Erzyan Mastor lands outside Republic of Mordovia

Territory of Republic of Mordovia covers only small part of lands where Erzya and Moksha people lived since time immemorial. Large Erzyan and Mokshan settlements were placed outside borders, established by Bolsheviks in 1928.
Renat Temirgaliev offers a map of such settlements in Nizhegorodskaya oblast’, based on “Lists of inhabited places” (dated by 1859). Data are overlaid on modern map of Nizhegorodskaya oblast’.
Pink marks stand for Erzyan villages (majority), violet (two settlements) represents Mokshan, grey (concentrated in former Nizhegorodskiy district) mean teriukhan.
Many settlements of Erzyan Mastor lost their national language and cultural identity. Violent Russification of local population was preceded by eradication of traditional ethnic religion of Erzyans and cruel suppression of any forms of disagreement.
Nowadays Teriukhans are almost completely assimilated within Erzyan ethnographic group, compactly living in Teyoushevskaya volost’ of Nizhegorodskiy district. And yet in the middle of 18th century Teriukhans rebeled against Russian occupational administration, which conducted violent christening and destroyed Erzyan sacred objects.


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