons? Hamm, Japheth and Shem? The children of Shem were the Jews. Of Hamm, the Caananites and Japheth's children became everybody else...central asians...indo-europeans..others. I read a book by an archeaologist who thinks maybe the indo-europeans actually originated in central asia, around the caspian sea instead of the Indus valley like we have thought for all of these years. Could there be a connection?

Genesis Chap 10 (after the flood): The sons of Japheth; Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras.

The sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah...

The sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish,Kittim and Dodanim.

By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations

[cookcounty]

" the other being the Sephardim, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain. "

Well, a half-star for effort.

The Sephardim includes the Jews from pretty much all of the Islamic world, including the once-sizable communities of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and the rest of North Africa (50 years ago, there were 300,000 Jews in Morocco alone). These are the Jews that became refugees when Israel was founded in 1948, and the Arab street was rocked with the ancient "Death to the Jews" chants and increasing violence, In the early '50's, there were more Jewish refugees from Sephardic lands than Arab refugees in Israel and "Palestine." But the jews moved from tents to houses and started new lives and stopped referring to themselves as refugees.

But he gets a half-point, because the most famous and influential of the Sephardics was indeed, those of Spain. (remeber that Spain was larhely muslim from 700-approx 1400).

[DonQ]

In virtually every part of the world, Jews have intermarried with the local population, and often their descendants continue to practice Judaism. There was, around the 18th century, a substantial Jewish community in China - purportedly founded by Jewish refugees from the Moslem conquests, but they had obviously intermarried because some of the surviving artwork shows these Jews with obvious Oriental features. Similarly a Jewish community in India looks a lot like their Hindu neighbors.

[dix]

I love reading about the history of The Jews. It is at least 5000 years of history.

[Sabertooth]

Of some interest, in tangent to other subjects.

[aristeides]

Skimming this article, I found no statement about whether other Ashkenasim, who are not Levites, share this genetic signature. I would imagine they do -- I can't think of a reason why Ashkenazi Levites would share Khazar descent, when other Ashkenazim do not.

[johniegrad]

I have never heard of the Cohanim before. Apart from the sociological and historical references here, is there anything about them using this name in the Old Testament?

[CathyRyan]

ping

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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