What are Chuvashions?? - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

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What are Chuvashions??
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Posted by: American

>Chuvashions from A.S.S.R ????? Hope I spelled it right? My mother in law is from this region. Whom are these people and are they different then Russians or are they the same? I am curious, my wife was telling me about them one time but I really didn't understand what she meant. Are they like our (USA) armish or what? Is there a difference in these people then say Russians? Thanks....

Posted by: Caritas

I'm prettty sure you mean the Chuvashes. Hopefully, this info will help:

http://www.unpo.org/member.php?arg=17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuvash

http://www.chuvashia.com/cap/main.asp?prev=103&pos=11

Posted by: Jill

Well, it's the Chuvash Republic now--Chuvash ASSR is, of course, the Soviet era name. The Chuvash are the indigenous people who live there. If I'm not mistaken, they are ethnically related to Bulgarians, and they are Orthodox. I believe they are in the proces of trying to revive their culture now---particulary their language--which suffered quite a bit as a result of Russificiation (which is the case of most ethnic groups/nationalities in the RF).

Posted by: Caritas

No, they are not related to the modern Bulgarians. They are descendants of the Volga Bolgars, a Turkic tribe. However, now days Bulgarians MIGHT have the same origin. Ethnographers are still debating over two different theories: one of them supports their Slavic origin, another - Turkic...Anyway, the Chuvashes' Turkic origin is a fact, the Bulgarians’ - is the matter for debate.

Posted by: Jill

A-ha! Thanks, Caritas. That makes it clearer

It's great to have you on the board!

Posted by: American

Thanks guys, thats good info. Thank you.

Posted by: ConnerVT

The Red Book of the Peoples of Russia

Posted by: American

>Thanks ConnerVT, thats great info to have around. Been married now to a Russian for 5 years and there is still so much I don't know about them.

Posted by: Pawel_PL.USA

Yes, indeed, Americans know very very little about Russia ... but probably still more than they know about Poland or the Balkans.

The modern-day Bulgarians are, supposedly, a product of the group of Turkic Bulgars that came with their khan - Asparuh, conquered Bulgaria and later were simply absorbed by the South Slav people there.

And the Chuvash are a part of what used to be called the "Jugra" (Ugra, Yugra) - a collection of Ugro-Finno-Turkic tribes that were the indigenous inhabitants of the settled parts of what is now Russia. The modern-day Russians have also mixed with all those tribes and peoples over the centuries and they probably have as much (if not more) Mordvin, Chuvash, Mari, Tatar, Polovtsian, Bashkir blood in their veins as Slavic blood.

The Polovtsy (Polovstians) are a fascinating example of all this as well. Supposedly one of the Polovstian tribes was known as the "black hats" and it makes me wonder how and if they are related to the Karakalpaki of Uzbekistan today. All those Turko-Mongol tribes are very hard to pin-down from an ethnographic point of view - they formed and disbanded and changes names with the fortunes of pillage warfare and their chieftains.

Posted by: OzGuyLooking

I know I'm late but hey thats life!

From what I have found out while researching Russia both for work and Uni the Chuvash are Tatars, it is as simple as that. The main difference between them is that the people currently known correctly as Tatars are Musilm by faith while the Chuvash are Christian Orthodox as has already been pointed out.

There seems to be a lot of discussion in the Anthropological circles as to what ethnicity Tatars as a whole are. My simple opinion on this matter is they are a mixture, some are of Mongol heritage (as in the Golden Horde that Ivan 4th booted in war and ended up incorporating Kazan and Astrakhan into the Muscovite realm), others are indigenous peoples such as Mari (again as has already been pointed out) but have taken on Tatar culture because of the Tatar/Mongol domination of the medieval period, while others are Slavs who again have taken on Tatar culture, and last but not least some are Rus. The Rus being the original Viking overlords of the Ukraine and European Russia. If you cant beat them you join them sort of thing.

The Tatars/Mongols were simply there for money, they extracted taxes from traders travelling through the lands the conquered. You have heard of the silk road that went from Rome to Beijing well it went straight through Tatarstan. One of the Muscovite princes had a big suck up to the Mongol Khan in Kazan by feeding the Khans horse out of his Rus helmet in order to gain the Khans favour so he could be the dominatant Rus prince and thereby starting Muscovy's claim to power over the Russian peoples and ending the period of the Principalities. In order to maintain the Khans favour he collected the tax for the Khan from all the Rus Lands under Tatar control, for this noble act of treachery he was given, or more probably took for himself the title "Prince of all the Russias".

Historically the difference in Chuvash and Tatar is simply belief system, which during the Soviet period wouldn't have made a Fat Rats because all religion was banned as a sedicious practice against the state.

Now concerning the language and this puzzles me somewhat, why would a people who come from the east, Mongolia, speak a turkic language which originated west of Tatarstan and Chuvashia. This has puzzled me because Stalin forced the Cyrllic alphabet on the Tatars so that they couldn't write to other Turkic speaking/writing peoples during his rule in the hope of gaining freedom from the USSR. He also forcibly removed what was left of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimea, many died in transport to their new homes and many are have been returning to the Crimea in the last 10 years. Apparently this is causing some ethnic strife as the people now in Crimea don't want them to return.

Sorry for rambling, History and Anthropology/Ethnography and Linguistics are somewhat of a passion of mine.

Posted by: Keith In Kodiak

Regardless of the origin, you can smell exactly like a Bulgar for only $39.99!

http://www.toyboxusa.com/bulgari_cologne.html