Mari

The Mari, long known to their neighbours as the Cheremis, are a Finno-Ugric people of the middle Volga and Kama valleys, whose name may derive from an ancient Indo-Iranian word meaning human or mortal. Tenth-century Khazar sources call them tsarmis, from which the Russian form Cheremis comes.

After the Mongol conquests they fell under the Golden Horde; in 1443 the Mari became subjects of the Kazan Khanate, whose Tatar rule left a Turkic imprint on their language. Ivan the Terrible's conquest of Kazan in 1552 divided them: the Hill Mari submitted, while the Meadow Mari fought on in the Cheremis Wars until 1584.

Forced Christianization from around 1700 drove many families east into Bashkir lands, yet under tsarist rule the Mari kept their language and repeatedly returned to their pre-Christian faith, whose grove sanctuaries remained central to their life.