Veps people

{{Short description|Ethnic group of northern Europe}} {{Infobox ethnic group | group = Veps {{lang|vep|Vepsläižed}} | native_name = | flag = Veps Flag Alternative.svg | flag_caption = Veps flag<ref>{{cite book |last=Paškov |first= Aleksandr |date= 1994 |title= Karjalan vaakunat ja liput |location= Petroskoi |publisher= KAREKO |page= 327-330 |isbn=5-88129-010-0}}</ref> | image = | image_caption = | population = 4,877 | poptime = | region1 = {{flag|Russia}} | pop1 = 4,534 (2021) | ref1 = <ref>[http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/perepis_itogi1612.htm Russian census 2010] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006110329/http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/perepis_itogi1612.htm |date=October 6, 2014 }}</ref> | region2 = {{flag|Ukraine}} | pop2 = 281 (2001) | ref2 = <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/results/nationality_population/nationality_popul1/select_5/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=00&p=0&rz=1_1&rz_b=2_1%20%20%20&n_page=1|title=Ukrainian census 2001|website=Ukrcensus.gov.au|access-date=24 October 2017|archive-date=29 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429184745/http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/results/nationality_population/nationality_popul1/select_5/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=00&p=0&rz=1_1&rz_b=2_1%20%20%20&n_page=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> | region3 = {{flag|Estonia}} | pop3 = 54 (2011) | ref3 = <ref>{{cite web|url=http://pub.stat.ee/px-web.2001/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=PC0442&ti=POPULATION+BY+ETHNIC+NATIONALITY,+MOTHER+TONGUE,+CITIZENSHIP,+SEX,+AGE+GROUP+AND+PLACE+OF+RESIDENCE,+31+DECEMBER+2011&path=../I_Databas/Population_census/PHC2011/01Demographic_and_ethno_cultural_characteristics/04Ethnic_nationality_Languages_Dialects/&lang=1|title=Population by Ethnic Nationality, Mother Tongue, Citizenship, Sex, Age Group and Place of Residence, 31 December 2011|website=Pub.stat.ee|access-date=24 October 2017}}</ref> | region4 = {{flag|Belarus}} | pop4 = 8 (2009) | ref4 = <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.belstat.gov.by/uploads/file/GU_demogr/5.8-0.pdf|title=Население по национальности и родному языку|publisher=Нацыянальны статыстычны камітэт Рэспублікі Беларусь|work=Перепись населения Республики Беларусь 2009 года|date=12 August 2010|language=ru|trans-title=Population by nationality and mother language|access-date=13 April 2016|archive-date=9 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171009183758/http://www.belstat.gov.by/uploads/file/GU_demogr/5.8-0.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> | rels = Predominantly Eastern Orthodox | langs = Vepsian and Russian | related = Other Baltic Finns Especially Karelians, Izhorians, Votians, Estonians, and Finns }}

The '''Veps''', or '''Vepsians''' ({{Langx|vep|vepsläižed}}), are a Baltic Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages.{{sfn|Grünthal|2022|p=291}}

According to the 2002 Russian census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine, 11 spoke Vepsian according to the 2001 Ukrainian census.

The self-designations of these people in various dialects are ''vepslaine'', ''bepslaane'' and (in northern dialects, southwest of Lake Onega) ''lüdinik'' and ''lüdilaine''. Almost all Vepsians are fluent in Russian. The younger generation, in general, does not speak Vepsian; however, many have an understanding of the language.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://russkiymir.ru/en/publications/254503/ | title=Russian Veps: We talk to the Finns without an interpreter }}</ref>

==History== ===Prehistory=== Archeological and linguistic studies suggest that Vepsians lived in the valleys of the Sheksna, the Suda, and the Syas rivers, developing, according to Kalevi Wiik, from the proto-Vepsian Kargopol culture to the east of Lake Onega. They probably also lived in East Karelia and on the northern coast of Lake Onega. It is possible that the earliest mention of the Veps dates to the sixth century CE, when the Gothic historian Jordanes mentioned a people called ''Vasina broncas'', which may have indicated the Vepsians.<ref>Toivo Vuorela 1960, Suomensukuiset kansat, p. 103</ref> One of the eastern routes on which the Vikings went through their area, and the ''bjarm'' people mentioned by the Vikings as inhabiting the coast of the White Sea may have referred to the Veps.<ref>Saressalo 2005, Vepsa Maa, Kansa, Kulttuuri, p. 13</ref> Evidence from tombs proves that they had contact with Staraya Ladoga, Finland and Meryans, other Volga Finnic tribes and later with the Principality of Novgorod and other Russian states. Later Vepsians also inhabited the western and eastern shores of Onega.

===Later history=== [[Image:Muromian-map.png|thumb|300px|Vepsians and other tribes. An approximative map of the non-Varangian cultures in Eastern Europe, in the 9th century.]]

In medieval Russian chronicles, they are known as ''ves'' ({{lang|ru|весь}});{{sfn|Grünthal|2022|p=291}} in some Arabic sources, they are called ''Wisu''. It is assumed that Bjarmians were at least partly Vepsians. From the 12th century, their history is connected with first Novgorod and then Muscovy. Russian settlement reached the Onega Veps in the 14th or 15th century.<ref name="Red Book">{{cite web|url=http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/veps.shtml|title=The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire|website=Eki.ee|access-date=24 October 2017}}</ref> Eastern Vepsians in the Kargopol area merged linguistically with the Russians before the 20th century.

The existence of the Vepsian people was not widely known until the mid-19th century. Despite its close relationship to the Karelian and the Finnish languages, the Vepsian language was thus one of the last Uralic languages to be recognized as one.

Vepsians numbered 25,607 in 1897. Some 7,300 of them inhabited East Karelia. In the beginning of the 20th century there were some signs of national awakening among Vepsians. Early Soviet nationality politics supported this progress, and 24 administrative units with the status of national village soviets were formed. The alphabet and the written language were developed. Teachers started to instruct in Vepsian in some elementary schools. The Soviet authorities started to oppress the Vepsian culture in 1937. All national activities were stopped and the national districts were abolished. When Finland invaded East Karelia in the Continuation War, some Vepsians joined the so-called Kindred Battalion of the Finnish Army. These troops were relinquished to the Soviet Union after the war.<ref name="Red Book"/><ref name=Kurs1>{{cite journal|journal=Terra|author=Ott Kurs|year=1994|title=Vepsians: the easternmost Baltic-Finnic people|volume=107|pages=127–135}}</ref><ref name=Kurs2>{{cite journal|title=The Vepsians: An administratively divided nationality|author=Ott Kurs|journal=Nationalities Papers|year=2001|volume=29|pages=69–83|doi=10.1080/00905990120036385|s2cid=153956031}}</ref>

In the post-war period, many Veps moved from their historic villages to larger cities. In 1983, on the initiative of national academics, an inquiry was carried out which showed that there were nearly 13,000 Veps in the Soviet Union, 5,600 of whom lived in Karelia, 4,000 in the Leningrad region and just under a 1,000 in the Vologda region.<ref name="Red Book"/> The new Vepsian primer ''Abekirj'' and other elementary school books were published in Petrozavodsk in 1991. ''Kodima'', a newspaper in Vepsian, has been published since 1993. The Vepsian rural community was formed in East Karelia in 1994, encompassing 8,200 square kilometers of land and 3,373 inhabitants, 42% of them Vepsian. The authorities of the Republic of Karelia granted some budgetary autonomy to the Vepsian community in 1996. The language was taught as a subject in two schools, in Shyoltozero and {{ill|Rybreka|ru|Рыбрека}}. However, the cultural revival slowed in the second half of the 1990s and the federal authorities abolished the autonomy in 2006. Nowadays the younger generation in general does not speak the language.<ref name=Kurs2/>

==Geography== {{seealso|Vepsian Upland}} thumb|Map of the Vepsians in 2010{{imagefact|date=November 2022}}

In modern times, they live in the area between Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega and Lake Beloye — in the Russian Republic of Karelia in the former Veps National Volost, in Leningrad Oblast along the Oyat River in the Podporozhsky and Lodeynopolsky Districts and further south in the Tikhvinsky and Boksitogorsky Districts, and in Vologda Oblast in the Vytegorsky and Babayevsky Districts.<ref name="regard-est.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.regard-est.com/home/breve_contenu.php?id=1070|title=L'extinction d'un peuple finno-ougrien: les Vepses|website=Regard-est.com|access-date=24 October 2017|archive-date=23 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130623213153/http://www.regard-est.com/home/breve_contenu.php?id=1070|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Demographics== {| class="wikitable" | |Population |Change (%) |- |1897 |25,607 |0% |- |1926 |32,800 | +28% |- |1937 |29,500 | -10% |- |1939 |31,500 | +6.7% |- |1959 |16,400 | -47.9% |- |1970 |8,000 | -51.2% |- |1979 |8,000 |0% |- |1989 |12,501 | +56.2% |- |2002 |8,240 | -34% |- |2010 |5,936 | -27.9% |- |2021 |4,534 | -23.6% |}

== Genetics == thumb|Estimated ancestry components among selected Eurasian populations, including Vepsians<ref name=":1" />.

Vepsians cluster with Karelians and Finns.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rodríguez-Varela |first1=Ricardo |last2=Moore |first2=Kristjan H.S. |last3=Ebenesersdóttir |first3=S. Sunna |last4=Kilinc |first4=Gulsah Merve |last5=Kjellström |first5=Anna |last6=Papmehl-Dufay |first6=Ludvig |last7=Alfsdotter |first7=Clara |last8=Berglund |first8=Birgitta |last9=Alrawi |first9=Loey |last10=Kashuba |first10=Natalija |last11=Sobrado |first11=Verónica |last12=Lagerholm |first12=Vendela Kempe |last13=Gilbert |first13=Edmund |last14=Cavalleri |first14=Gianpiero L. |last15=Hovig |first15=Eivind |date=2023 |title=The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867422014684 |journal=Cell |language=en |volume=186 |issue=1 |pages=32–46.e19 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.024|pmid=36608656 |hdl=10810/60423 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> They share most of their autosomal ancestry with Europeans, but about 12% of their ancestry is Nganasan-like.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Jeong |first1=Choongwon |last2=Balanovsky |first2=Oleg |last3=Lukianova |first3=Elena |last4=Kahbatkyzy |first4=Nurzhibek |last5=Flegontov |first5=Pavel |last6=Zaporozhchenko |first6=Valery |last7=Immel |first7=Alexander |last8=Wang |first8=Chuan-Chao |last9=Ixan |first9=Olzhas |last10=Khussainova |first10=Elmira |last11=Bekmanov |first11=Bakhytzhan |last12=Zaibert |first12=Victor |last13=Lavryashina |first13=Maria |last14=Pocheshkhova |first14=Elvira |last15=Yusupov |first15=Yuldash |date=2019 |title=The genetic history of admixture across inner Eurasia |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |language=en |volume=3 |issue=6 |pages=966–976 |doi=10.1038/s41559-019-0878-2 |issn=2397-334X |pmc=6542712 |pmid=31036896|bibcode=2019NatEE...3..966J }}</ref> This Siberian-related component is linked to the spread of Uralic languages. Like other Baltic Finnic peoples, Vepsians have a high Steppe-related admixture.<ref name=":0" />

Vepsians share more IBD (identity-by-descent) segments with several Uralic-speaking populations, including geographically distant ones like the Mansis and the Nganasans, than with Russians or other non-Uralic groups near to them. This is consistent with the idea that the Uralic-speaking peoples share some common roots. They have significant IBD segment sharing with the Turkic-speaking Dolgans from Siberia, too.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Tambets |first1=Kristiina |last2=Yunusbayev |first2=Bayazit |last3=Hudjashov |first3=Georgi |last4=Ilumäe |first4=Anne-Mai |last5=Rootsi |first5=Siiri |last6=Honkola |first6=Terhi |last7=Vesakoski |first7=Outi |last8=Atkinson |first8=Quentin |last9=Skoglund |first9=Pontus |last10=Kushniarevich |first10=Alena |last11=Litvinov |first11=Sergey |last12=Reidla |first12=Maere |last13=Metspalu |first13=Ene |last14=Saag |first14=Lehti |last15=Rantanen |first15=Timo |date=2018 |title=Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations |journal=Genome Biology |language=en |volume=19 |issue=1 |page=139 |doi=10.1186/s13059-018-1522-1 |issn=1474-760X |pmc=6151024 |pmid=30241495 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The most common maternal haplogroups among Vepsians include H (57.6%) and U5 (16.8%), showing similarity with other Baltic Finnic groups. 56.4% of Vepsian men have the haplogroup N, which is of East Eurasian origin and commonly found among Uralic-speaking populations. 38.5% belong to the subclade N1a1a (M178), which is typical for Finno-Ugric groups near them, and 17.9% have the subclade N-P43, common in more eastern Uralic groups. The second most common Y-DNA haplogroup among the Veps is R1a (35.9%).<ref name=":0" /> The paternal lineages of the Veps may have been influenced by the Zavoloch Chuds, who are thought to have possibly mixed with them.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Agdzhoyan |first1=Anastasia |last2=Ponomarev |first2=Georgy |last3=Pylev |first3=Vladimir |last4=Autleva (Kagazezheva) |first4=Zhaneta |last5=Gorin |first5=Igor |last6=Evsyukov |first6=Igor |last7=Pocheshkhova |first7=Elvira |last8=Koshel |first8=Sergey |last9=Kuleshov |first9=Viacheslav |last10=Adamov |first10=Dmitry |last11=Kuznetsova |first11=Natalia |date=2024 |title=The Finnic Peoples of Russia: Genetic Structure Inferred from Genome-Wide and Y-Chromosome Data |journal=Genes |language=en |volume=15 |issue=12 |pages=1610 |doi=10.3390/genes15121610 |doi-access=free |issn=2073-4425 |pmc=11675159 |pmid=39766877}}</ref>

==Notable Vepsians== [[File:Veps museum.JPG|thumb|300px|Vepsians Museum — in Shyoltozero, Republic of Karelia, northwestern Russia.]]

*Nikolay Abramov (1961–2016) – Vepsian-language poet, translator and writer *Ivan Golunov (born 1983) — Russian investigative journalist and anti-corruption reporter<ref>[https://karelia.news/news/3140218/zurnalist-ivan-golunov-stal-obladatelem-zajca-v-karelii-i-priznalsa-cto-on-veps/ Журналист Иван Голунов стал обладателем зайца в Карелии и признался, что он вепс]</ref> *{{ill|Raisa Lardot|fi}} (born 1938), Veps-born Finnish writer *Anna Lisitsyna (1922–1942), Soviet partisan, Hero of the Soviet Union *Ryurik Lonin (1930–2009), collector of Veps folklore and writer *Alexander Svirsky (1448–1533), Eastern Orthodox saint

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Sources== * {{cite book |last1=Grünthal |first1=Riho |editor1-last=Bakró-Nagy |editor1-first=Marianne |editor2-last=Laakso |editor2-first=Johanna |editor3-last=Skribnik |editor3-first=Elena |title=The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-876766-4 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Oxford_Guide_to_the_Uralic_Languages/2fhgEAAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=Veps}}

==Further reading== * {{cite journal | last = Kurs | first = Ott |date= March 2001 | title = The Vepsians: An administratively divided nationality | journal = Nationalities Papers | volume = 29 | issue = 1 | pages = 69–83 | doi = 10.1080/00905990120036385 | s2cid = 153956031 }}

==External links== {{Commonscat|Vepsians}} * [http://www.veps.org/ Vepsian organization] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120717051408/http://www.veps.de/Kieli/Kirjakieli/KIRJAKO.HTM Effort to vitalise the Vepsian language] * [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/veps.shtml The Peoples of the Red Book: The Veps]

Category:Vepsia Category:Vepsian people Category:Indigenous peoples of European Russia Category:Baltic Finns Category:Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East Category:Ingria