From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An approximative map of the non-Varangian cultures in European Russia, in the 9th century. The Merya region is shown in purple

The Meri people (Russian: Меря; also Meryas or Merä) were an ancient Finno Ugrian tribe who lived in the region of modern Russian cities of Moscow, Rostov, Kostroma, Jaroslavl and Vladimir. They probably spoke a Finnic language related to the languages spoken by other tribes in the surrounding larger region, such as the Mari, the Mordvins, the Meshchera and the Veps who were their neighbours. They were an old and important culture which is shown in the numerous archaeological finds in those areas.

They are mentioned by the 6th century Gothic scholar Jordanes as the Merens and later by the Russian chronicles. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was the site of Sarskoe Gorodishche to the south of Rostov.

According to recent Finnish and Estonian estimates, based to the population figures of the Baltic area (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), roughly a similar area of size than Merja, by the end of 1100 century the number of Meri population was as high as more than 800.000 peoples. They were one of the five peoples who took part of the founding of Novgorod and thus played important role in creating the modern Russian state. Their role has been negleted in Russian history, but now, after 1998, when a closed archive was located and opened to public, a lot of new (old) Russian information have come to light and provides fascinating facts, even written Meri language including transliteration of Biblial Old Testament to Meri language in 1000 century. It was also proven that Meri language was still widely used in the countryside as late as the time of Alexander I after the Napoleon War against the Russia in 1812.

They were assimiliated by the Slavs. However, the Merya culture was also assimilated in those regions that were initially inhabited by Merya. Sacred woods and stones, worshipped by Merya, were part of local traditional feasts for much longer than the similar Slavic sacred places in the west regions of modern Russia.

Also the name Merya (in some cases spoken like 'Nerya') is still kept in a lot of local toponyms, and was preserved later in a much more vast number of them. The examples are: Nero Lake near Rostov the Great, Nerskaya River near Kurovskoe in Moscow Oblast, Nerskoe Lake in Solnechnogorsky region of Moscow Oblast, villages 'Nerya' etc.

• Merya language

• Aleksey Uvarov, "Étude sur les peuples primitifs de la Russie. Les mériens" (1875).

This article contains content from the Owl Edition of Nordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published between 1904–1926 now in Public Domain.

This article about ethnicity or ethnology is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.