Russia celebrates 90th anniversary of the erosion of the Moksha and Erzya ethnic groups

Both the Moksha and Erzya nations have long sought their own statehood – even if it is formal, but their own. However, Moscow decided otherwise. Understanding that the national movements would not calm down, in 1928 Moscow decided to go for a “compromise” – on the basis of the Saransk district, to “separate” the Moksha and Erzya into the Mordovian district, which in 1930 became the autonomy, and in 1934 turned into the Republic, the task of which was to destroy the Erzya and Moksha ethnic groups and create an artificial Mordvin substrate, which was easier to Russify.

Mordovia was initially made intentionally small, not including many Moksha and Erzya ethnic lands in order to further facilitate the task of assimilating the population of the “cut off” parts of the nations. It is always easier to act against small groups than against large ones that can fight back significantly. Thus, significant ethnic territories of the Erzya and Moksha in the Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Ryazan, Tambov, Voronezh and Ulyanovsk regions turned out to be outside the state of the “two nations”.

The same was done with the Circassian lands: they were divided into three republics and between the Krasnodar, Stavropol regions and Georgia.

The photo represents today’s concert for the day of the formation of Mordovia. Who are these people in the photo? What nation do they belong to? They are definitely not Moksha or Erzya. This is a new artificial ethnic group – “Mordva”. This is their holiday. How much longer they have to celebrate depends only on how actively they are resisted.