Editing Mordvins (section)

==History==
[[File:Muromian-map.png|thumb|Eastern Europe c. 9th century
{{legend|#F7E056|[[Volga Finns]]}}
{{legend|#C09D41|[[Slavic peoples|Slavs]]}}
{{legend|#776A52|Mordvins}}
{{legend|#F8D764|[[Khazars]]}}
]]

===Prehistory===
The [[Gorodets culture]] dating back to around 500 BC has been associated{{by whom|date=March 2016}} with these people. The north-western neighbours were the [[Muromian]]s and [[Merians]] who spoke related [[Finno-Ugric languages]]. To the north of the Mordvins lived the [[Mari people|Maris]], and to the south the [[Khazars]]. The Mordvins' eastern neighbors, possibly remnants of the [[Huns]], became the [[Bulgars]] around 700 AD.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

Researchers have distinguished the ancestors of the Erzya and the Moksha from the mid-1st century AD by the different orientations of their burials and by elements of their costumes and by the variety of bronze jewelry found by archaeologists in their ancient cemeteries. The Erzya graves from this era were oriented north–south, while the Moksha graves were found to be oriented south–north.<ref name="TLA"/>

[[File:016 Description of all the Russian state-dwelling peoples.jpg|thumb|upright|Mordovian woman, 1781]]

===Modern history===

Although the Mordvins were given an autonomous territory as a [[titular nation]] within the [[Soviet Union]] in 1928, [[Russification]] intensified during the 1930s, and knowledge of the Mordvin languages by the 1950s was in rapid decline.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Mordvins, like other [[indigenous peoples of Russia]], experienced a rise in national consciousness. The Erzya national epic is called ''[[Mastorava]]'', which stands for "Mother Earth". It was compiled by [[A. M. Sharonov]] and first published in 1994 in the Erzya language (it has since been translated into Moksha and Russian). ''Mastorava'' is also the name of a movement of [[ethnic separatism]] founded by D. Nadkin of the Mordovian State University, active in the early 1990s.<ref>Tatiana Mastyugina, Lev Perepelkin, Vitaliĭ Vyacheslavovich Naumkin, Irina Zviagelskaia, ''An Ethnic History of Russia: Pre-revolutionary Times to the Present'', Greenwood Publishing Group (1996), {{ISBN|0-313-29315-5}}, p. 133; Timur Muzaev, ''Ėtnicheskiĭ separatizm v Rossii'' (1999), p. 166ff.</ref>

[[Finno-Ugric peoples]], whose territories were included in the former USSR as well as many others, had a very brief period of national revival in 1989–1991. Finno-Ugric peoples of Idel-Ural were able to conduct their own national conventions: Udmurts (November 1991), Erzya and Moksha (March 1992),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zamyatin |first=Konstantin |date=2013-01-01 |title=Finno-Ugric Republics and Their State Languages: Balancing Powers in Constitutional Order in the Early 1990s |journal=Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja |language=en |volume=2013 |issue=94 |pages=337–381 |doi=10.33340/susa.82605 |issn=1798-2987|doi-access=free }}</ref> Mari (October 1992), the united convention of Finno-Ugric folks of Russia in Izhevsk (May 1992). All these conventions accepted similar resolutions with appeals to democratize political and public life in their respective republics and to support the national revival of Finno-Ugric peoples. Estonia had a strong influence on moods and opinions that dominated these conventions, (especially among national-oriented intellectuals) because many students at the University of Tartu were from Finno-Ugric republics of Russia.