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Russia
Republic of Mari El
I became interested in the Mari language, a member of the Finno-Ugrian language family, in early 2005. I then began studying it intensively after my arrival in Helsinki with a Mari woman resident in Finland. Throughout my studies, I was eagerly looking forward to visiting the region where it is spoken, the Republic of Mari El, located along the Volga in the Russian Federation. In the course of an overland journey this summer from Finland to Vietnam, I visited the republic for several days.
Yoshkar-Ola
The following passage from the Soviet-era Mari textbook Marijskij jazyk dlja vsex (Yoshkar-Ola: Marijskaja knizhnaja izdatelstvo, 1989) gives a cheery history of the capital city, Yoshkar-Ola.
Yoshkar-Ola was built in 1584 as a fortress on the banks of the Kakshan by the order of Ivan the Terrible. The Russians named it the ‘Royal City on the Kokshaga,’ or ‘Royal Kokshajskij.’ The Mari called it Tsärla, Tsar-Ola or Čarla. In documents dating from the 17th century it was called Tsarevokokshajsk.
In the 16th century all the buildings were made from wood, but fires always destroyed these wooden buildings. In 1696, during a great fire in Čarla the whole fortress burnt down. Nothing remained on the territory of the city. After that they started all over again and began using stone in building up the area. Only the Church of the Ascension and the house of the merchant Pchelin remain from the 18th century.’
As time passed, the city grew. In the 19th century in Tsarevokokshajsk there were 5 churches, 129 wooden houses and 4 stone ones, and around 1000 people lived there. However, it didn't become a strong cultural centre until 1917. In 1919 Tsarevokokshajsk became Krasnokokshajsk, and since 1928 it bears the name Yoshkar-Ola. Now 248,000 people live in Yoshkar-Ola.
Yoshkar-Ola is the centre for Mari culture, arts and sciences. Here there are 5 theatres, 2 institutes, a university, the Institute for Mari Language, Literature, and History, several technical schools and around 30 primary schools. The lives of many famous people in the republic are connected with Yoshkar-Ola. Here lived writers and poets Sergei Chavain, Shketan, Shabdar Osyp and Miklaj Kazakov, the composers Palantaj, Jakov Eshpaj and Erik Sapaev, the painters and sculptors Elizaveta Atlashkina, Konstantin Egorov and Filipp Shaberdin, and the scientists Valerian Mikhajlovich Vasilev, Vladimir Mukhin and Vasilij Mosolov, and others.
Yoshkar-Ola is the centre of Mari industry. Its output: refrigerators, radios, vitamins, electrical devices, goods from the ‘Truzhenitsa’ factory, are known in many countries. Year by year the capital of the Mari republic becomes more great and beautiful: Yoshkar-Ola.
The industry that built up the town in the Soviet period appears to have collapsed after the fall of Communism. Yoshkar-Ola is obviously now a poor city with few prospects, and most of the young people I spoke to intended to emigrate to find work.
Nonetheless, the regional government has mysteriously found funds for the beautification of the city, especially its own central buildings.
The great boulevard in the city centre has been furnished with fountains along nearly all its length.
I had heard that the Mari language was under heavy pressure from Russian in Yoshkar-Ola, but it shocking just how little the language is used there. In spite of the statistic that one out of every four residents of the city speaks Mari, my attempts to use it in shops came to naught. On the streets, the only Mari text visible besides street signs (half-heartedly translated) was a banner wishing people a good VE Day.
The city does at least have a statue of Sergei Chavain, founder of Mari letters.
In a Mari village
Though finding Mari speakers in Yoshkar-Ola was well-nigh impossible, in the villages one hears little but Mari. I spent a very enjoyable day in the Toryal district with a Mari family, the traditional pancakes called melna, and an endless flow of homemade vodka. They even pulled out their national costumes for photos.
