UGROFINNICI. – A distinct linguistic family divided into two branches: the eastern, or Ugric, and the western, or Finnic.
The first includes Hungarian, Vogul, and Ostyak; the second, Zyrian, Votyak, Cheremis, Mordvin, the properly Finnic languages (Livonian, Veps, Votic, Estonian, Karelian, Finnish), and Lappish. Their original homeland was northeastern Europe, specifically the wooded territories between the Volga and the Urals, along the Kama and Bjelaia rivers. There they first came into contact with the Indo-European peoples, as is attested by words common to all the Ugro-Finnic languages and deriving from Proto-Indo-European (e.g.: Hung. név = name, Vog. nam, Ost. nem, Syr. nim, Finn. nimi, Lapp. namma, corresponding to Old Ind. nāman, Avestan nāma, Greek ὄνομα, Lat. nomen, Goth. namō, etc.). More numerous are the indications of relations between the Ugro-Finnic peoples and the Aryan branch of the Indo-Europeans (e.g.: Hung. szdz = hundred, Vog. sat, Ost. sāt, Syr. so, Vot. su, Cher. tadō, Mord. tada, Finn. sata, and Old Ind. sātām, Avestan satam, Lithuanian szinūtas, Old Church Slavonic sto, etc.). Their primitive though relative unity was broken around the middle of the second millennium B.C. with the distinct development of the Ugric group from the Finnic. The ancestors of the present-day Hungarians broke away; finding themselves near the much more numerous and powerful Bulgar-Turkic people, who lived in western Siberia, they moved with them toward the Caucasus in the years 460–470 A.D., remaining for centuries in a Turkish environment that greatly contributed to transforming their civilization. The Hungarians began to become autonomous when, no longer able to find protection within the Bulgar-Turkic Empire against the repeated attacks of the Pechenegs, they were forced to turn toward the West. The leadership of the seven Hungarian tribes was by then already in the hands of the central tribe called Magyar, which later gave its name to the people, and the first stage was Lebedia, between the Don and the Dnieper; the second was Etelköz (= land enclosed by rivers), between the Dnieper and the lower Danube. Here
The other two members of the Ugric group, namely the Voguls and the Ostyaks, having remained in the Ural region, continued to live together, and their migration from their ancient European seats to their present ones near the river Ob took place in comparatively recent times. Voguls and Ostyaks have now been reduced to scant remnants: in 1926 their numbers were respectively 5,200 and 18,000.
The name Ugric, Ugro, a learned technical term, nevertheless derives from designations recurring in historical sources for more than a millennium. The words ugri, ungar, hongrois, Ungarn, Hungaria go back to the ancient name of the Bulgaro-Turks: ouogur, which in the forms \ongur, \ongr passed, through the Slavic languages (ugre, ugry, ugré, úgrin, cúgrin, etc.), into medieval Latin (plur. ungri), German (ungor) and, relatinized as ungarus, became French Hungri, Hungaria, etc. In Byzantine Greek it is found from the 10th century onward: οὔγγροι. On the other hand, the names Ugra, Jugra, Jugria, used by ancient Russian sources, Arab geographers, and European writers of the 15th-16th centuries to designate the territory inhabited by the Voguls and Ostyaks, are likewise derivations of ouogur-\ongur*.
Once the ancient Ugro-Finnic unity had been broken, the western complex continued for a long time along the same path of development and maintained, more than the Ugric group, frequent contacts with Indo-European peoples. Its division into two further branches occurred around 1000 B.C. The Finnic branch (Cheremis, Mordvins, Finns, and Lapps) moved westward, while the Syrians and Votyaks (called the peoples of Perm) remained in their eastern seats between the Vjatka and Kama rivers.
The Syrians, tributaries of the Russians from the 13th century onward, converted to Christianity at the end of the 14th century through the work of St. Stephen of Perm, creator of the Syrian alphabet, who translated many religious texts into their language. These, together with Hungarian texts of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, constitute the most ancient Ugro-Finnic monuments. According to a Soviet statistic of 1926, the Syrians numbered 364,000, the greater part of whom were engaged in agriculture and trade.
The Votyaks, somewhat more numerous, live south of the Syrians in a territory which until 1236 formed part of the Bulgaro-Turkic Empire destroyed in that year by the Tartars. After a long and peaceful coexistence with the Bulgaro-Turks, the Votyaks fell under the rule of the Tartar khans, which lasted until 1552, when the Russians also made the Votyaks tributaries of Moscow. In 1920 the
territory inhabited by them was granted autonomous status. The very recent Votyak literature is nourished partly by rich popular poetry and partly reflects, like Syrian literature, Soviet literature.
The ancestors of the present-day Cheremis and Mordvins separated from the Finns proper no earlier than the 2nd century B.C. and continued to form a single people until the division, which developed slowly, became complete in the 7th century A.D. Three principal periods may be distinguished in the history of the Cheremis and Mordvins: 1) Bulgaro-Turkic influence (700-1236); 2) Tartar domination (1236-1552); 3) Russian domination (from 1552).
The language of the Cheremis is permeated, more than any other Ugro-Finnic language, with Turkish elements. Today the Cheremis, numbering about 425,000, live in two groups northwest and northeast of the bend of the Volga. The Mordvins, south of the Cheremis and the Votyaks, are scattered along the two banks of the Volga and intermingled with Russians and Turco-Tartars. Despite their relatively large number (in 1926: 1,267,000), they offer very weak resistance to Russian cultural and linguistic influence.
The Lapps have lived since very remote times in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Their total number amounts to scarcely 35,000. They speak different dialects, which undoubtedly belong to the Ugro-Finnic family, whereas anthropologically the Lapps, according to recent studies, represent the remnant of a most ancient northern Mongoloid type. Their present language is certainly not their original tongue, but the speech of the Finns, adopted in the last centuries B.C., that is, at the time of the division of the western Ugro-Finnic branch into the Finnic and Mordvino-Cheremis groups. Their name too derives from Finnish, in which lappi, loppi means “secluded place,” and lappalainen “inhabitant of out-of-the-way places,” which in a figurative sense means “backward, primitive, uncivilized.” The Norwegians, who had contacts with the Lapps from ancient times, always called them “Finns,” and this word (fanni, fanni), transmitted for the first time by Tacitus (Germania, chap. 46), in the Middle Ages served to designate now the Lapps, now the Finns proper (suomalainen).
The ethnic units of the Finns, Estonians, Karelians, Vepsians, Votes, and Livonians came into being after the separation of that Ugro-Finnic group which, setting out from the ancient seats on the Volga, moved westward to settle finally in the territory south of the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. Its members are still linguistically very close to one another today. In the last centuries B.C., this group came into the vicinity of Baltic peoples (Lithuanians, Letts, ancient Prussians), from whom it learned agriculture, cattle-breeding, and house-building. In the first centuries of the Christian era Germanic influence began, which was decisive for the further cultural development of that group; only toward the 8th century A.D. did its members begin to assume the more or less distinct outlines of new ethnic individualities.
The Finns took possession of their present homeland (Suomi) between the 3rd and 7th centuries A.D. (v. FINLANDIA).
The Karelians, once the most advanced among the inhabitants of the region around Ladoga and Onega, succumbed to the Russians toward the middle of the 13th century and, having converted to Orthodoxy, lost every cultural contact with the Finns. The feeling of brotherhood was reborn following the discovery in Karelia of their common ancient poetic treasure. Today the Karelians (no more than 300,000) live in Russian Karelia and farther south, in the region of Tver and Novgorod. The Vepsians (scarcely 30,000 souls) are scattered in the territory south of Onega and east of Ladoga. Their backward civilization and instinctive reserve saved them from Russification, which, however, has recently made ever greater progress. The smallest group among the Finnic peoples is represented by the Votes, who in certain remote localities of Inggermanland are living out the last days of their existence. The language of the Livonians, who gave their name to Livlandia, inhabited by them since the 12th century, is likewise almost completely extinct.
The Estonian people, emerging from Russian servitude, which failed to strip it of its individuality and language, organized itself in 1918 as an independent State, Estonia, which
in 1934 had 1,125,000 inhabitants. The two principal Estonian dialects, the speech of Tallin and that of Tartu, are very dissimilar, and each developed its own literary language: their unification is of recent date. At present Estonia is incorporated into the Soviet State.