What ethnic group would lead/dominate in a Volga Finnic "Rus"/"Russia"

ramones1986

ramones1986

(aka my very first thread under the New Board)
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Here's the map of Eastern Europe in the 9th century. As you can see, the north-central part of European Russia was inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes, most specifically in the Volga River basin, hence the obvious term. Except for Mari, Permians, Mordvinians and a small percentage of the Veps, most of the Volga Finns were culturally assimilated to the Eastern Slavs from neighboring Kievan Rus'.

Inspired by some threads tackling the same topic that I've read a long time ago, with a single PoD or a series of PoDs covering a period/different periods before the establishment of Kievan Rus' in the 882, with a different development for the Volga Finns, most specifically in agriculture and trading. Assuming that the events that developed OTL Russia would still occur (e.g. Mongol invasions), what particular Volga Finnic group would lead the unification and consolidation of Volga Basin as a single political entity?
 
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ook

I guess it would be the one, which would live in the most productive agricultural land and thus it would have the largest population. But you would first need the Volga Finnic people to start using agriculture on greater scale than they did OTL during this period.
 
ramones1986

ramones1986

ook said:
I guess it would be the one, which would live in the most productive agricultural land and thus it would have the largest population. But you would first need the Volga Finnic people to start using agriculture on greater scale than they did OTL during this period.
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Well, I already indicated it in the first place, actually.
 
Salvador79

Salvador79

ook said:
I guess it would be the one, which would live in the most productive agricultural land and thus it would have the largest population. But you would first need the Volga Finnic people to start using agriculture on greater scale than they did OTL during this period.
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Or maybe not - Muscovy wasn`t exactly the agriculturally most productive land in the Rus, yet it came to dominate it.

My problem with the OP is that it hints at increased (but still manageable) contacts with Slavs and Norse as a catalyst for Volga Finnic development.
This is really difficult - or rather, it is quite easy, but the end result is not a strong Uralic-speaking polity. The more Uralic-Slavic contact there is, the more Slavicised they`ll get - there are more Slavs than Volga Finns, I see no reason why the children of mixed families would only speak Uralic languages. The only way to achieve such linguistic hegemony would be if the Volga Finns had a more advanced, urbanised culture and a better organsied state (and that still doesn`t exclude Slavicisation, see the Balkans).

With a PoD MUCH before 882, I would go for the Goths fleeing North- and Northeastwards instead of Westwards from the Huns in 375/6, rebuilding Ermanaric`s empire in the woodlands between Don and Volga. Such a polity would be mixed economically, but agriculture would be an important part in the mix. A Gothic-speaking elite would be, in time, so thin that they`d linguistically assimilate to the Volga Finnic languages spoken around them (much like the Norse elite did with Slavic languages in the Rus). That would put such a polity or its successor, instead of the post-Hunnic Bulgars, at the core of power in the Volga Basin in later centuries.

With a PoD around 882, it´s difficult to discuss the Volga Bulgars away.

Centuries later, one might try to wank Great Perm...
 
ramones1986

ramones1986

Salvador79 said:
My problem with the OP is that it hints at increased (but still manageable) contacts with Slavs and Norse as a catalyst for Volga Finnic development.
This is really difficult - or rather, it is quite easy, but the end result is not a strong Uralic-speaking polity. The more Uralic-Slavic contact there is, the more Slavicised they`ll get - there are more Slavs than Volga Finns, I see no reason why the children of mixed families would only speak Uralic languages. The only way to achieve such linguistic hegemony would be if the Volga Finns had a more advanced, urbanised culture and a better organsied state (and that still doesn`t exclude Slavicisation, see the Balkans).

With a PoD MUCH before 882, I would go for the Goths fleeing North- and Northeastwards instead of Westwards from the Huns in 375/6, rebuilding Ermanaric`s empire in the woodlands between Don and Volga. Such a polity would be mixed economically, but agriculture would be an important part in the mix. A Gothic-speaking elite would be, in time, so thin that they`d linguistically assimilate to the Volga Finnic languages spoken around them (much like the Norse elite did with Slavic languages in the Rus). That would put such a polity or its successor, instead of the post-Hunnic Bulgars, at the core of power in the Volga Basin in later centuries.

With a PoD around 882, it´s difficult to discuss the Volga Bulgars away.

Centuries later, one might try to wank Great Perm...
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Nice observation/criticism, and because of that, I already revised my post.
 
Salvador79

Salvador79

Going with my scenario, I´d give an early lead to the Erzya or the Moksha, they being the most Southern groups and most likely to have absorbed Gothic agricultural techniques and multiplied.
Or maybe even the Magyars, they were also still around not far away from there during the early time frame I envision.

Later catastrophes might well bring any other group to the fore. The Komi - the ethnic group originally dominant in Perm - are not an unlikely candidate, given that more Western groups are likely to become Slavicised, Norsified or whatever, and because they seem to have stretched over quite a large territory (even though a very thinly populated one) rather early on. AND their lands are so peripheral that they may well be spared in an alt-Mongol invasion, giving them a lead like Muscovy had over Kiev after OTL´s Mongol invasion.
 

Arkenfolm

Salvador79 said:
Going with my scenario, I´d give an early lead to the Erzya or the Moksha, they being the most Southern groups and most likely to have absorbed Gothic agricultural techniques and multiplied.
Or maybe even the Magyars, they were also still around not far away from there during the early time frame I envision.

Later catastrophes might well bring any other group to the fore. The Komi - the ethnic group originally dominant in Perm - are not an unlikely candidate, given that more Western groups are likely to become Slavicised, Norsified or whatever, and because they seem to have stretched over quite a large territory (even though a very thinly populated one) rather early on. AND their lands are so peripheral that they may well be spared in an alt-Mongol invasion, giving them a lead like Muscovy had over Kiev after OTL´s Mongol invasion.
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The Komi are a bit too far north, like Novgorod, so they'd be at a disadvantage against the southern groups who control the better agricultural land.

Since the Merya are near the site of Moscow and other nearby cities that had the isolation from the Mongols/other steppe peoples as well as a central location, I'd wager they'd end up dominant as well.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Note that the Rurikids seem to be of Finnic origin....
Genetic investigation[edit]
See also: List of haplogroups of historical and famous figures § N (Y-DNA)
According to the FamilyTreeDNA Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project, Rurik appears to have belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup N1c1, based on testing of his modern male line descendants.[6] N1c1 is not widely found in Scandinavian countries, but is overwhelmingly found among Baltic and Finnish ethnicities. The N1c1 haplotype possess the distinctive value DYS390=23, also rarely found in Scandinavia.[citation needed] The closest relatives of the Rurikid haplotype are found in coastal Finland, among the Swedish-speaking Finns.[7]
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Note that the Rurikids seem to be of Finnic origin....
Genetic investigation[edit]
See also: List of haplogroups of historical and famous figures § N (Y-DNA)
According to the FamilyTreeDNA Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project, Rurik appears to have belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup N1c1, based on testing of his modern male line descendants.[6] N1c1 is not widely found in Scandinavian countries, but is overwhelmingly found among Baltic and Finnish ethnicities. The N1c1 haplotype possess the distinctive value DYS390=23, also rarely found in Scandinavia.[citation needed] The closest relatives of the Rurikid haplotype are found in coastal Finland, among the Swedish-speaking Finns.[7]
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Well, the first Swedish settlements in Finland was probably by traders who traded with the Rus. For example on Rosala in the Kimito archipelago where there are archeological finds of viking age settlements there's also the persistent oral tradition that Rosala was settled by four brothers (Måns, Tomas, Nils and Mikael) who were originally from Roslagen, but stayed on Rosala after returning from a trade expedition in Russia. How much of these oral traditions are true or not, who knows.
 

Arkenfolm

ramones1986 said:
I think I should summon @Russian to share his insights in relation to this scenario
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Huh, I was just looking at this thread the other night because someone liked my post in it. This was a year ago?

I stand by what I wrote, so go for the Merya? But what became Novgorod might arise as a powerful Baltic Finn state and perhaps through cultural similarity to Finnic groups in modern Finland (Savonians, Tavastians), unite the region early on (and probably fight against Sweden a ton, and make sure the Finns are an Orthodox people). Or if not (Finnic groups were disunited), lead to much more Swedish influence in the area.

They'll probably clash against the Volga Finns/Merya/whoever elsewhere in Russia at some point anyway.
 
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