The Mari have had an autonomous
republic, Mari-el, since 1920, but half of the Mari live outside of
the republic, which has a population of roughly 800 thousand. Since
coming under Russian control in the 16th century, the Mari
converted (partly by force) to Russian Orthodoxy, but to this day
they also observe animist traditions based on a deep reverence for
nature, especially trees. Religious rituals and animal sacrifice
are performed in sacred groves, called keremet, and the
ceremony is presided over by a kart, a priest. A kart also blessed
the president of Mari-el at his inauguration in 1992, and a prayer
book was published.
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 Listen to the Mari actor Sacha
Silvyestrov recite from a play by Nikolai Ugarin that was
translated from Chuvash into Mari
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The Finnic language of the Mari has more than half
a million speakers. It is distantly related to Finnish, but
speakers of the two languages cannot understand each other. The
name Volga itself may be of Finnic origin, as are the names of
other rivers in the region whose names end in –ga, or
–ka or –va: Oka, Viatka, Moskva.
Biblical boost
During the 19th century, the language
received a boost from the translation of the New Testament and the
publication of the first school books. A classic work of Mari
literature is Sergei Tsavain's poem "Ota" (leaf-tree forest),
published in 1905.
The literary language suffered a severe blow when
the Mari intelligentia were decimated under Stalin in the 1930's,
but in recent years a rebirth of interest has occurred, in spite of
the pressures of urban and global culture. The first opera was
written in the language in 1963, "Akpatyr". Efforts are underway to
produce a standard dictionary for the three dialects: hill or
mountain, meadow and eastern.
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Listen to Faina
Eschmyekova and "The Sisters" sing in Mari and play the
kusle
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The meadow Mari on the left bank and the hill Mari
on the right bank of the Volga are now separated by the huge
reservoir of the Cheboksary electric station, which has also
flooded many villages.
Some of this ethnic heritage has been saved from
the waters in the beautiful open-air ethnographic museum
overlooking the Volga in Kozmodemyansk. Considered to be one of the
best collections of peasant culture in Russia, it contains about 60
wooden dwellings, including an original Mari sauna and an operating
windmill, as well as eight thousand traditional household
objects.
Unique musical tradition
The Mari have unique musical
traditions, including instruments known almost exclusively to their
culture, like shyuvr bagpipe and the many-stringed zither called
the kusle. The lyrics of their songs often mention the Volga and
reflect their love of nature, especially the forest and the
rainbow.
"If
we lose languages, we lose colors of the rainbow," says Erik
Juzycain, a young ethnographer now working on a standard dictionary
for the hill, meadow and eastern dialects of Mari. He points
out that in contrast to the ‘new' multi-culturalism of
western Europe, the various ethnic groups in this region are still
living on the land and on the river of their roots. The traditions
they are seeking to revive are not foreign imports but native and
ancient.
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Listen to Erik Juzycain
play the shyuvr
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Tags:
chuvash,
kazan,
mari,
rivers series,
russian,
samara,
tatar,
volga
