The Lost World of Meshchera
А. Pronin
Еgorievsk Fine Arts and History Museum

The world is changing! A thousand years ago the political and ethnical map was very different. The forest plains of the North-East of Europe, from the Urals to the Lapland was populated by the Finno-Ugrian peoples, the ancestors of modern Finns, Hungarians, Estonians, Mordvins, Mari, Udmurts and many others, including those living in the Russian North and Western Siberia.

Not all Finno-Ugrian nations survived. One of those extinct was Meshchera. The name of this nation apparently originates from the word "machjar" which was a self-name in the Middle Ages. The Meshcha descendants kept their own phonetics for a long time, preserving hard "ch" - strange for a Russian ear [18].

The spelling and pronunciation of "Machjar" (maybe "Mezhchar" [13]) have been transformed in accordance with the norms of the Old Russian language. These changes made the new word "Meshchera" to sound very Russian, like the Old-Russian words "veshchy", "meshchati", "meshchenye", "peshchera" [14,15] and now create an illusion of its "russianness" including relation to the Russian word "mshara" (a pit bog). We also doubt with transformation to "Meshchera" the Mordvin word "meshkyar" (a bee keeper) [17].

It is much more difficult to find the origin of the primary word. Some say is relates to the Mari word "mezh" (wool) [18], the others - to the Baltic "mezh" (forest) [13]. But why the Balts, living in the same virgin forests called the Meshchera "the forest people"? Some say the name "Meshchera" relates to the Hungarians' self-name "magyar" [17]. But the chronicles say the Meshchera had own language [11], which is now, alas, extinct.

The earliest written mention - а church document "Tolcovaya Paleya" ( с 13 AD) [7] listed Meshchera with the other nations, populating the territory which would become Russia [8]. Later the chroniclers specified its exact habitat as "along Oka river where it flows to Volga" [11], side by side with Mari, Merja, Mordvin and Murom people. All of them made the Volgo-Finnish tribal union [2] which not later than the first half of the 1st millennium AD considerably diverged culturally and linguistically.

The Meshchera were not as big in number as their neighbors, but they also consisted of few relating tribes. They occupied both banks of Oka river from the mouth of Pronya to Moksha river and neighboring with the Mordvins and Mourom on the low Oka. Some tribes lived far down South, to the modern Tambov region and up North, bordering with the lands of Merya on Klyazma river.

The Meshchera also was exploring the middle and low Moscow river contacting with coming from upper Oka Balts. We still can notice a lot of geographical names reminding of Meshchera at the territory: Meshcherikha, Meshcherskoye, Meshcherinovo, as well as Mozharskaya, Mozharovka, Mozharovo.

The lifestyle and culture of Meshchera can be partially reconstructed based upon the Medieval past of the other Finnish nations [hereinafter by 2] which mainly were hunting, fishing and cattle breeding. The Finns of Oka bred pork, horses, cattle and sometimes sheep. They cultivated their small patches of land amidst forests with hoes and planted barley, spelt, rye, pea, soft wheat, cannabis and flax. They also ran wild-hive beekeeping.

All Finns were busy with home crafts: hand-spinning, weaving, leather, bone, timber and bark processing, wickerwork and pottery. The professional blacksmiths served communities with tools and arms. The ore was mined locally from the pit bogs. The refinery fires were primitive, but the cold-air forging furnace were being used.

The Meshcherian men's clothes are difficult to reconstruct. The women wore long (down to shin) flax and woolen robes with low collar and small cut up the center. The upper dress was made of wool or fur. The legs were wrapped with cloth or dressed with woolen stockings. Soft leather shoes were worn. The hats were made of felt, leather or fur.

The dead were buried in oval or right-tangled graves. The cremation also was practiced. The corpses were laid on back with no coffins, with straight or bent arms. The individual meridional burials were the most common. The women were buried with a full set of decorations as they had worn them while being alive. Sometimes the women's artifacts are found in men's graves and the arms in the women's burials. The cremations were practices aside, on a separate spot. Then the burned bones with the rest of the bonfire were put to the grave. In this case the burials could be individual, dual and the collective ones. The buried artifacts are very much the same for both rituals, mostly consisting of the rich brass decorations.

To produce these brass items the Finno-Ugrians were developing their craftsmanship for a very long time. Between the 1st and 2nd millennia this home-style crafts became a professional business.

The Finns of Volga (or Oka) lived in the semi-underground houses or in the ordinary wooden huts with a floor inbuilt 20-30 cm below ground. The roofs with two slopping surfaces were based on the rooted posts. The walls were made of the vertically rooted boards or were made of logs covered with clay. A house stove was made of stones with wattle and daub bottom and arch. Some family houses were small, the other - communal were up to 100 square meters. The other buildings included the cattle sheds, cellars, mills. The forges were built separately.

Since the second half of the 1st millennium the most Finns lived in non-fortified settlements consisting of a number of family and communal dwellings though the tribal centers were fortified with the pamparts, fosses and perhaps palings. It is still unknown where these centers were situated. We can suppose that one of them was in the eastern part of the modern Egorievsk district (Moscow region, Russia). Here, in Zhabki village the first Meshchera's artifacts were excavated in 1870 [2]. The found brass decorations shows skills of the local jewelers. J.R. Aspelin, a pioneer of Finnish Medieval systematic, published them in his Atlas [20].

Meanwhile Zhabki gave the scientists its next "crop". In 1891 the local peasants found a new burial with similar decorations at the other end of the village and unfortunately destroyed it. A. Spitsyn supposed an individual burial with the same kind of the artifacts and dated it by c 11-12 AD. Later A. Mongait specified the date by c 11 AD [1].

The most decorations from Zhabki were the filigrees with the cast "jingling" pendants: bells, cymbals, "bottles", cone-like tubes, diamond-shaped and trapeziform plates. Some of the details are adorned with cores. All these foundlings are typical for the Finno-Ugrian costume and have been known from the early Iron Age. The brass items were sewn to the clothes and were making a light noise while moving. That is why they are called "jingling".

The very important part of the Zhabki burial is the "horse-like" pendants, a kind of flat animal-style decorations. They were sewn on the breast or tied to the belt with long leather straps. The small short chains imitated horse legs. All "horses" from Zhabki are two-headed, the heads face each other and the backs are conjoint together in the typical Finno-Ugrian manner. But unlike the other images, the horses from Zhabki are very stylized, camouflaged with the arcs and triangles which maybe is a typically Meshcheraian art feature.

These items were not just decorations. They were a part of a ritual, revealing old Finnish cultural symbols and myths. The presence of the horse-like pendants may say about believe that a horse follows a man beyond the grave. The "duck-paw" pendants remind the old Finnish myth about The Duck - The Creator of the Universe. The round spiral is a solar sign, and the triangle is a symbol of fertility.

The main part of the artifacts from Zhabki are in the State Hermitage (St-Petersburg) now. Some of them are in Ryazan and Egorievsk museums. In the beginning of the 20th century a few other Meshcherian ground burials were found near Sydogda, Vladimir region, Russia. A.Spitsyn, P.Fomenko and A.Mongait dated them by c 11-12 AD. They also admitted the mere signs of the Slavic influence and the presence of the Meshcherian artifacts in the Slavic burials.

Soon before the first foundlings from Zhabki a "horse-like" pendants was escalated in the Vyatich Slav hill burial near Kolomna, 50 km westward. Later the similar pendants were found in the burial hills near Moscow. In 1950 a new ground-type burial was occasionally revealed in the village of Parykino, 5 km to the West from Zhabki. Its artifacts are exhibited in Egorievsk museum. The main item is a big pendant with the ornament, reminding those from Zhabki. We believe that this ornament also is typical for Meshchera. The Parykino burial as well reflects the Slavic influence. The ends of one of the necklaces tied as the Krivich Slavs used to do it. The other necklace has the cone-shaped heads, typical for the Lithuanian master. In c 9 -13 AD the Baltic craftsmen were exporting a lot of such decorations.

The great Volga trade route (Upper Volga - Klyazma - Moscow - Oka) went via lands of Meshchera. The trade and craftsmanship grew up and required a big deal of row materials, especially copper. Some Oka nations, for instance The Mordvins, had develop the feudal society. Meshchera, being at the lower stage of its development, went through the gradual disintegration of its tribal structure. The coming Slavs accelerated all these processes from the c 8-9 AD along Oka to c 10 - 11 AD in the Oka - Klyazma plains.

At the beginning the Slavs settled apart from Finns, but soon the population started to mix. The Meshcherian burials of c 11-12 AD demonstrate this thought the cultural contacts occurred long before, especially between Baltic, Slavic and Finnish (including Meshchera) tribes along Oka water way. To the 11-12th centuries the aboriginal tribes of the Volga-Oka plains such as Merja and Murom have been disintegrated and assimilated by Slavs. The most part of the Meshchera also has been russified, but its remaining settlements had been surviving long after in the virgin forests of the left low bank of Oka, from Tsna in the West to Gous' in the East. Soon the Old Russian princedoms were organized. The towns of Ryazan, Pereslavl' Ryazansky (the end of c 11 AD) and Kolomna (c 12 AD) were built. In 1152 Gorodets (later called Gorodets Meshchersky and Kasymov) has been built just amidst the lands of Meshchera. The town had mixed population [12]. The Meshchera of the right bank of Oka also was assimilated, not only by Slavs but also by Mordins and from c 13 AD by Tatars.

In 1239 "…in winter time, the Tatars took the Mordvin land" [10]. The lands of the lower Moksha river [9], where Meshchera lived alongside with Mordvins also were occupied and devastated. After 1243 all Mordvin lands became a part of The Golden Horde [5].

In AD 13-14 the Tatars settled on the left bank of Oka. One of their princes, Bakhmet intruded there in 1298 and set an own kingdom [19] lasting from Egorievsk Tsna to Moksha river with a capital in Gorodets on Oka [12]. Then these new Mongol-Turkish rulers started to sell out their lands to Moscow and Ryazan. Some of them have been baptized and became Russian vassals. The Tatar-Meshcherian state becomes a border of the Moscow kingdom and the Meshchera - its people. The Will of Russian duke Vladimir Andreevich has a PS "the document was written by Meshcherin" [4] which indicates the name - ethnic origin, a common thing for that time like "Choudin" (a Choud'), "Grechin" (a Greeck) and so on [6].

Meanwhile The Golden Horde managed to destroy The Kingdom of Meshchera. In 1376 its capital Gorodets was so devastated that it had to be rebuilt in a new place, not far from the old one [3]. Then nearly 1453 it had been given by Vasily Temny to the Kazan prince Kasym. The pagan aborigines of this kingdom still were the Mordvin and Meshchera [12]. After the death of Kasym, Gorodets has been renamed to "Kasymov" and the kingdom itself to "Kasymovskoye". Avoiding misery its people, including those called "macharin", were trying to escape to the Russian lands [4] and forced to be back. Till c 15-16 AD the Tatar Khans and Mordvin dukes had rights to judge "Mozharyans" [18].

The names "Machar" and "Mazhar" can be found in the Russian chronicles till c 16 AD [17]. Thus the Meshchera didn't disappear. Despite of assimilation its part still was keeping own identity, different from Russian, Mordvin and Tatar. Perhaps that time they even spoke their own language.

Apparently to c 17 AD Meshcherian language had disappeared. Its former speakers no more called themselves "Mazhar" but "Meshchera" which sounded more Russian. To the end of c 19 AD about 60 thousand of Meshchera still lived in Penza, Ryazan and Tambov provinces of Russia [12]. It was not easy to distinguish them from Russians. The subsequent dramatic events finally swept up the ancient Eastern European nation.

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