Talk:Mokshas

Prehistory
"most Mokshas had joined the Hunnic tribal alliance, taken part in the defeat of the Ostrogothic Empire in 377, and subsequently moved eastward and settled in Pannonia." I don't believe it.

Untitled section 1
It was not very good idea to rename article Mordvins because in this case you had to add information not only regarding Mokshas, Erzyas, Maris, Meshcheras, you had to describe Shokshas, Burtass, etc --Moxelanus (talk) 00:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

it wasn't renamed, it was merged. dab (𒁳) 17:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Beginning cleanup
I've started copyediting. I am working only on grammar; I know nothing about the Moksha people. The article sorely needs the attention of an expert in the subject. Problems I've come across include:
 * 1) The statement that the Mokshas live to the west and south of the big bend of the Volga seems to put them far to the south of where they appear to live today.
 * 2) The statement that they moved "east" into Pannonia seems completely impossible. A map is needed for both this and the first point.
 * 3) I can find no mention of an "Ants" people anywhere.
 * 4) There was no mention (until I added one) of the fact that the Mokshas are a major branch of the Mordvins. More information on the subject is needed. - Metalello (talk) 07:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Finished the major copyediting. The article is still quite rough, though at least it's somewhat legible now.

Problems:


 * 1) What is the "Orsiyya war"?
 * 2) The history sections contain a badly organized heap of information, much of it with no clear connection to the history of the Mokshas.
 * 3) The whole section on racial characteristics seems enormously outdated and full of unnecessary information.
 * 4) What is "inferior face" meant to mean? -    Metalello    talk 07:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Metalello, as to Mokshas


 * 1) They live mostly in Central and Western parts of Mordovia Republic and neighbouring areas of Tambov Oblast, also in Western and Middle parts of Penza Oblast. Mokshas also live in Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Altai Krai and diasporas in Estonia, Kazakhstan, USA, Australia.
 * 2) Some Finnish sources state some Mokshas settled in Pannonia after they joined Huns. I will check.
 * 3) Ants are in fact Antes people
 * 4) "There was no mention (until I added one) of the fact that the Mokshas are a major branch of the Mordvins". That's because it's a political issue. According to Britannica Mokshas and Ezyas identify themselves as separate ethnic groups ('Mordvins' is Russian exoethnonym for both) but most Russian sources still use Мордва (Mordvins) after Republic of Mordovia (federal subject in Russia). According to 1990 Declaration Mordovia had to be renamed into Moksha and Erzya Republic, but governmental decision was postponed. (Декларация о государственном суверенитете Мокшанской и Эрзянской Советской Республики. Проект//Общественные движения в Мордовии, 1990)
 * 5) I know Orsiyya war was described in Kevin Alan Brook's The Jews of Khazaria. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2010.ISBN 978-0-7425-4981-4 mentioning of Orsiyya
 * 6) most Russian sources after 1917 very rarely mention history of Mokshas and other non-Russian population due to national policy issues.
 * 7) racial charasteristics are from Russian sources (1980-s), we have more recent source on the subject from Kazan University, also in Russian. "Исследования в первые десятилетия советской власти позволили выяснить антропологическое различие мордвы-эрзи, для которой характерен светлопигментированный массивный европеоидный тип, а мордве-мокша проявляется грацильная европеоидность северо-понтийского типа и признаки монголоидности. Отмечается близость мордвы с пьяноборским населением, испытавшем сильное влияние других народов, что привело к формированию антропологически отличающихся групп."
 * 8) "very inferior face" according to the source is literally translated from Russian "очень низкое лицо", where низкое is 'low' but I don't know what is exact equivalent term in English. --Moxelanus (talk) 11:32, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Moxelanus, Thank you very much for all this information. I have edited the article to include most of it. Please let me know if anything needs to be changed. Specific points:
 * 1) It seems to me  that the move "east into Pannonia" was only by those Mokshans who were in the Mongol army, not the Mokshas in their homeland. If you can confirm this I will rewrite the sentence to make that clearer.
 * 2) Regarding the political issue of naming among Mordvins/Eryzas/Mokshas: Some mention should be made of this issue in the article. If you can, please let me know what a fair, balanced way of presenting it would be.
 * 3) I've discovered that the Orsiyya are known by many different spellings, and have modified this page and the page on the Arsiyah to reflect this.
 * 4) As to the Russian information and the "low face", I speak no Russian, so we will have to wait for someone with better knowledge.

Thanks again. -   Metalello    talk 02:08, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge with Qaratay
There is a proposed merge with Qaratay. The tag has been there since 3 years but the discussion was not created. Am doing it now. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 19:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose merge on the ground that while the group are Mordvins they |don't appear to be a subset of Qaratay. Klbrain (talk) 07:04, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Almysh (895-922) signs peace treaty in 1006?
The 'Middle Ages' section it is stated: "At the beginning of the 10th century Almush (Almış) the king of Volga Bulgaria took control of the "Khazar tribute". He converted to Islam, formed an alliance with the caliph of Baghdad Al-Muktafi, and founded a trading post at the mouth of the Oka river. The Kievan prince Vladimir seized Bolghar in 985. King Almush and Prince Vladimir signed a peace and trade treaty in 1006 which was the beginning of an "eternal peace" that lasted for 80 years."

The problem is, Almysh elteber reigned from 895-922, so it would be interesting if he signed any peace treaty in 1006: he died almost 100 years ago. There must be two Almyshes, first is referred in the first sentence, and the other in the second one. 178.48.177.1 (talk) 11:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Mokshas. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081024213219/http://www.hrono.ru/libris/saharov01.html to http://www.hrono.ru/libris/saharov01.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080918105630/http://www.torama.ru/index.php3?pg=voc to http://www.torama.ru/index.php3?pg=voc
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20060515201405/http://www.info-rm.com/mk/index.php to http://www.info-rm.com/mk/index.php
 * Added tag to http://mordva.ru/index.php?doc=12&id=9
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081201010645/http://moksha.webstolica.ru/izv_moksha to http://www.moksha.webstolica.ru/izv_moksha
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20120905002415/http://www.library.saransk.ru/fu/muz.html to http://www.library.saransk.ru/fu/muz.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:02, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Cleaning up History section
Hi, this page recently turned up at ANI, and I noticed that the History section hasn't changed much since; it is still largely an indiscriminate and hard to follow list of events. AN IP user above also expressed concerns that there are apparent inconsistencies in this section, such as a King Almush who ruled in the early 10th century and then signed a peace treaty in 1006.

Are there any specific improvements that can be made to clean up the History section? –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 20:22, 19 May 2022 (UTC)