When observing the comparative development of urbanisation among the nations of the former USSR at the end of the 20^th century, it can be recognised that differently from the Indo-European nations who have prevailingly developed an urban lifestyle (average level of urbanisation 47,1% in 1970; the speed of urbanisation 1,29 in 1959. 70), and the nations of Altai (25,8%; 1,36) and Caucasian (29,0%; 1,25) language groups with a prevailingly rural lifestyle, the urbanisation of Finno-Ugric nations (30,3%; 1,52) is in an active transitional phase between these two conditions (Sarv 1989: 16. 17). Even at the beginning of 20^th century, however, among all the nations of Russia, the Finno-Ugrians experienced the most rural of lifestyles, with less than three percent of town inhabitants (Kozlov 1975: 84; Kappeler 1992: 236, 326; Simon 1991). How did the Finno-Ugric cultural identity develop, being connected only with a rural lifestyle which totally excluded foreign influences, and due to what circumstances did this identity change during the 20^th century?

Traditional habitations in the forest zone are situated separately. The original function of a town was to be a stronghold, a shelter in times of war. The town as such is called linn, linna in the Balto-Finnic languages; kar in Perm languages, osh, vozh, vбros in Mordvin and Ugric languages. Towns emerged in the junction points of transit trade routes, running along riverbanks and seashores, where there was enough reason for defending against raids. Surface and timber were used as building material for strongholds and therefore, only fort-hills and moats filled with sediment have remained from the demolished towns within the modern landscape.

In the habitation areas of Meryas, different settlement sites from 6^th. 11^th centuries have been studied. The oldest of them are the strongholds that are connected with the late Dyakovo culture. During the excavations of the Bereznyak stronghold in 1934. 1935, P. N. Tretyakov (1941: 51. 68) has identified the remnants of 11 buildings, six of them were dwelling houses of 16. 25 square metres, with an approximately square-shaped general plan, and deepened earthen floors. The evidence of the findings allows us to presume that the division of space in these houses left the left side for men and the right side for women. Most probably, they were one-family dwelling houses (Golubeva 1987: 70).

The described building is similar to the semi-subterranean houses found in the stopping places of reindeer herders today (see Sarv 1999: 43) and to the summer kitchen-family tabernacle kuala of the Udmurts (Lintrop 1993: 44 introduces a photograph of a similar building in a place of sacrifice of a kin group). The buildings were situated parallel to the banks of the Volga river, in two lines, "as streets". The more sizeable buildings had a social function, according to Tretyakov. There are no possessions in the 40 mІ house, just a big fireplace and bunk-beds along the walls. The house also included a storage place and holes in the earth that could have been used for storing food supplies. Another, 34,8 mІ building with a fireplace can be considered the "house for female work". Half the spindle-stones and moulding forms of the settlement site have been found in the vicinity. The small building without a hearth and with grain remnants was probably a granary. There is also a forge and a "dead persons house" in the stronghold. Apparently, it was a dwelling place of a kin community, cultivating within a collective economy (Golubeva 1987: 70).

On the basis of the given reconstruction, I dare presume that during the first millennium, the Finno-Ugric people of Eastern Europe had a similar urban culture as in the forest zone of Western Europe. First millennium towns with Finno-Ugric strongholds fell to Tartar tax collectors in the East, and German ones in the West at the end of the first quarter of the second millennium.

Since the development of firearms, the importance of towns as strongholds has decreased, and in a war situation, it is not expedient to run away from the village to find shelter in a town; on the contrary, people evacuate from towns into the country. In guerilla war circumstances, it is more insecure to live in a village than in a town even today, and that is why it is characteristic of the post-war period that large groups of people (especially those who are less accepted by village society) leave the country for the town.

The initial defensive purpose was, due to the growth in productivity, ousted by another important function of the town in and during the second millennium: the consumption and channelling of the surplus of demographic and material products of surrounding rural areas as a commercial, industrial and administrative centre. In this sense, the town is called kaupunki in Finnish; among the Finno-Ugric nations of Russia, the above-mentioned words denoting towns have perished gradually in favour of the Russian word gorod. When ancient strongholds were captured by a foreign nation, a certain cultural-ecological division of labour was practised in this poly-ethnic society where the indigenous people dealt with the economies that were more dependent on the natural environment. The word gorod gained different meanings in different linguistic contexts. If, for a Russian, the word indicates a fence or a defensive construction, then for a rural Finno-Ugrian, it lacks such linguistic connection and the word gorod means for them either a fair or a market place where it is not possible to communicate in their mother tongue and where they would not build their homes only for this reason.

Western Finno-Ugrians with Germanic town environment and Ob-Ugrians who had relatively little contact with colonial powers maintained their environmentally sustainable scattered habitation in forest areas that originated from the times of extensive economic development also during the second millennium. The traditional scattered habitation of Ob-Ugrians was destroyed by the Soviet power during the 1930s violent settlement campaign.

On the southern border of the Finno-Ugric area, in the forest steppe zone, the Mordvins (still, remarkably more so than among Baltic Finns Maris and Udmurts who also live in mingled forests) have a transitional type of habitation from separated households to closer communities.

Villages are very big, but the absence of a stronghold (kreml) in their centre makes them differ from towns. There is no need for strongholds as since the end of the 16^th century, these nations have not initiated armed rebellions, although they have been involved in them. Their widely known peace-loving, demure and reserved character has spared them from extremities. They have not had the experience of building up their own state as the basis of their national self-being during the second millennium. Through centuries, these cultures have protected themselves against the unifying policy of Tsarist government by maintaining their economic, language, cultural and cult traditions and their social relations in the village community.

Nikolai Mokshin writes about the Mordvin village society: "During the first millennium AD, patriarchal kin relations were characteristic of Mordvin tribes. According to current research data, every Mordvin tribe (the total number is not known exactly) consisted of several patriarchal kin groups, which, in their turn, included several patriarchal families, whose head was usually kudatya (mdE kudo, mdM kud + atya `old man'). Kin group or several kin groups formed a village mdE&M vele. The chief of a tribe was tyushtya (mdE&M tyoksh `highest, top', atya `old man'), a leader elected by the elders of kin groups.

Until the beginning of the 20^th century, the traditional socio-normative institution shaping the ethnic type of thinking and behaviour of the Mordvins was the village community. According to common law, this regulated the economic, social and cultural everyday life of the Mordvin peasantry. Village community was, in its turn, divided into family groups who all originated from different ancestors. For example, the community in a Moksha-Mordvin village Volgapino in Penza guberniya, Krasnolobodsk county, is divided into eleven such groups, ranging from ten to more than forty families (the Russian National Ethnographical Museum archives, bank 1, register 1, file 253, page 137). Social functions of such family groups have so far not been studied much. It is possible that they were patronymias or their remainders.

Village communities were conducted by elders pryavts (mdE&M prya `head'), who were elected at the general meeting of the representatives of farms mdE&M velen' promks (from the words vele `village', promks `body, meeting'). The closest assistant of the pryavt was mdE&M velen' atyat or mdE pokshtyat (from the words vele `village', atya `old man', poksh `big'), without his consent the pryavt could not make any important decisions. Old village men also had a certain judicial power, based on common law. The village assembly also elected the tax collectors who made special marks on wooden sticks or boards which were still used until the 20^th century. They kept an account of the number of farms in the village and the number of inhabitants and live stock in every family, and also of the size and return of taxes.

The village community regulated the carrying out of rites, especially the ones connected with the agrarian sphere, as business activities of the society depended on this. Together they fixed the days of common worship, the precentor and the preparers of worship dishes. Sacrificial animals were also obtained at the expense of the community" (Mokshin 1999).

Antal Bбrtha adds to the above-mentioned, basing on the history of Udmurts and Maris in the composition of the Russian state: "Imperial powers could not ignore the indigenous people's traditional village communities. They were mentioned already in the documents dating from 1583. 1588. They did not come as a surprise to Russian authorities as village communities were also present among Russian peasants and the authorities had a centuries-long experience in communicating with them. In 1797, this practice took a form of law when tsar Paul I acknowledged the self-government of peasants as the lowest level of imperial administration. This was a reasonable solution in order to maintain the fragile balance in the occupied habitation areas of the Finno-Ugrians.

However, there are a number of functions and aspects that make Mari and Udmurt village communities differ from Russian village communities. They were not dependant on the lord of the manor, as Mari and Udmurt peasants were state peasants. The language used inside the community, the world of thinking, and religious rituals, including sacrificial services between communities, were incomprehensible to Russian authorities.

Declaring that Russian law and courts are not understandable to them, Udmurt and Mari communities regained their juridical and court competence in 1767. 1768. They maintained non-Christian marriage and family conventions, orphans were taken under the custody of the community and they were hidden from Christian clergymen, in order to prevent their being sent to mission schools, according to the regulations of the state. To cultivate land in forest areas, there was still a need for collective cooperation, still, solidarity and cooperation between kin communities, often in the distance of hundreds of versts exceeded the purely technical agrarian cooperation territorially between neighbouring communities.

Among the rules of the community, there were some that coincided with these of the state. Both state authorities and peasants were interested in the fact that only the best peasants who would distribute taxes and feu duties among the population on the basis of warranties, would be in charge of the community. Contrary to the depiction of Soviet historians about community elders-village drain-pipes, it was namely the wealthier members of the community who bore the greatest feu duties. The 18^th century census indicates that Udmurt and Mari peasants were prevailingly of average wealth, there were no poor peasants without horses among them. The number of really prosperous peasants was exceptionally small, seldom existing in every community.

Russian peasants did willingly ask for protection from Udmurt and Mari village communities, although the identity, language and cult ceremonies were unfamiliar to them. Naturally, nobody dared to force Russian orthodox peasants to take part in heathen worship.

Why did Mari and Udmurt village communities in Vyatka guberniya pay the taxes appointed by Kazan guberniya and vice versa? This question, causing headache to Russian statisticians and financial workers was not understandable to Mari and Udmurt people. Obligations to the imperial state were fulfilled by the community for whom the origin was more important than the administrative borders drawn on a map" (Bбrtha 1998).

The Bolshevist coup in October 1917 turned out to be fatal for Russia's young bourgeoisie culture and for the almost a thousand-year-old tradition of the culture of the nobility. At the same time, this event remained practically unnoticeable among the Finno-Ugric indigenous people of Russia, inasmuch as they practised a mainly rural lifestyle and habitually, they were not concerned about the things happening in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

Despite all this, it was already during the Civil War that the builders of communism, hiding behind the use of War Communism, attacked farmers who had kept away from political life. In order to secure their power, starving Bolsheviks could reconcile with the bourgeoisie (the so-called new economic policy NEP), they could even cooperate with the nobility (war specialists in the frontline of the Civil War). But the starving uneducated people in control could by no means understand a farmer who had food in his storehouse but who was not eager to give it to the new people's power.

According to the material studied so far, it seems that the first of our kin people who experienced the violence of Bolsheviks were the Mordvins in the former Samara guberniya. During a short period of time, the so far very viable Mordvin settlement in Samara guberniya had relatively decreased by 65 000 people (consequently, every fifth Mordvin in Samara guberniya was forced to leave his/her homeland, see drawing) whereas in the more distant regions of Russia, the number of Mordvins has increased by more than 120 000 persons.

We do not have the regional history of Samara guberniya in the same manner as the history of the Mordvinian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic covers the Mordvin settlement areas in the former Penza and Simbirsk guberniyas. That is why it is difficult to ascertain the concrete circumstances of the resettlement. When talking about the year 1920, local elderly people (who actually were born during this year or even a bit later) mention the Czech connection. An unexpected explanation can be found in the commentary to the Estonian edition of Jaroslav Haa.ek's feuilleton "Demonstration of Faith": during these years, Haa.ek, being not familiar with the local situation, was the commandant of the centre of Bugulma volost, with a Mordvin population (Haa.ek 1966: 288). Consequently, it was nothing to do with a raid of Czechoslovakian White Guard corps against the local peasantry, instead, it was an active action of a Czech communist for the well-being of Bolshevik power far from his homeland. This was a good example about the international solidarity of workers against the peasantry.

The statistical data of Soviet Russia that have become accessible to researchers in recent years enable to make a much deeper analysis of the ethnic processes of Finno-Ugric peoples, including the development and reasons for urbanisation.

I have analysed the migration of Mordvins and Maris from traditional villages to towns on the basis of the 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989 census data. The data of the first two censuses concerning the main residential areas of Mordvins and Maris, have been transferred to a more stable administrative division after World War II (see Sarv 1996). It turns out that the emptying of traditional villages was most intensive among Mordvins in the Mordvinian Autonomous Republic and in the territory of Penza in 1926. 1939 when 178 000 Mordvins (about 1/3 of Mordvin rural population) left their villages and among Maris in the Mari Autonomous Republic in 1959. 1970 when 53 000 Maris left their villages. In both cases, people did not resettle in the towns of the same region, but in urban settlements in farther regions of Russia.

The reasons for the dramatic resettlement of Mordvins were probably the mistakes of the Soviet power in the collectivisation of farming. For example, the districts of Mordva and Penza signed a treaty "On socialist competition in the reconstruction of farming 1929. 30" according to which Mordva undertook to collectivise 70 per cent of the farms in one year, whereby the per cent of collectivisation had to be higher in Mordvin and Tatar villages than in Russian villages (Istoriya Mordovskoy& 1981: 149). In practice the main attention was paid to the liquidation (raskulatschivanye) of wealthier farms. Every farmer who did not want to join a collective farm was regarded as a prosperous exploiter (kulak) (Bukin 1990: 142).

The reasons why the Mari villages became empty in the 1960s were the concentration and specialisation of agricultural production. The Autonomous Republic of Mari was one of the initiators of the industrialisation of cattle-breeding in those years (Sanukov 1985: 10). This brought about unemployment. At the same time the industrial enterprises in towns preferred qualified labour from other regions to local unqualified workers.

In an ethnically alien urban environment linguistic assimilation became an inevitability. The consistent decline of the number of persons for whom their national language was their mother tongue is a vivid characteristic of Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia in the years of Soviet power (Sarv 1994).

Urbanisation by Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia in the 20^th century is not a natural result of social-economical development of their regions of habitation. The process was caused by repeated false steps by the Soviet power. Often these steps were considered to be wrong only a few years after they were made. At the same time, no ideas have arisen as to how to compensate the results of these false steps to the peoples who suffered. While this problem remains unsolved there is not much difference between such national policy and mere genocide.

According to the coastal people of Western Europe, the greatest achievement of the second millennium is the discovery of America and the demolition of the local indigenous cultures, whereas the indigenous people in the mainland of Eastern Europe could develop an effective cultural-ecological symbiosis between the nations of different confessions, maintaining and developing their national identity in the rural culture. Due to the incapability of the communist regime, trying to find solutions only to the problems of urban environment (proletariat), in communicating with these cultures, it is problematic whether this symbiosis can possibly be restored in the post-communist society.

Abbreviations

mdE . Erza-Mordvin; mdM . Moksha-Mordvin; mdE&M . common Mordvin (both Erza and Moksha)

References