Komi peoples
Encyclopedia
The Komi people is an ethnic group whose homeland is in the north-east of European Russia
around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora
and Kama
rivers. They mostly live in the Komi Republic
, Perm Krai
, Murmansk Oblast
, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
, and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
in the Russian Federation. They belong to the Permian branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples
. The Komis are divided into eight sub-groups. Their northernmost sub-group is also known as the Komi-Izhemtsy (from the name of the river Izhma
) or Iz'vataz. This group numbers 15,607. This group is distinct for its more traditional, strongly subsistence based economy which includes reindeer
husbandry. Komi-Permyaks (125,235 people ) live in Perm Krai
(Komi-Yazvas group) and Kirov Oblast
(Upper-Kama Komi group) of Russia.
word "kam" (meaning "large river", particularly the River Kama) or the Udmurt "kum" (meaning "kinfolk"). The scholar Paula Kokkonen favours the derivation "people of the Kama".
belongs to the Permian branch
of the Finno-Ugric family
. There is limited mutual intelligibility with Udmurt. There are three main dialects: Pechora, Udor and Verkhne-Vyshegod. Until the 18th century, Komi was written in the Old Permic
alphabet introduced by Saint Stephen of Perm in the 14th century. Cyrillic
was used from the 19th century and briefly replaced by the Latin alphabet between 1929 and 1933 The Komi language is currently written in Cyrillic, adding two extra letters - Іі and Ӧӧ - to represent vowel sounds which do not exist in Russian. The first book to be printed in Komi (a vaccination manual) appeared in 1815
, but their religion often contains traces of pre-Christian beliefs (see Komi mythology
). A large number of Komis are Old Believers
.
, the prehistoric Permians are assumed to have split into two peoples during the first millennium BC: the Komis and the Udmurts. Around 500 AD, the Komis further divided into the Komi-Permyaks (who remained in the Kama River
basin) and the Komi-Zyrians (who migrated north).
From the 12th century the Russians began to expand into the Perm region and the Komis came into contact with Novgorod
. Novgorodian traders travelled to the region in search of furs and animal hides. The Novgorodians referred to the southern Komi region as "the Great Perm
". Komi dukes unified the Great Perm with its centre at the stronghold of Cherdyn
. As the Middle Ages progressed, Novgorod gave way to Moscow as the leading Russian power in the region. In 1365, Dmitry Donskoy, Prince of Moscow, gave Stephen of Perm
the task of converting the region to Christianity. Stephen's mission led to the creation of the eparchy
of Perm in 1383 and, after his death, Stephen became the patron saint of the Komis. He also devised an alphabet for the Komi language
. Nevertheless, some Komis resisted Christianisation, notably the shaman Pama. The Duke of Perm only accepted baptism in 1470 (he was given the Christian name Mikhail), possibly in an attempt to stave off Russian military pressure in the region. Mikhail's conversion failed to stop an attack by Moscow which seized Cherdyn in 1472. Mikhail was allowed to keep his title of duke but was now a vassal of Moscow. The duchy only survived until 1505 when Mikhail's son Matvei was replaced bvy a Russian governor and Komi independence came to an end.
In the 1500s many Russian migrants began to move into the region, beginning a long process of colonisation and attempts at assimilating the Komis. Syktyvkar
was founded as the chief Russian city in the region in the 18th century. The Russian government established penal settlements in the north for criminals and political prisoners. There were several Komi rebellions in protest against Russian rule and the influx of Slav settlers, especially after large numbers of freed serfs arrived in the region from the 1860s. A national movement to revive Komi culture also emerged.
Russian rule in the area collapsed after World War I
and the revolutions of 1917. In the subsequent Russian Civil War
, the Bolsheviks fought the Allies
for control of the region. The Allied interventionist forces encouraged the Komis to set up their own independent state with the help of political prisoners freed from the local penal colonies. After the Allies withdrew in 1919, the Bolsheviks took over. They promoted Komi culture but increased industrialisation damaged the Komis' traditional way of life. Stalin
's purges of the 1930s devastated the Komi intelligentsia, who were accused of "bourgeois nationalism". The remote and inhospitable region was also regarded as an ideal location for the prison camps of the Gulag
. The influx of political prisoners and the rapid industrialisation of the region as a result of World War II
left the Komis a minority in their own lands. Stalin carried out further purges of the Komi intellectual class in the 1940s and 1950s, and Komi language and culture was suppressed. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Komis have reasserted their claims to a separate identity.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora
Pechora
Pechora is a town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated on the Pechora River, near the northern Ural Mountains. Population: It is served by Pechora Airport and is affiliated with the nearby Pechora Kamenka military air base....
and Kama
Kama River
Kama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....
rivers. They mostly live in the Komi Republic
Komi Republic
The Komi Republic is a federal subject of Russia .-Geography:The republic is situated to the west of the Ural mountains, in the north-east of the East European Plain...
, Perm Krai
Perm Krai
Perm Krai is a federal subject of Russia that came into existence on December 1, 2005 as a result of the 2004 referendum on the merger of Perm Oblast and Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug. The city of Perm became the administrative center of the new federal subject...
, Murmansk Oblast
Murmansk Oblast
Murmansk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the northwestern part of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Murmansk.-Geography:...
, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug , also known as Yugra, is a federal subject of Russia . Population: The people native to the region are the Khanty and the Mansi, known collectively as Ob Ugric people...
, and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug , is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the town of Salekhard. Population: -Geography and natural history:...
in the Russian Federation. They belong to the Permian branch of the Finno-Ugric peoples
Finno-Ugric peoples
The Finno-Ugric peoples are any of several peoples of Europe who speak languages of the proposed Finno-Ugric language family, such as the Finns, Estonians, Mordvins, and Hungarians...
. The Komis are divided into eight sub-groups. Their northernmost sub-group is also known as the Komi-Izhemtsy (from the name of the river Izhma
Izhma
Izhma may refer to:*Izhma, Komi Republic, a rural locality in the Komi Republic, Russia*Izhma, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, a rural locality in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia*Izhma Airport, an airport in the Komi Republic, Russia...
) or Iz'vataz. This group numbers 15,607. This group is distinct for its more traditional, strongly subsistence based economy which includes reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
husbandry. Komi-Permyaks (125,235 people ) live in Perm Krai
Perm Krai
Perm Krai is a federal subject of Russia that came into existence on December 1, 2005 as a result of the 2004 referendum on the merger of Perm Oblast and Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug. The city of Perm became the administrative center of the new federal subject...
(Komi-Yazvas group) and Kirov Oblast
Kirov Oblast
Kirov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kirov. Population: -History:In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vyatka remained a place of exile for opponents of the tsarist regime, including many prominent revolutionary figures.In 1920, a number of...
(Upper-Kama Komi group) of Russia.
Name
The name "Komi" may come from the UdmurtUdmurt language
Udmurt is an Uralic language, part of the Permic subgroup, spoken by the Udmurt natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with Russian. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it...
word "kam" (meaning "large river", particularly the River Kama) or the Udmurt "kum" (meaning "kinfolk"). The scholar Paula Kokkonen favours the derivation "people of the Kama".
Language
The Komi languageKomi language
The Komi language is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. Komi is one of the two members of the Permic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric branch...
belongs to the Permian branch
Permic languages
Permic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in the foothills of the Ural Mountains of Russia.* Komi** Komi-Permyak** Komi-Yodzyak ** Komi-Zyryan...
of the Finno-Ugric family
Finno-Ugric languages
Finno-Ugric , Finno-Ugrian or Fenno-Ugric is a traditional group of languages in the Uralic language family that comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families....
. There is limited mutual intelligibility with Udmurt. There are three main dialects: Pechora, Udor and Verkhne-Vyshegod. Until the 18th century, Komi was written in the Old Permic
Old Permic script
The Old Permic script, sometimes called Abur or Anbur, is an original ancient Permic writing system.-History:The alphabet was introduced by a Russian missionary, Stepan Khrap, also known as Saint Stephen of Perm in 1372. The name Abur is derived from the names of the first two characters: An and Bur...
alphabet introduced by Saint Stephen of Perm in the 14th century. Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
was used from the 19th century and briefly replaced by the Latin alphabet between 1929 and 1933 The Komi language is currently written in Cyrillic, adding two extra letters - Іі and Ӧӧ - to represent vowel sounds which do not exist in Russian. The first book to be printed in Komi (a vaccination manual) appeared in 1815
Religious beliefs
Most Komis belong to the Russian Orthodox ChurchRussian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
, but their religion often contains traces of pre-Christian beliefs (see Komi mythology
Komi mythology
-Gods and spirits:*Kul or Omöl A god of water and of the dead.*Vasa Another water spirit. Like Kul, he could be malicious and had to be appeased by throwing bread, a stick, cakes or tobacco into the water. He was the friend of millers.*Olys or Olysya A hearth spirit, the equivalent of the...
). A large number of Komis are Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
.
History
Based on linguistic reconstructionLinguistic reconstruction
Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction. Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language...
, the prehistoric Permians are assumed to have split into two peoples during the first millennium BC: the Komis and the Udmurts. Around 500 AD, the Komis further divided into the Komi-Permyaks (who remained in the Kama River
Kama River
Kama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....
basin) and the Komi-Zyrians (who migrated north).
From the 12th century the Russians began to expand into the Perm region and the Komis came into contact with Novgorod
Novgorod Republic
The Novgorod Republic was a large medieval Russian state which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains between the 12th and 15th centuries, centred on the city of Novgorod...
. Novgorodian traders travelled to the region in search of furs and animal hides. The Novgorodians referred to the southern Komi region as "the Great Perm
Great Perm
Great Perm or simply Perm, Latinized Permia, was a medieval Komi state in what is now the Perm Krai of the Russian Federation.Cherdyn is said to have been its capital....
". Komi dukes unified the Great Perm with its centre at the stronghold of Cherdyn
Cherdyn
Cherdyn is a town and the administrative center of Cherdynsky District of Perm Krai, Russia. Population: The Kolva River flows by the town....
. As the Middle Ages progressed, Novgorod gave way to Moscow as the leading Russian power in the region. In 1365, Dmitry Donskoy, Prince of Moscow, gave Stephen of Perm
Stephen of Perm
Saint Stephen of Perm was a fourteenth century missionary credited with the conversion of the Komi Permyaks to Christianity and the establishment of the Bishopric of Perm'. Stephen also created the Old Permic script, which makes him the founding-father of Permian written tradition...
the task of converting the region to Christianity. Stephen's mission led to the creation of the eparchy
Eparchy
Eparchy is an anglicized Greek word , authentically Latinized as eparchia and loosely translating as 'rule over something,' like province, prefecture, or territory, to have the jurisdiction over, it has specific meanings both in politics, history and in the hierarchy of the Eastern Christian...
of Perm in 1383 and, after his death, Stephen became the patron saint of the Komis. He also devised an alphabet for the Komi language
Old Permic script
The Old Permic script, sometimes called Abur or Anbur, is an original ancient Permic writing system.-History:The alphabet was introduced by a Russian missionary, Stepan Khrap, also known as Saint Stephen of Perm in 1372. The name Abur is derived from the names of the first two characters: An and Bur...
. Nevertheless, some Komis resisted Christianisation, notably the shaman Pama. The Duke of Perm only accepted baptism in 1470 (he was given the Christian name Mikhail), possibly in an attempt to stave off Russian military pressure in the region. Mikhail's conversion failed to stop an attack by Moscow which seized Cherdyn in 1472. Mikhail was allowed to keep his title of duke but was now a vassal of Moscow. The duchy only survived until 1505 when Mikhail's son Matvei was replaced bvy a Russian governor and Komi independence came to an end.
In the 1500s many Russian migrants began to move into the region, beginning a long process of colonisation and attempts at assimilating the Komis. Syktyvkar
Syktyvkar
-Twin towns/sister cities:Syktyvkar is twinned with the following sister cities: Cullera, Spain Debrecen, Hungary Los Altos, United States Lovech, Bulgaria Taiyuan, China-External links:* * * *...
was founded as the chief Russian city in the region in the 18th century. The Russian government established penal settlements in the north for criminals and political prisoners. There were several Komi rebellions in protest against Russian rule and the influx of Slav settlers, especially after large numbers of freed serfs arrived in the region from the 1860s. A national movement to revive Komi culture also emerged.
Russian rule in the area collapsed after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the revolutions of 1917. In the subsequent Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, the Bolsheviks fought the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
for control of the region. The Allied interventionist forces encouraged the Komis to set up their own independent state with the help of political prisoners freed from the local penal colonies. After the Allies withdrew in 1919, the Bolsheviks took over. They promoted Komi culture but increased industrialisation damaged the Komis' traditional way of life. Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's purges of the 1930s devastated the Komi intelligentsia, who were accused of "bourgeois nationalism". The remote and inhospitable region was also regarded as an ideal location for the prison camps of the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. The influx of political prisoners and the rapid industrialisation of the region as a result of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
left the Komis a minority in their own lands. Stalin carried out further purges of the Komi intellectual class in the 1940s and 1950s, and Komi language and culture was suppressed. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Komis have reasserted their claims to a separate identity.
Sources
- James Minahan Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations D–K (Greenwood, 2002)
- Yves Avril Parlons komi (Harmattan, 2006)
- Rein Taagepera The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State (C. Hurst & Co., 1999)