Erzya Congress Calls for Pursuing Independence from Russia

Declaring that the Erzya nation cannot survive if it remains within the Russian Federation, a congress of the Erzya people meeting in the Estonian city of Otepaa calls for the pursuit of independence of a federative nation state, Erzyan Mastor, in the Middle Volga, one far larger than the Mordvinian Republic of which the Erzya are now a part.

Russia’s Finno-Ugric Peoples Challenge Soviet-Imposed Identities

The Erzya and Moksha, two Finno-Ugric peoples more commonly known collectively, as a result of Soviet-era ethnic engineering, as the Mordvinians, are now seeking the reassert their separate identities, yet another indication, along with the actions of the Circassians, that these nations want to be identified on their own terms.