The dying fish swims in water

[zemelmete]

Here is state about situation of some finno-ugric nations in Russia. Sadly actually.

www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5323735

[zemelmete]

The Finns themselves got away for good. Their ethnic kinsfolk—the Komi, Mari, Udmurts and the like—managed it only briefly. In 1917-18 there was a big country in the middle of Russia called Idel-Ural (literally, “Volga-Ural”) which united the Finno-Ugric (the “Ugric” because of distant cousinship with Hungary) and Turkic peoples in those areas. When it was crushed by the Bolsheviks in late 1918, its refugee foreign minister, Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal, got a warm welcome first in Finland and then Estonia.

As you see some ethnicities in Russia tried to get indenpendence but suffered defeat.

According to Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Vladimir Putin, there is a “premeditated system of operations” by Finland, Estonia and the European Union to fan discontent. The more nationalist papers have steamy stories of westerners plotting Russia's destruction. After Mr Putin said recently that foreign-financed groups should be subject to strict scrutiny by the Russian security agencies, a website with close ties to officialdom, news12.ru, said that pro-Mari pressure groups would now be investigated further (the site also accused “Estonian nationalists” of stoking riots in Paris).

Politics of Russia make everything not to allow ethnic minorities get self-determination rights.

Hungary's involvement in the Finno-Ugric movement is the most low-key. The country's left-of-centre government has good relations with Russia, and no desire to get involved in what it sees as the squabbles of its Russophobic northern cousins. But the hard-pressed Finno-Ugric minorities in central Russian regions like Mari-El, Komi and Udmurtia are more concerned. To them, Estonia, with its regained statehood, is a miracle, and Finland an enviable superpower. For the minority Finno-Ugric languages of Russia are dying, spoken mainly by old people in the countryside and a handful of intellectuals. There are few books, newspapers, radio or TV programmes and little mother-tongue education. It is Russian that signifies culture and civilisation; the local lingo, for many, is useless peasant gobbledegook.

Very miserably.

That would have been Estonia's fate too, had the Soviet Union not collapsed in 1991. Estonians were well on the way to becoming a minority in their own country thanks to the migration of Russian-speakers from elsewhere in the empire; the use of Russian in education was growing fast.

100% truth. The same would happen with Latvia and Estonia too.

For ardent Finno-Ugric activists, Russian linguistic chauvinism is part of something worse. An appeal from the Foundation for the Salvation of the Erzya Language described the position of its people, who mainly live in the central Russian republic of Mordovia, as “critical and even hopeless” because of the Russocentrism of the education system and public broadcasting. “Imperial aggression” had led to a sharp drop in the ethnic population, it said, accusing the local and federal authorities of “genocide”.

It makes them feel that their language is just second-class. Russian language often is regarded as upper-class.

Worse, the Finno-Ugric minorities are not as robust as their Turkic counterparts, Mr Heinapuu says. “The Finno-Ugric character is different—we are used to running away”. Whereas the Turkic minorities' identity in places such as Tatarstan is bolstered by Islam, the Finno-Ugrics' tradition—and sometimes current practice—is pagan. Mari-El and Udmurtia are probably the only places in Europe where shamanism (nature-worship) is still an authentic, organised religion, with weddings celebrated in sacred groves.

Religion plays great role here. Islam helps to feel nations themselves much more self-confident, what I can't say about finno-ugrian national religions at all.

So what to do? Barring a collapse of the Russian state, any idea of Estonian-style independence seems hopeless: in every one of the Finno-Ugric bits of Russia, the Indo-Europeans are a majority. In Mordovia, for example, the Erzyas and their ethnic cousins, the Mokshas, together make up less than a third of the population.

Collapse of the Russian state doesn't seem so unthinkable to me. It would be logic consequence of situation there.

It is hard to match the modest protests by a loose movement consisting mainly of concerned philologists and ethnographers with the allergic reaction they prompt. The Finno-Ugrists' aim is to halt their kinsfolk's extinction, not to break up Russia. Yet viewed through the lens of Russia's uneasy relationship with its imperial history, the hostile reaction is logical. The collapse of the Soviet Union—called a “catastrophe” by Mr Putin—is still echoing today. In most of the former empire, Russian language and culture are still in headlong retreat. In the Caucasus, Azerbaijan has succeeded where Tatarstan failed, in dropping the cyrillic alphabet. In Georgia, English is overtaking Russian as the second language of the elite.

The involvement of Estonia adds extra aggravation. It is much disliked by Russians for its economic success and strongly anti-Soviet take on history, and for encouraging local Russians stranded by the Soviet collapse to learn Estonian and apply for citizenship. To Mr Heinapuu and his pals, the Russian ire they arouse is a backhanded compliment. But it is yet more bad news for the people they are trying to help.

The same is with Latvia. Russians call it "repression of russian sepaking inhabitants of Baltic states" LOL. But the situation of russian speaking population in Baltic states is impossible to compare with the situation of ethnic minorities in Russia.

[dukeofpain]

It's becuase: Baltic countries should SHUT THE f*ck UP and OBEY THE RUSSIANS!!!!!!!!!!!

Never pay tribute to yourselves becuase Russia, the poor Russian speaking minority, and the "holocaust" says not to!!!!!!!!!

[zemelmete]

dukeofpain said:

It's becuase: Baltic countries should SHUT THE f*ck UP and OBEY THE RUSSIANS!!!!!!!!!!!

Baltic countries should shut up after all horrors what Soviet Union did here after occupation?? Never!!!
How can you ask latvians, estonians, lithuanians and many other ethnicities obey the russians if they didn't give anything good actually?

Seems you don't understand historical situation.

dukeofpain said:

Never pay tribute to yourselves becuase Russia, the poor Russian speaking minority, and the "holocaust" says not to!!!!!!!!!

Poor russian minority? I don't see that they would have problems here, in Baltic states. Really - they can read press in russian language, watch films in russian language, learn russian language in schools, go to russian book shops etc.

Compare russian-speaking minority in Baltic states with non-russian minorities in Russia - the last ones almost don't have press in their own languages, films aren't translated in their languages, even books are rarely printed in their languages etc.

I think it isn't neccessary to ask who has worse situation - russian minority in Baltic states or non-russian minorities in Russia. It is even hard to compare.

And I don't understand why you speak about holocaust here.

[wendland]

Russia is just continuing its age-old policy of russification: destroy the cultures of smaller peoples. In many ways the fate of the Uralic indiginous peoples is much like that of indiginous peoples in North and South America: They are surrounded by a stronger (not better) culture that is attractive to them because it is associated with power and success in life. Unfortunately being in Russia makes it that much worse.
Zemelmete, I know that the Russians in the Baltics are the result of a planned eventual destroying/melting away of those nationalities. I'd say the Baltics have behaved in a restrained fashion with the Russians there.