Editing Mordvins (section)

==Names==
[[File:1551 Venice Gastaldi-Descriptione de la Moscouia.jpg|thumb|''Mordva populi'' (Mordva people) shown on a 1550 map by
[[Giacomo Gastaldi]] as residing south of [[Kasimov]] and [[Nizhny Novgorod]]]]

While [[Robert Gordon Latham|Robert G. Latham]] had identified ''Mordva'' as a self-designation, identifying it as a variant of the name ''[[Mari people|Mari]]'',<ref name=latham>{{Cite book|title=The Native Races of the Russian Empire |last=Latham |first=Robert Gordon |author-link=Robert Gordon Latham |year=1854 |publisher=H. Bailliere |url=https://archive.org/details/nativeracesruss02lathgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/nativeracesruss02lathgoog/page/n111 91] }}</ref>{{Anachronism inline|date=May 2022}} [[Aleksey Shakhmatov]] in the early 20th century noted that ''Mordva'' was not used as a self-designation by the two Mordvinic [[tribe]]s of the Erzya and Moksha. Nikolai Mokshin again states that the term has been used by the people as an internal self-defining term{{Dubious|date=November 2008}} to constitute their common origin.<ref name="CI">{{Cite book|title= Culture Incarnate: Native Anthropology from Russia |last= Balzer |first= Marjorie |author2=Nikolai Mokshin |year= 1995 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe |isbn= 978-1-56324-535-0 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-t34nFqaiH0C&pg=PA31 }}</ref>{{Anachronism inline|date=May 2022}} The linguist {{ill|Gábor Zaicz|hu|Zaicz Gábor}} underlines that the Mordvins do not use the name 'Mordvins' as a self-designation.<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Janse|editor-first1=Mark|editor2-last=Tol|editor-first2=Sijmen|title=Language Death and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical and Descriptive Approaches|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JdzVePSApMgC&pg=PA115|year=2003|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=90-272-4752-8|page=115}}</ref> Feoktistov wrote "So-called Tengushev Mordvins are Erzyans who speak the Erzyan dialect with Mokshan substratum and in fact they are an ethnic group of Erzyans usually referred to as [[Shokshas]]. It was the Erzyans who historically were referred to as Mordvins, and Mokshas usually were mentioned separately as "Mokshas". There is no evidence Mokshas and Erzyas were an ethnic unity in prehistory".<ref>Feoktistov A. P. K probleme mordovsko-tyurkskikh yazykovykh kontaktov // Etnogenez mordovskogo naroda. – Saransk, 1965. – pp. 331–343</ref> Isabelle T. Keindler writes:<blockquote>Gradually major differences developed in customs, language and even physical appearance (until their conversion to Christianity the Erzia and Moksha did not intermarry and even today intermarriage is rare.) The two subdivisions of Mordvinians share no folk heroes in common – their old folksongs sing only of local heroes. Neither language has a common term to designate either themselves or their language. When a speaker wishes to refer to Mordvinians as a whole, he must use the term "Erzia and Moksha"<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cmr_0008-0160_1985_num_26_1_2030|title=A doomed Soviet nationality ?|author=Isabelle T. Keindler|date=1 January 1985|journal=Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique |volume=26|issue=1|pages=43–62|publisher=EHESS|doi=10.3406/cmr.1985.2030|access-date=22 October 2010}}</ref></blockquote>

===Early references===
The ethnonym ''Mordva'' is possibly attested in [[Jordanes]]' ''[[Getica]]'' in the form of ''Mordens'' who, he claims, were among the subjects of the Gothic king [[Ermanaric]].<ref>(Getica XIII, 116) "Among the tribes he [Ermanarich] conquered were the Golthescytha, Thiudos, Inaunxis, Vasinabroncae, Merens, Mordens, Imniscaris, Rogas, Tadzans, Athaul, Navego, Bubegenae and Coldae" — ''The Origin and Deeds of the Goths'' (116).</ref> A land called ''Mordia'' at a distance of ten days journey from the [[Petchenegs]] is mentioned in [[Constantine VII]]'s ''De administrando imperio''.<ref name="TLA">{{Cite book|title=The Linguistic Affinity of the Volgaic Finno-Ugrians and Their Ethnogenesis |last=Klima |first=László |year=1996 |publisher=Societas Historiae Fenno-Ugricae |isbn=978-951-97040-1-2 |url=http://mek.oszk.hu/01700/01794/01794.pdf}}</ref>

In medieval European sources, the names ''Merdas, Merdinis, Merdium, Mordani, Mordua, Morduinos'' have appeared. In the Russian [[Primary Chronicle]], the ethnonyms ''Mordva'' and ''mordvichi'' first appeared in the 11th century. After the [[Mongol invasion of Rus']], the name Mordvin rarely gets mentioned in Russian annals, and is only quoted after the Primary Chronicle up until the 15th–17th centuries.<ref>(Kirjanov 1971, 148–149) Laslo</ref><ref>Kappeler (1982) Taagepera</ref>

===Etymologies===
The name ''Mordva'' is thought to originate from an [[Iranian languages|Iranian]] ([[Scythian languages|Scythian]]) word, ''mard'', meaning "man" ([[wikt:مرد#Persian|Persian مرد]]). The Mordvin word ''mirde'' denoting a husband or spouse is traced to the same origin. This word is also probably related to the final syllable of "[[Udmurt people|Udmurt]]", and also in {{langx|kv|mort}} and perhaps even in {{langx|chm|marij}}.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Indo-Aryan Controversy |last=Bryant |first=Edwin |author2=Laurie L. Patton |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |location=PA201 |isbn=978-0-7007-1463-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VnAk14pODsC&q=marij&pg=PA201 }}</ref><ref> Напольских В. В. Введение в историческую уралистику. Ижевск: УдмИИЯЛ, 1997. p. 37.</ref>

The first written mention of ''Erzya'' is considered to be in a letter dated to 968 AD, by [[Joseph (Khazar)|Joseph]], the [[Khazar khaganate|Khazar khagan]], in the form of ''arisa''. More controversially, it is sometimes linked to the ''Aorsy'' and ''Alanorsi'' mentioned in the works of [[Strabo]] and [[Ptolemy]]. (However, the consensus view is that the [[Alans]], a nomadic Iranian tribe from east Central Asia, were also known  as the [[Aorsi]]/Alanorsi.) [[Estakhri]], from the 10th century, has recorded among the three groups of the [[Rus people]] the ''al-arsanija'', whose king lived in the town of ''Arsa''. The people have sometimes been identified by scholars as Erzya, sometimes as the ''aru'' people, and also as [[Udmurts]]. It has been suggested by historians that the town ''Arsa'' may refer to either the modern [[Ryazan]] or [[Arsk]]<ref name="TLA"/> In the 14th century, the name Erzya is considered to have been mentioned in the form of ''ardzhani'' by [[Rashid-al-Din Hamadani]],<ref>(Sbornik... 1941, 96) see László</ref> and as ''rzjan'' by Jusuf, the Nogaj khan<ref>(Safargaliev 1964, 12) László</ref> In Russian sources, the ethnonym Erza first appears in the 18th century.<ref>(Mokshin 1977, 47) László</ref>

The earliest written mention of Moksha, in the form of Moxel, is considered to be in the works of a 13th-century Flemish traveler, [[William of Rubruck]], and in the Persian chronicle of [[Rashid-al-Din Hamadani|Rashid-al-Din]], who reported the [[Golden Horde]] to be at war with the Moksha and the Ardzhans (Erzia){{Obsolete source|reason=dated translation again, the first mentioning of Moksha in Arab sources specified by [[Vladimir Minorsky]], 1959|date=May 2022}}.
In Russian sources, 'Moksha' appears from the 17th century.<ref>(Mokshin 1977, 47)László</ref>

=== Restoration of Erzya and Moksha ethnonyms ===
{{Main|Boris Smirnov (ethnologist)#Letter to Kremlin regarding Mordovia renaming}}

[[Mokshas]] from [[:ru:Алькино (Мордовия)|Altä velä]] wrote a collective open letter to [[Literaturnaya Gazeta]] in 1991.
{{blockquote|The authors of a letter sent to Literaturnaia gazeta from the Moksha [[:ru:Алькино (Мордовия)|Altä velä]], [[Mordovia]], call this ethnonym "a very nonsensical parasite-word," "a slur," "an awkward nickname" that can be blamed for the fact that "people have come to renounce their true origin, and have rushed in droves (especially the young people) to become Russians. And perhaps history may soon witness that sorry time when the world's civilization, in an instant, will lose forever two remarkable nationalities, and Mordovia will be nothing more than the term for an administrative territory.…"<ref>{{harvnb|Mokshin|1991}}</ref>}}

On the First Erzya and Moksha Peoples' Congress in 1989 the first point of the Congress Declaration was renaming [[Mordovia]] to the Erzya and Moksha Autonomous Republic and banning the term ''Mordva''.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Nadkin|first1=Dmitry|title=Erzya and Moksha Spiritual Culture and Issues of "Homeland" Society. Insights from the Report of the First Moksha and Erzya Congress
|url= https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/duhovnaya-kultura-mordvy-i-zadachi-obschestva-mastorava-tezisy-doklada-na-pervom-sezde-mordovskogo-kulturno-prosvetitelnogo-obschestva|journal=Engineering Systems and Technologies|year=1989 |issue=4 |pages=38–41 |access-date=15 May 2022 |language=ru}}</ref>