Vepsians

Veps

Flag of Vepsia
Total population
6,000+
Regions with significant populations
Russia 5,936 (2010) Ukraine 281 (2001) Estonia 1 (2011) Belarus 12 (1999)
Languages
Russian, Vepsian
Religion
Russian Orthodoxy
Related ethnic groups
other Finnic peoples

Veps or Vepsians are a Finnic people that speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. The self-designations of these people in various dialects are vepslaine, bepslaane, and (in northern dialects, southwest of Lake Onega) lüdinik and lüdilaine. According to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine, 11 spoke Vepsian. (Ukr. Census 2001). The most prominent researcher in Finland is Eugene Holman. Western Vepsians have kept their language and culture. Nowadays almost all Vepsians speak fluently in Russian. The young generation in general does not speak the language.

Geography

In modern times, they live in the area between Lake Ladoga, Onega, and Lake Beloye - in the Russian Republic of Karelia in the former Veps National Volost, in Leningrad Oblast along the Oyat River in the Podporozhsky and Lodeynopolsky Districts and further south in the Tikhvinsky District, in the Vytegorsky, Babayevski and Boksitogorsky Districts.

History

Vepsians etc. tribes. An approximative map of the non-Varangian cultures in Europe, in the 9th century.

Archeological and linguistic studies suggest that Vepsians lived in the valleys of the Sheksna, the Suda, and the Syas rivers. They probably also lived in East Karelia and on the northern coast of Lake Onega. One of the eastern routes of the Vikings went through their area. Evidence from tombs prove that they had contact with Staraya Ladoga, Finland and Meryans, other Volga Finnic tribes and later with the Principality of Novgorod and other Russian states. Later Vepsians inhabited also the western and eastern shores of Onega.

In early Russian chronicles, they are called "Весь" (Ves’) and in some Arabic sources they are called Wisu. It is assumed that Bjarmians were at least partly Vepsians. From the 12th century their history is connected with first the Principality of Novgorod and then Muscovy. Russian settlement reached the Onega Veps in the 14th or 15th century. Eastern Vepsians in the Kargopol area merged linguistically with the Russians before 20th century.

Vepsians numbered 25,607 in 1897. Some 7,300 of them inhabited East Karelia. In the beginning of 20th century there were some signs of national awakening among Vepsians. Early Soviet nationality politics supported this progress, and 24 administrative units with the status of national village soviets were formed. The alphabet and the written language were developed. Teachers started to instruct in Vepsian in some elementary schools. The Soviet authorities started to oppress the Vepsian culture in 1937. All national activities were stopped and the national districts were abolished. When Finland invaded East Karelia in the Continuation war, some Vepsians joined the so-called Kindred Battalion of the Finnish Army. These troops were relinquished to the Soviet Union after the war.

In the postwar period many Veps moved from historic Veps villages to larger cities. Many Veps were ashamed of their heritage, and reported themselves as Russians in official censuses. In 1983, on the initiative of national academics, an inquiry was carried out which showed that there were nearly 13,000 Veps in the Soviet Union, 5,600 of whom lived in Karelia, 4,000 in the Leningrad region and just under a 1,000 in the Vologda region. The new Vepsian primer Abekirj and other elementary school books were published in Petrozavodsk in 1991. Kodima, the newspaper in Vepsian is published since 1993. The Vepsian rural commune was formed in East Karelia in 1994, encompassing 8,200 square kilometers of land and 3,373 inhabitans, 42% of them Vepsian. The republican authorities granted some budgetary autonomy to the commune in 1996. The language was taught as a subject in two schools, the Shyoltozero and Rybreka. However, the cultural revival slowed down in the second half of the 1990s and the federal authorities abolished the autonomy in 2006. Nowadays the young generation in general does not speak the language.

Further reading

• Kurs, Ott (March 2001). "The Vepsians: An administratively divided nationality". Nationalities Papers 29 (1): 69–83. doi:10.1080/00905990120036385. 

External links

• Vepsian organization
• Effort to vitalise the Vepsian language
• The Peoples of the Red Book: THE VEPS