Mythologies of the Chuvash Tribe

The Chuvash tribe (UK: /ˈtʃuːvɑːʃ/ CHOO-vahsh, US: /tʃʊˈvɑːʃ/ chuu-VAHSH Chuvash: чӑваш [tɕəˈʋaʃ]; çăvaş), plural: чӑвашсем, çăvaşsem; Russian: чува́ши [tɕʊˈvaʂɨ]) are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Onogurs, native to an area stretching from the Idel-Ural (Volga-Ural) region to Siberia. Most of them live in Chuvashia and the surrounding areas, although Chuvash communities occur throughout the Russian Federation. They speak Chuvash, a unique Turkic language that diverged from other languages in the family more than a millennium ago. Among the Chuvash believers, the majority are Eastern Orthodox Christians. There is no universally accepted etymology of the word Chuvash, but there are three main theories. The popular theory accepted by Chuvash people suggests that Chuvash is a Shaz-Turkic adaptation of Lir-Turkic Suvar (Sabir people), an ethnonym of people that are widely considered to be the ancestors of modern Chuvash people. Compare Lir-Turkic Chuvash: huran to Shaz-Turkic Tatar: qazan (‘cauldron’). One theory suggests that the word Chuvash may be derived from Common Turkic jăvaš ('friendly', 'peaceful'), as opposed to şarmăs ('warlike'). Another theory is that the word is derived from the Tabghach, an early medieval Xianbei clan and founders of the Northern Wei dynasty in China. The Old Turkic name Tabghach (Tuoba in Mandarin) was used by some Inner Asian peoples to refer to China long after this dynasty. Gerard Clauson has shown that through regular sound changes, the clan name Tabghach may have transformed to the ethnonym Chuvash.

Chuvashia (Russian: Чувашия; Chuvash: Чӑваш Ен, romanized: Çăvaš Jen), officially the Chuvash Republic — Chuvashia, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is the homeland of the Chuvash people, a Turkic ethnic group. Its capital is the city of Cheboksary. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,251,619. The Chuvash Republic is located in the center of European Russia, in the heart of the Volga-Vyatka economic region, mostly to the west of the Volga River, in the Volga Upland. It borders with the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in the west, Mari El Republic in the north, the Republic of Tatarstan in the east and southeast, Republic of Mordovia in the southwest, and the Ulyanovsk Oblast in the south. There are over two thousand rivers in the republic—with the major ones being the Volga, the Sura, and the Tsivil—as well as four hundred lakes. Some of the Volga River valley reservoirs are in the north of the republic, and the Sura River flows towards the Volga along much of the republic's western boundary. The ancestors of the Chuvash were Bulgars and Suars, Oghur Turkic tribes residing in the Northern Caucasus in the 5th to 8th centuries. In the 7th and 8th centuries, a part of the Bulgars left for the Balkans, where, together with local South Slavs, they established the state of modern Bulgaria. Another part moved to the Middle Volga Region (see Volga Bulgaria), where the Bulgar population that did not adopt Islam formed the foundation of the Chuvash people.

The tribes of the Volga-Kama Bulgars played the main role in the ethnogenesis of the Chuvash. At least, this is the prevailing point of view of all historians. In the first millennium BC, these Turkic-speaking tribes inhabited the forest and steppe districts on the right bank of the Volga River and later merged with the local Finno-Ugric tribes. In the fifteenth century, the Chuvash lands were annexed to Kazan Khanate. On the whole, the Chuvash nationality was formed by the fifteenth century. The Chuvash consist of two main ethnic groups. The so called Upper Chuvash (Viryal) in the northwestern part of the Chuvash Republic and the Lower Chuvash (Anatri) in the northeastern and southern parts of the country. The intermediate territories are inhabited by the Middle-Lower Chuvash (Anat Enchi). In 1551, Chuvashia (the state of the Chuvash) was annexed to the Russian state. At present, it is a part of Russian Federation. The techniques of agriculture, trades, and many elements of material and spiritual culture have been inherited by the Chuvash from their Bulgar ancestors. From the Russians, they borrowed house design, clothing, and other cultural items. In spite of their continuous dependence on invaders, the Chuvash have preserved their language, culture, rich folklore, music, and applied art.

The reconstruction of the early history of the Chuvash is incomplete. Because the "Chuvash" ethnonym does not appear in Russian historical sources until the sixteenth century, the relation of the Chuvash to the other Bulgaro-Turkic tribes is difficult to determine. The following is known about the Bulgaro-Turks. The ancient Turkic Language Family split into Common Turkic and Bulgaro-Turkic at the beginning of our era. Bulgaro-Turkic tribes moved westward from their Inner Asian home. Byzantine sources from A.D. 465 mention the Ogur, Onogur, Saragur, Utigur, and Kutrigur tribes, and from 481 on the "Bolgar" ethnonym appears. In the fifth and sixth centuries these tribes settled on the lowland between the Dnieper and Don rivers. In 630 a group of these people moved to the lower Danube under the guidance of Asparuch. Between 670 and 680 the majority of the people were under the control of the Kazars, who founded their state on the Caspian Sea. According to recent studies, Kazars also spoke a Bulgaro-Turkic dialect. At the end of the ninth century some Bulgar tribes migrated north to the Volga, Kama, and Viatka rivers and founded the Volga Bulgar Empire. This state, named Magna Bulgaria (Great Bulgaria), existed for two and one-half centuries and was prosperous, according to Arabic sources. Its capital, Bolgari, was a major cultural and commercial center. In 1230 Mongols invaded Magna Bulgaria, gaining control in 1241. According to Volga-Bulgarian inscriptions, two groups remained from their population until the fifteenth century. Both of them spoke Bulgaro-Turkic dialects but they were not direct ancestors of the Chuvash. An inscription dated 1307 is unquestionably in the Chuvash language and can be regarded as the first written evidence of the Chuvash dialect differentiated from other Bulgaro-Turkic dialects. In the fifteenth century the Golden Horde disintegrated. The Kazan Khanate was organized, and the Volga Bulgar population, who spoke two non-Chuvash dialects, was absorbed into the Kipchak population. The Chuvash population preserved its language but was much influenced by the Kipchaks. In 1551 the Chuvash people joined forces with the Russians and helped them besiege Kazan. From 1552—the taking of Kazan—the Chuvash have lived in the Kazan Province of the Russian Empire. After initial prosperity, living conditions deteriorated as Russian and Chuvash feudal oppression increased, and the burden of the agricultural population was increased by the tax paid to the Russian Orthodox church. The Chuvash participated in numerous peasant uprisings led by Stepan Razin (1670-1671) and Yemelian Pugachov (1773-1775). The life of the serfs of the Volga region in the eighteenth century was especially difficult, as landowners sent non-Russian villagers to the Russian imperial public works projects as unpaid workers. Thousands of Chuvash were impressed into the shipyards at Azov, Voronezh, and Olonec. Many worked in construction, in St. Petersburg to transform it into the imperial capital and in Kazan to erect an admiralty. In different parts of the country, Chuvash peasants had to work building fortresses, and later they were forced to haul barges transporting salt from Perm to Nizhni Novgorod. At this time, entire Chuvash villages migrated to more distant territories hoping to avoid forced labor. In the nineteenth century capitalism developed in Chuvashia, and in the 1890s, 10 percent of the peasantry were kulaks, 55 percent middle class, and 2 percent poor. The kulaks opened factories; by 1913 more than 400 factories were in operation in Chuvashia. After the 1917 Revolution, local soviets formed in Chuvashia. In 1920 the Chuvash Autonomous Region was established, and in 1925 it became the Chuvash Autonomous Republic. In the post-Soviet era, it is the Chuvash Republic.

The Chuvash are Turkic-speaking people who have lived in the Middle Volga region of the Russian Federation for centuries. They are considered to be descendants of the ancient Bulgars, who maintained a state in the Middle Volga River valley from the 10th to 13th centuries. As an ethnic group, the Chuvash were formed chiefly on the basis of the Turkic-speaking Bulgars who came in large masses in the 7th century from the Caucasus region. The Bulgars and the subdued and partially assimilated indigenous Finno-Ugric tribes settled down on both sides of the Middle Volga and formed the Bulgar state. Great Bulgaria occupied a sizeable territory, in which the Samara and Ulyanovsk oblasts (regions), the Tatarstan, Chuvash, Mari, and Udmurt republics, as well as western regions of Bashkortostan are now situated. In the first half of the 13th century, further development of the Bulgar civilization through the ethnic integration of Turkic-speaking and Finnish-Ugric tribes was interrupted by the defeat of the Bulgar state in 1236 by hordes of the Mongol Tatars. The Bulgar state became an ulus (region) of the Golden Horde. The disintegration of the Golden Horde and the formation of the Kazan khanate gave rise to the formation of Chuvash, Tatar, and Bashkir groups. There is no common opinion about the origin of the name Chuvash. This term is not found in written documents until early in the 16th century. It is believed that the names Savir, Suvar, and Suvaz, used by some classical and medieval writers, actually refer to Chuvash ancestors. These names belonged to tribes that were a part of the Bulgar tribal confederation during the latter part of the first millennium ad. It was the Suvars who moved along the left bank of the Volga and then crossed the river in the 13th century when fleeing the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Later, the Suvars mixed with indigenous inhabitants of the region, resulting in the formation of one of the Chuvash subgroups, the Anatri. The Chuvash had been under the sway of the Kazan khanate between 1445 and 1551. In the Kazan khanate, the term Chuvash meant mainly villagers (yasak) professing paganism. However, the urban Muslim population, chiefly people in service (sluzhilye lyudi) were called "Tatars" in official documents. Beginning in the 16th century, a small proportion of them—those living east of the Volga—were Islamized, adopted the Tatar language, and became integrated into the Tatar culture. Beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Chuvash people came under the growing influence of the Russian people and their culture. In 1551 the majority of the Chuvash were subjugated by the Russian state. Chuvash villages were built in secluded places and away from roads to make it difficult for the czar's tax collectors to find them.

There may be some conflicts within the Chuvash people’s ethnic origin. However, that does not give them less of the attention they need to fully live out their culture and tradition. Yet, how much do others know about this minority group of Russia? At present, the Chuvash people are an ethnic minority who live in Chuvashia, Western Russia. The republic lies on the right bank of the middle Volga River. Here, one can witness the natural beauty of the forest and the forest steppe, which also marks the republic’s boundary. Within these beautiful landscapes are the communities that have shared a colorful culture, customs, traditions, and beliefs, and people who lived to preserve their language, music, art, and folklore throughout the years. Before we delve into the details of the Chuvash people’s origin, note that they are divided into two main ethnic groups: (1) Virjal or Turi and (2) Anatri. The latter is also subdivided into Anat jenci and Hirti. The communities are known as the upper Chuvash and the lower Chuvash, respectively. Such distinctions are based on their community’s location. The Virjal is in the northwestern part of the Chuvash republic, while the Anatri is in the northeastern and southern regions. Now, it is best to hear about the origin of conflict dominant in the discussion of Chuvash ethnic history. It is a step in better understanding their people. One school of thought follows that the Chuvash people are from the Turkic Sabir tribes of Volga Bulgaria. Historians noted that these earlier communities lived in the forest and steppe regions of the Volga River. Their people later mixed and intermarried with the local Finno–Ugric groups, which then brought about the Chuvash ethnicity. The other belief is that the Chuvash may have descended from pre-Volga Bulgars. This second idea finds the connection with the Chuvashes’ use of a Turkic language, which strongly indicates that they are a close ancestor of the Turkic Volga Bulgars.

The history of Chuvashia spans from the region's earliest attested habitation by Finno-Ugric peoples to its incorporation into the Russian Empire and its successor states. The first inhabitants to leave traces in the area later known as Chuvashia were of the possibly Finno-Ugric Comb Ceramic Culture. Later, people of the possibly Indo-European Battle Axe Culture moved into the area and established several villages. These two peoples assimilated to become the Hillfort Culture of the Middle Volga Area. They had strong economic and linguistic ties with southern steppe peoples like the Scythians and Sarmatians. The ancestors of the Chuvash were Turkic Bulgars and Suars (Sabirs) residing in the Northern Caucasus in the 5th to 8th centuries (after having been driven from the Pannonian Basin following the death of their greatest leader, Attila). In the 7th and 8th centuries, a part of the Bulgars left for the Balkans, where, together with local Slavs, they established the state of modern Bulgaria. Another part moved to the Middle Volga Region (see Volga Bulgaria), where the Bulgar population that did not adopt Islam formed part of the ethnic foundation of the Chuvash people. During the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria, the steppe-dwelling Suar migrated north, where Volga Finnic tribes, such as the Mordvins and Mari lived. The Chuvash claim to be descendants of these Suars who assimilated with the Mari. They became vassals of the Golden Horde in 1242, after a bloody uprising which the Mongols brutally suppressed with an army of 40,000 warriors. Later Mongol and Tatar rulers did not intervene in local internal affairs as long as the annual tribute was paid to Sarai. The Tokhtamysh–Timur war (1361–1395) devastated 80% of the Suar people. When the power of the Golden Horde began to diminish, the local Mişär Tatar Murzas from Pyana and Temnikov tried to rule the Chuvash area.

Chuvash belongs to the Turkic language family, which includes languages such as Turkish, Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Uyghur. Most scholars believe that the ancient homeland of the Turks was near the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia, western Mongolia, and northern Xinjiang. Whereas all other modern Turkic languages are descended from Common Turkic, Chuvash is the only surviving member of the Ogur-Bulgar branch of the Turkic language family. The study of Chuvash-Hungarian cognates is interesting considering the geographic and linguistic distance between these languages, and it has played an important role in the study of Chuvash and Hungarian history. As a Rusyn, I also find Chuvash-Hungarian cognates interesting because no people has played as important a role in the history of the Transcarpathian Rusyns as the Hungarians. The Hungarians took control of Carpathian Rus’ in the 11th-13th centuries, and Carpathian Rus’ remained part of the Kingdom of Hungary until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Just as Russian has been a source of loanwords for Chuvash, particularly in the last two centuries, Hungarian has been an important source of loanwords for Rusyn. The Hungarian word ír “to write” is cognate with the Chuvash śyr. The Rusyn word iрка/irka “notebook” comes from the Hungarian ír. The Hungarian bársony “velvet” is cognate with the Chuvash purśăn “silk.” Compare Hungarian bársony to Rusyn баршунь/baršun’. The word for the Lilly of the Valley flower in the dialect around Velikie Lazy is дюндюрик/dyundyurik, from the Hungarian gyöngyvirág. The word gyöngyvirág is derived from the word gyöngy “pearl,” which is cognate with the Chuvash ĕnčĕ. The Hungarian word iker “twin” is cognate with the Chuvash yĕkĕr. The Rusyn word iкероблак/ikeroblak refers to a type of window with two shutters or panes, from the Hungarian iker “twin” and ablak “window.” The Rusyn words капура/kapura “gate,” капурка/kapurka “small gate of a fence,” and капуркова/kapurkova “the last portion of alcohol served to a guest” are derived from the Hungarian kapu. Hungarian kapu “gate” is cognate with Chuvash hapha, though it may also come from the Ottoman Turkish kapı. Owing to the century and a half of Ottoman rule over southern and central Hungary, Rusyn probably has many more Hungarian loanwords of Ottoman Turkish rather than Ogur-Bulgar origin.

Chuvash nationalism or the Chuvash national movement (Chuvash: Чӑваш наци юмӑхӗ) is the belief that the Chuvash people constitute a nation, as well as the fight among the Chuvash people for equality. Spontaneous elements of Chuvash nationalism were manifested, starting from the 16th century, in various forms of social performances. Evasion of taxes and duties, local armed actions of local importance, submission of petitions to the authorities, withdrawal to regions weakly controlled by the state, participation in large-scale anti-government protests, persistent resistance to mass Christianization (see O. Tomeev, Razin's Rebellion, Pugachev's Rebellion, Commission of Lieutenant Colonel A. I. Svechin, Shoorcha rebellion) were evidence of the protest potential of the ethnos. At the turn of the 19th century, the Chuvash people consolidated themselves. Unifying them was the Chuvash language, which has grown to a single literary language, professional culture, and the emergence of national intelligentsia. Language and culture, the commonality of the Chuvash nation, was supported by the compact residence of most people in the common territory. By the end of the 19th century, there was a final formation and stabilization of the configuration of the ethnic territory of the Chuvash (7 adjacent counties of Kazan and Simbirsk Governorates), where 78% of the Chuvash lived—based on ethnoconsolidation processes and the growth of consciousness among the Chuvash in the early 20th century marked the beginnings of an organized Chuvash nationalism movement. In the first decade of the 20th century, the national movement of the Chuvash people moved from an early phase characterized by the emergence of national educators, Patriotic figures of education and culture, who were engaged in the study of the language, history, and culture of the people, to a second phase, involving the spread of self-consciousness among Chuvash. The third phase of Chuvash nationalism ended with a mass movement with open political slogans and a network of national organizations formed for ethnic emancipation in 1917.