Talk:Vyatichi

Vjatitsis
So called Budin Votjakis who lived as western branch of Ud-murts on Vitka (Viatka) River basin north of confluence of Valgia and Vitka Rivers up to AD 90-150. When the Chinese smashed Hiong - nu (Hunni) peoples in the great battle in BC 119 they started to move toward west reaching the Turkestan and Irtysh River c. BC 50. This in turn caused also movements toward west of other people than Hunnis through the "Gate of Nations" between southern Urals and Caspian Sea. Among those was Alans, a Turkic tribe, which entered from Turkestan to southern Urals and further to west nearing Valgia bend. The Sarmathians started also their movement taking with them also the Budin Ud-murts. They stopped for a while to upper Oka area and one section of the tribe refused to wander any further to west as the main body of the tribe did, entering to Vistula basin and Bohemia c. AD 50-150 where they were known by the Strabo under name Butons. It may be, that part of Butons returned from Pannonia either after 359 AD or 512 AD back to east bank of Dnjepr River where they settled themselves and started to disturb the Dnjepr River trade.

Those who stayed in upper source of Oka and its tributaries settled the land west of Oka even to close of Dnjepr River as written by Nadezhdin. According to P.I. Jakobi in his classic " Vjatitshi orlovskoj gubernij" (St. Petersburg 1907) the Vjatitsis were good soldiers and their women carried their typical Finno Ugrian national dresses which were similar than those of the Ud-murts and Maris.

Later the Vjatitsis had to pay annual taxes to the Kazars to Itil but otherwise the Kazars left Vjatitsis in their own not trying to intervene their tribal and political life. In 964 Prince Svjatoslav from Kywa (Kijev) demanded Vjatitsis to pay annual tributes for him but they refused to do so. He arranged the war expedition against the Vjatitsis in 965 to have his annual tributes. It was only Kywa (Kijev) Prince Vladimir I who managed to expel the Vjatitsis out from Dnjepr to upper courses of Tesna (Desna) and Oka in 981. But next year 982 the Vjatitsis rebelled again against Kijev. Vladimir managed to suppress the Vjatitsis in 984 and he deported all most powerful Vjatitsi tribal chiefs to southern area of Kijev where they dissapeared in battles against nomandic tribes from the books of history.

Vladimir Monomak continued the depression of the Vjatitsis to suppress their new tribal chieftains. Vjatitsi Prince Chodota resisted all these efforts and was even able to make at least two winter war treks against Monomak. They refused to take Orthodox baptism and kept their own religion which was a special one. In 1215 Chodota killed a monk from Kijev who had come to baptize him and other Vjatitsi chiefs. This lead to open war and at last the Vjatitsis were smashed as independent political tribal power. In coming years they were Russificated but at least some continued to practice their ancient religion.

The Vjatitsi religion sect was unordinary even by the pagan Finno Ugrian point of view.They wanted instead of personal Lord relationship to serve the spirits which were under human control. They neared these spirits by "falling into a trance" (In Finnish: lovehen lankiamalla) whatever that meant. Many scholars have tried to find that out the real meaning of these words, but without any positive results. One explanation given was the use of woman body in sexual clairvoyant which was obtained by drinking "just enough" poisoned toadstool drink. It is believed that this spiritual sect had also supporters among the Kijevians, specially woman of upper society.

All which are left of Vjatitsis are number Finno Ugrian non Slavonic names in the area. JN

Name
The plural "Vyatichs" does not exist in English; it would be Vyatiches, but all scholarly work refers to the tribe as Vyatichi (or Viatichi), and the entry should be so renamed. Languagehat (talk) 15:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Lack of sources
This page could generally use better attribution; for example, who believes M458 indicates Vyatichi, based on what evidence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.77.21.165 (talk) 21:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Finno-Ugric?
In the article Pavel Jacobi there is some vague mention about the Vyatichi possibly being a Finno-Ugric people. This is the used reference: http://www.petergen.com/sources/vyatichi.shtml Is this a fringe view or should it be mentioned here? Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)