Product Code Database
Veps, or Vepsians (), are a Baltic Finns who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic languages branch of the Uralic languages.
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 language. The younger generation, in general, does not speak Vepsian; however, many have an understanding of the language.
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 language 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.
In the postwar 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. 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 . 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.
Vepsians share more IBD (identity-by-descent) segments with several Uralic-speaking populations, including geographically distant ones like the Mansi people 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 peoples Dolgans from Siberia, too.
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%). The paternal lineages of the Veps may have been influenced by the Zavoloch Chud, who are thought to have possibly mixed with them.
Demographics
Since 1926, the Vepsian population has been significantly declining likely due to multiple factors such as Stalin's mass forced deportation and assimilation within the Soviet Union. However, it could also be attributed to other factors such as immigration after the Collapse of the Soviet Union or Russia's aging population. As of 2021, 4,534 people identified as Vepsian. However, 16.5 million people refused to declare an ethnicity in the census, leading some to doubt the legitimacy of the most recent census, and whether the population counts of Ethnic minorities in Russia were accurate.
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
Vepsians cluster with Karelians and Finns. They share most of their autosomal ancestry with Europeans, but about 12% of their ancestry is Nganasan people-like. This Siberian-related component is linked to the spread of Uralic languages. Like other Baltic Finnic peoples, Vepsians have a high Steppe-related admixture.
Notable Vepsians
Further reading
External links
|
|
