The Mari are a European ethnic group of about 670,000 people (late 20th-century estimate), primarily residing in the Republic of Mari El, in the middle Volga River valley of Russia. Smaller Mari communities are also found in neighboring regions and in Bashkortostan, where nearly 100,000 live. They speak Mari, a Finno-Ugric language, and traditionally refer to themselves as Mari. The term Cheremis—once used by Russians and Westerners—is now considered outdated.
History and Cultural Identity
The Mari have shared a close, interdependent relationship with the Chuvash since around 700 AD, though the most significant cultural exchange between the two diminished after 1236, as Tatar influence began to dominate the region. That influence lasted until 1552, when the area gradually came under the sway of Moscow. From the 17th century onward, the Mari experienced increasing Russification, which triggered various nativist and cultural revival movements, such as the Kuga Sorta.
Economy and Livelihood
Traditionally, the Mari have relied on agriculture, growing grains and flax, and on dairy farming and livestock raising. They are also skilled in handicrafts, particularly wood and stone carving and embroidery.
The capital of Mari El, Yoshkar-Ola, hosts vocational schools specializing in animal husbandry, forestry, papermaking, and optics.
Mari El: The Land
Mari El is a republic within the Russian Federation, located in the basin of the middle Volga River. The terrain consists of flat, often swampy plains, gradually rising eastward toward the Vyatka Hills. Key rivers include the Vetluga, Bolshaya and Malaya Kokshaga, and the Ilet.
Climate: Continental, with cold winters (average January temperature: −13 °C / 9 °F) and mild summers (average July temperature: 20 °C / 68 °F). Arctic air can cause winter temperatures to plunge to −42 °C (−44 °F).
Nature: About half the region is forested (spruce, birch, pine). Floodplain meadows and peat bogs are common, with podzol soils dominating.
Modern Mari El
Became a Soviet autonomous oblast in 1920, then the Mari ASSR in 1936. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was renamed Mari El, a republic of the Russian Federation.
The population includes Russians and Mari, with urban areas comprising around two-thirds of the total population.
Major cities: Yoshkar-Ola (capital), Volzhsk, and Kozmodemyansk.
Industry and Agriculture
Industrial activity centers on the production of electrical equipment, machinery, refrigeration units, and machine tools. The timber industry is significant, with wood processed into prefabricated housing, furniture, and paper. Other industries include glassmaking, clothing manufacture, and food processing.
Agriculture: Roughly 30% of the land is arable, primarily along the Volga and in the northeast Vyatka Hills. Crops include rye, oats, spring wheat, barley, buckwheat, corn (for silage), flax, potatoes, and vegetables.
Livestock includes cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs.
Transport
Yoshkar-Ola is connected by road to other towns in Mari El and neighboring regions.
The only railway is a branch line running through Yoshkar-Ola.
Mari Language and Finno-Ugric Roots
Mari belongs to the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family, which also includes Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian. These languages are spoken across a vast area—from Norway to Siberia—in scattered enclaves among Indo-European and Turkic speakers.
Mari is closely related to Mordvin and Udmurt, and together they form the Volga-Finnic subgroup. While Finno-Ugric languages share some common vocabulary, many have also absorbed loanwords from neighboring language groups, especially Turkic languages in Mari’s case.
Linguistic features include:
Suffixes to mark grammatical categories.
Vowel harmony (though not universal across the group).
Some languages (like Finnish and Hungarian) have complex case systems.
Finnic Branch
Finnish
Finnish, one of the national languages of Finland alongside Swedish, is spoken by more than five million people. While the majority reside in Finland, notable Finnish-speaking populations are also found in North America, Sweden, and Russia. In Russia’s Karelian region, Finnish holds co-official status.
Modern Finnish developed from the interaction of various groups, such as the Häme, southwestern Finns (Suomi), and Karelians—each contributing to the modern dialect continuum. The resulting five primary dialects form two main regional clusters: western (including the southwestern, Häme, and northern dialects) and eastern (Savo and southeastern dialects, the latter closely related to Karelian). The term suomi, referring to the Finnish language and land, has unclear origins, while Finn (fenni) appears in Tacitus’s 1st-century CE work Germania, though likely referencing the Sami people.
Literary Finnish began with Mikael Agricola’s alphabet book in 1543 and his 1548 New Testament translation. Finnish achieved official status in 1809 under Russian rule. The publication of Kalevala, a national epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot from eastern dialect folk songs, significantly promoted a unified national language.
Estonian
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, located just south of Finland. With over one million speakers, most Estonians reside within Estonia, though communities also exist in Russia, North America, and Sweden. Modern Estonian evolved from one or two original Baltic-Finnic dialects and now has two major dialects: northern and southern. The northern dialect shows notable similarities to southwestern Finnish.
The name Eesti gained popularity in the 19th century, though the term aestii in Tacitus likely referred to other Baltic-Finnic peoples. Early Estonian texts appeared in the 1520s, and the first printed book—the Wanradt-Koell Catechism—was published in 1535. Cultural centers in Tallinn and Tartu fostered distinct literary languages in the 17th century. Inspired by Finland’s Kalevala, F. R. Kreutzwald compiled the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg between 1857 and 1861, strengthening the literary language movement.
Smaller Baltic-Finnic Languages
Several lesser-spoken Baltic-Finnic languages—Karelian, Veps, Ingrian, Votic, and Livonian—are native to Russia and Baltic countries around the Gulf of Finland. Karelian, with approximately 25,000 speakers, is the largest among them. Its dialects include Karelian proper and Olonets. The language also exists among Karelian communities that migrated to Finland after WWII.
Veps, situated between Lakes Ladoga and Onega, has seen a steep decline in native speakers from the 19th century to today. Ludic dialects, transitional between Karelian and Veps, are not considered a separate language. Ingrian and Votic, found in the border areas between Estonia and Russia, are nearing extinction, with fewer than 200 speakers each. Livonian, once spoken in Latvia, is now considered extinct.
Sami Languages
The Sami people, distributed from central Norway to Russia’s Kola Peninsula, speak multiple mutually unintelligible dialects, forming at least four or five distinct languages. North Sami, spoken in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, is the largest group. East Sami includes Inari and Skolt Sami, while South Sami is spoken in scattered locations across Norway and Sweden.
North Sami developed a literary tradition in the 17th century, with two orthographic systems: one used in Norway/Sweden and another in Finland. Sami presence predates the arrival of Baltic-Finnic tribes, and historical sources describe them as early northern neighbors of Germanic peoples. Their territory has progressively diminished due to external pressures since the 9th century.
Other Finnic Languages
Languages such as Mordvin, Mari, Udmurt, and Komi—spoken in Russia—enjoy official status within their respective republics and share a deep history tied to Turkic and Russian influence. Mordvin comprises two dialects, Moksha and Erzya, often considered distinct languages. Mari is divided into Meadow, Mountain, and Eastern dialects, with literary forms based on the first two.
Permic Languages
Udmurt and Komi (including Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak) are closely related. Udmurt is spoken in Udmurtiya, while Komi dialects spread northward, reaching Arctic regions. Old Permic, a historical form of Komi, was used for religious texts in the 14th century.
Samoyedic Branch
Nenets is the most populous Samoyedic language, split into Forest and Tundra dialects with distinct cultural practices. It is the only Samoyedic language with a significant literary tradition. Selkup and Enets, spoken in western Siberia, are endangered. Nganasan, used by a small group on the Taymyr Peninsula, maintains strong ethnic identity but low native speaker numbers.
Samoyedic languages remain vital in understanding the diversity and endurance of Uralic language traditions despite external cultural and linguistic pressures.