The Mari Book Publishing House has published the book “The Military History of the Mari People”

Its authors are Professor of Mari State University Alexander Bakhtin and Yoshkar-Ola historian Alexander Sokolov.

The Mari Book Publishing House has published the book “The Military History of the Mari People”, written by the professor of the Mari State University Alexander Bakhtin and the city historian Alexander Sokolov, writes the journalist “Idel.Realii” Dmitry Lyubimov.

Two years ago, Bakhtin gave a public lecture on military affairs among the Mari. He said that he is fond of collecting material on this topic and hopes that someday all this will result in the format of a separate book.

Bakhtin says that the belligerence of the Mari in the Middle Ages was due to the nature of the territory they occupied. It was a kind of buffer zone between two feudal states – the Moscovia state and the Volga Bulgaria, the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate. This location helped the people survive.

The Mari were among the defenders of Kazan, they also participated in the attack on the city on the side of the Russians. They desperately resisted the annexation of their lands to the Moscovia state, this resulted in the so-called Cheremis wars. Alexander Bakhtin believes that there were four Cheremis wars in total. After their completion at the end of the 16th century, the Mari were prohibited from engaging in blacksmithing, settling in cities and along river banks.

As part of the Russian troops, the Mari were participants in the assault on Narva in 1590, fought as part of the first and second militias against the Polish-Swedish invaders in 1611-1612.

The book of Sokolov and Bakhtin traces a more recent history: the participation of the Mari in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, in the First World War (1914-1918), in the Civil War of 1918-1920, in the Second World War, and even in military conflicts second half of XX – early XXI centuries.

The book “Military history of the Mari people” was published under the republican state program “State national policy of the Republic of Mari El for 2013–2025”.