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The Finno-Ugric Peoples in Russia

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The Finno-Ugric Peoples in Russia Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia – territorial or cultural autonomy Andres Heinapuu Director of Finno-Ugric Institute In August 2004, the 4th World Congress of Finno-Ugric peoples was held in Tallinn. Two types of Finno-Ugric peoples were represented at the Congress. The first group include the Hungarians, the Finns and the Estonians who have formed their own nation states, whose primary task is to protect their language and culture. The second group of Finno-Ugrians are those who live as minorities in other coun- tries. Most of them live in Russia (nearly 2.7 million, 19 different nations or peoples). Therefore, the main subject of the Congress was the situation and the prospects of the Finno-Ugrians in Russia. A central issue, which was also reflected in the resolution of the Congress, was that of a democratic unification (which received the support of the majority in a referendum) of the Permian Komi Autonomous District and the Perm Oblast to form a new subject of the Federation. Proposals have also been made to unite the Autonomous Districts of Khants and Mansis, and the Yamal Nenetses Autonomous Districts with the Tyumen oblast, which will obviously not be as simple as the abolition of the Permian Komi Autonomous District. The reasons are purely economic: while the Permian Komi Autonomous District is economically much weaker than the Perm Oblast (the average wages being barely half of those of the Oblast), then thanks to the oil and gas fields, which lie mostly on the ter- ritories of the Autonomous Districts of the Khants, Mansis and Nenetses make them far more prosperous than the Tyumen Oblast. The abolition of the autonomous districts has been set as a goal to restore the situation, which prevailed in the time of the Soviet Union days. The autonomous districts, which were part of the Oblasts, received subject status equal to the Oblasts in the Russian Federation from the constitution. However, there have already been articles in the press suggesting projects which would lead to the abolition of the autonomous republics. The main arguments for such a reform are economic viability and the varied sizes of the present administrative units. Last year, the magazine Argumenty i Fakty (No 23, June 9) published a new project of the Council for the Study of Productive Forces of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the so-called SOPS, a project according to which Russia would consist of 28 administrative entities. Although the project was just a proposal, it should 71 2004 ESTONIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS YEARBOOK be kept in mind that it was this very council, which initiated the present division of Russia into seven federal districts. The Russian minority territorial autonomies were formed in the 1920s and 1930s following the principle that a maximum of the minority should be placed in the autonomous region. Later, the borders were changed, which reduced the proportion of the titular (indigenous) people in that area. Now, the Finno-Ugric people are in the minority in all the Finno-Ugric republics and autonomies (the only exception being the Permian Komi Autonomous District where the proportion of the indigenous people was nearly 60% in 2002). The present structure of the republics and autonomous districts was established by the Stalin constitution of 1936. The republics (then the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics) had at least on paper more rights than the autonomous oblasts and districts (then the national districts). Despite the fact that in their basic laws, the national republics have been defined as states and that until now seminars are held about the development of their so-called “Karelian statehood”, they have neither rights nor the attributes of a sovereign state. Neither do they have anything to do with the self-determination of peoples, although this has been claimed both in literature and reports. The only constitution of a Finno- Ugric republic containing a separate article about the titular people was that of the Komi Republic. Article 2 of the Constitution established that, “The holder and only source of the state power are its multinational people”, while Article 3 argued, “The Komi people are the source of the Komi statehood” (who can tell the difference between state power and statehood?) Today, Article 3 has been abolished. Likewise all requirements on the command of the local language for the state officials, including the language require- ment for the President of the Republic of the Mari El, have been annulled. So it would be futile to think that the Republic of Mari El is a Mari state. The titular peoples of the Finno-Ugric republics cannot in fact realise their will as they are but minorities in their own republics. At the same time, a majority of the respective people live beyond the borders of their respective republics. The majority of the Finno-Ugrians living outside of their “own” republics (with the exception of the Komis, Karelians and Finns) live in relatively ancient enclaves. There are Mari, Mordvin and Udmurt villages scattered all around the Volga region, also in the Urals and elsewhere. About 78 % of all the Mordvins, 85 % of all the Maris and 88 % of all the Udmurts live in the Volga Federal District. 72 2004 FINNO-UGRIC PEOPLES IN RUSSIA Republic % of population % of the people 1989 2002 1989 2002 Mari El 43.29 42.88 50.39 51.68 Mordvin 32,53 31.93 29.21 37.16 Udmurt 30.92 29.33 69.46 72.32 Komi 23.31 25.18 86.69 87.41 Karelia 13.07 12.83 thereof Karelians 9.99 9.17 63.19 70.33 Finns 2.33 2.98 39.11 41.57 Vepses 0.75 0.68 49.21 59.10 Under these circumstances, it seems that it would be more reasonable for the Mordvins, Maris and Udmurts to hope for an all-Russian cultural autonomy than to hold on to the Stalinist “statehood”. Especially, in a situation in which the Russian Federal level has made cultural autonomy a priority (as set out by the Minister for National Affairs Vladimir Zorin in 2002). But here we find two essential problems. First, the law on cultural autonomy adopted in 1996 is meant for those peoples or groups who do not have their own territory or live outside their territorial autonomy. The logic of the law is that the subsidy a cultural autonomy has the right to receive from the state and local government is trifling as com- pared to the subsidies provided by the autonomous republics and districts. From the table above it can be seen that although the proportion of titular people in an autonomous republic has generally decreased, the proportion of Finno-Ugrians living in their “own” autonomous republic has grown. This increase has occurred at the cost of a larger decrease of people living outside of their republic, which allows us to assume that assimilation outside the autonomous entity is stronger. Professor Janosz Pusztay presented a report to the World Congress in which he brought forward the dynamics of the Finno-Ugrians between the two latest population censuses in Russia. Applying the same methods, I calculated the changes in the titular republics. 73 2004 ESTONIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS YEARBOOK Republic Titular population Decline in Russia 1989 2002 Decline as a whole Mari El 324 349 312 178 3.9% 6% Mordvin 313 420 283 861 10.4% 21% Udmurt 496 522 460 584 7.8% 11% Komi 291 542 256 464 13.7% 13% Karelia* 79 928 65 651 20.2 26% * Karelians only As the table shows, the numbers of the titular peoples have decreased in all the republics (except the Komi) 1.2-2 times less than in the whole of Russia. This means that the assim- ilation of the titular peoples is lower in their own republics than outside of them and that the conditions for their preservation are better in the republics than elsewhere. In addition to the economic and institutional opportunities, the Finno-Ugrians living in their own republics also have a number of legal privileges. According to the Russian constitution, only the autonomous republics have the right to establish other national/ official languages alongside Russian. In all the Finno-Ugric republics except Karelia, the local languages have been declared national/official languages and language laws have also been passed. Unfortunately, the language laws are mostly declarative (often containing the clause that they are applied if possible) and do not guarantee the practi- cal functioning of Finno-Ugric languages as official languages. An example is in Mari El schools, where the instruction of the Mari language has been declared optional. A lot of other laws intended to protect the titular peoples, which had been adopted in the republics were either changed or abolished during the harmonisation of local laws with the federal legislation initiated by President Putin. The situation in Karelia is more complex. As the Karelians together with the kindred Finns and Vepses make up less than 13% of the population, the local parliament in which only a few members are representatives of the indigenous peoples, did not find it necessary to establish any other official language other than Russian. Today, after the Constitutional Court approved the legality of the amended Russian Federation language law, which states that, all the official languages in Russia must in writing use the Russian alphabet. All the Finno-Ugrians in Karelia use the Latin alphabet. The autonomous districts also offer the minorities certain opportunities. In the same way as in the republics, undertakings related to native culture are financed through 74 2004 FINNO-UGRIC PEOPLES IN RUSSIA local budgets, the mother tongues of the indigenous peoples are taught at the schools, a number of indigenous institutions are functioning (e.g.
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