After 24 February 2022, in the Ukrainian information space, like thunder from a clear sky, accusations and curses poured in the direction of our people. Unfortunately, Ukrainians (both literate and not at all) put all the blame for the war unleashed by Moscow exclusively on the Mokshans, who do not live “in the swamps”, but have a very ancient culture, an ancient written language, unique traditions, customs and history. This nation’s tragic past still remains a “dark spot”.
So, Mokshi (self-name Mókshet ) is one of the most numerous (after the Erzians) Finno-Hungarian nations in the world (according to cultural and linguistic characteristics), which does not have its own sovereign state. Due to the significant level of atomization and alienation, assimilation and Russification (Moscowization), today the Moksha do not even have autonomy within the so-called Russian Federation. The Kremlin aimed at the total melting of this original nation into an integral and inseparable part of the “Russian people”.
The Republic of Mordovia, where the Mokshan ethnic core is located, is directly controlled by the federal centre from where Gauleiters are sent. As of the spring of 2024, the Mordovian leader is the ethnic Erzya Artyom Zdunov, who signed up for “Russkie” a long time ago. The Mokshi live in the basin of the Oka, Tsna, Moksha, Sura, Khopyor, Volga and Ural rivers, namely in the administrative boundaries of the Penza, Ryazan, Saratov, Tambov, Samara, Orenburg and Ulyanovsk regions, and of course in the Republic of Mordovia. During all All-Russian population censuses, the Mokshes are deliberately recorded under the ethnonym “Mordva”, uniting them into one national group from Erzya, which complicates the real counting of both nations. However, the total number of Mokshas is estimated by the National Moksha Committee to be between 500,000 and 1,500,000 worldwide. Such a discrepancy in numbers lies in the difficulty of an honest and accurate calculation of mokshas, which are more often recorded in “Mordovian” or “Russian”.
The Mokshan language is a Finno-Ugric language of the so-called Volga group, one of the three state languages of the Republic of Mordovia, along with Erzyan and Russian. Our people mostly profess Christianity (Orthodoxy and Lutheranism). Here and there in the villages, traditional beliefs related to the Jewish tradition and/or the influence of Manichaeism are still alive.
Within the borders of the Russian Federation and in exile, the Moksha national movement is in its infancy, many activists are deep underground due to the danger of repression or torture by the Kremlin’s special services. Therefore, the main mission of restoring the self-awareness of the people was undertaken by the Moksha Committee of People’s Representatives, created in 2022 in Budapest. Its main goal is the revival of national identity, language, culture, historical memory and traditions with the subsequent creation of its own sovereign independent state for the Mokshan people – Mokshen Mástor (literal translation: Mokshan state). It is worth noting that the mokshas have experience of statehood in history. Thus, in the middle of the Don and Volga rivers, during the 9th-13th centuries, Murunzán Kírdi (literal translation: State of Murunza) stretched under the leadership of Kanazor rulers from the Mordvan dynasty: Puresh, Narchatka and others (they are also known from Arab chronicles as Mordukans).
The centres of tribal power, which cooperated with Bulgaria and Khazaria, were first the city of Yelatma, and later Noronshiasht. The existence of the Mokshan statehood before the Batian invasion is evidenced by the Laurentian Chronicle (1228), the Annals of the Waverley Monastery (1239), the works of Guillaume de Rubruq ” Itinerarium fratris Willielmi de Rubruquis de ordine fratrum Minorum, Galli, Anno gratia 1253. ad partes Orientales “, Giovanni del Plano Carpin’s Historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus, Rashid al-Din’s Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh and Roger Bacon’s Opus Majus.
However, after various historical events, Moksha came under the strong influence of the Golden Horde, and after its decline in the 15th century, it became part of the Moscow principality. Over time, the Muscovites conquered not only the Mokshan lands but also the neighbouring peoples: Tatars, Chuvash, Erzya, Mari, Bashkorts, etc. by military means, imposing the imperial yoke of enslavement. To this day, the Mokshes are subjected to ethnic cleansing by the colonizers and attempts to destroy historical memory, national culture, language and identity, which, despite all the troubles, continue to persist, mainly in rural areas (where, according to Muscovites, “civilization has not reached”).
Mokshi made numerous attempts to gain independence from Moscow’s influence, starting with participation in the Razin Uprising and ending with the activities of the “Mástorava” organization in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, all of them were unsuccessful, the participants were punished in different ways or were forced to leave their place of residence by going to Europe. In general, the history of the Mokshan national movement, the goal of which is the self-determination of the people, can be conventionally divided into the following 4 stages:
a) origin (from the middle of the 19th century to the Second World War);
b) formation (1988-2012);
c) decline (2013-2021);
d) modernity (from 2022).
All the listed stages were accompanied by the persecution of Mokshan educators-awakeners and activists of the national movement both in the Russian Empire and in the USSR and the Russian Federation. So, to break this chain of previous failures and passivity of the Russified tribesmen, the Mokshan diaspora united their efforts, forming the Committee on Emigration. The main reason was the aggressive military invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine at the end of February 2022. The committee of representatives of the Moksha people continued the relay started by “Mastorava” and plans to seek independence from Moscow. The Mokshes, like many nations, had a historic opportunity to gain freedom from Moscow. At the beginning of the summer of 2023, this association was reorganized, becoming the Moksha National Committee, which also included partisans from the underground resistance movement from Mordovia, Penzen region, Tambov region, and Saratov region.
” It’s time to take back the work started by our ancestors, first of all by the glorious Puresh!” By uniting, we will be able to return to our native places. There are many of us, but we are scattered all over the world, but our main homeland is the sovereign state of Mokshan! It is up to us to develop our land and build such a life on it, as the freedom-loving Finns and Estonians did it with their own hands and according to their own wishes. They, like us, went through difficult times, but gathered their spirits and declared their will to the will.
And they achieved it! Now they have the honorary title of developed countries – they know how to live well, calmly, holding hands among themselves and in peace and harmony with their neighbours. And if we need help, we have someone to turn to who will share with us their experience and their knowledge, which we do not have, about the creation of a free democratic state. Our life is different compared to them. We are always fighting on foreign lands, because of which we are demonized.
It’s time to stop! Mokshi are not Muscovites, we have nothing to do in Ukraine, this is not our war. We have to fight in ourselves and for ourselves. Let us be ready to boldly declare our natural desire for freedom and the preservation of the name of the people of Moksha. It cannot be allowed that our quiet and beautiful river, the name of which is Moksha, remains after us only as a memory of the people! Let hearts and minds be mastered by the thought of the right to freedom – they will be followed by action. We know ourselves, if moksha wants to do it, it will definitely succeed ,” says one of the appeals to fellow tribesmen published by the Moksha National Committee.
Artificial Mokshan hatred among Ukrainians is a completely deliberate special informational and psychological operation of the Kremlin to discredit the people enslaved by Moscow. The nation that lives geographically closest to the imperial centre is the most subject to oppression, persecution and assimilation, and therefore most often finds itself in the first ranks of accomplices or accomplices of the genocidal war in Ukraine. Of course, there is no truth to the children who are among the soldiers and officers of the occupation-terrorist contingent of the Russian Federation and ethnic Mokshans, but their number is tiny compared to representatives of other nations. We will not justify war criminals, because the blood of the innocent is on their hands, no matter what nation they belong to. Moksham will still have to pay his debt to history for his complicity in aggression, but now is the time to wake up from a lethargic sleep and fight the common enemy with the Ukrainians, who has settled in Moscow. This is the only way to prove that our people are worthy of being a nation at the gates of Europe.
For your freedom and yours!
Dónisi CHÓVGANON (PhD),
head of the Moksha National Committee,
member of the Presidium of the League of Free Nations,
member of the Association Council “Suur-Suomi Sotilaat”
